The view from our balcony. That little bike-and-pedestrian-only path ran around the southern tip of the peninsula and was constantly in use, people running and jogging and walking and biking from morning to evening. A very healthy place here.
Next up on our exploration of Brittany was Quiberon, a seaside resort on a peninsula sticking down into the Bay of Biscay some 125 miles south of Roscoff. We stayed at a Sofitel overlooking the sea, a little over a mile south of the little town. In the 19th century the town was a center of sardine fishing and packing, but when first a railroad connected it to the rest of France in the late 19th century and then it was classified as a health resort in 1924, tourism took off. Today the town lives and breathes off of tourism, primarily, they say, French tourists.
We spent three nights here and initially I was skeptical about the whole “seaside resort” thing. I mean, the temperature never got above 65 degrees and it’s the middle of July! But then I got into the vibe a little and I started to understand. And on our last day, with the sun out and the temperature soaring into the mid-60s I spent a couple hours at the beach and loved it. By late afternoon the beach was getting crowded and lots of people were out swimming notwithstanding the fact that water was seriously cold.
My beach, before people started arriving in the late afternoon. You can see a bunch of sailboats on the horizon, apparently learning to sail. My time there made me very happy.
A highlight of our little adventure here was that we rented bikes from the hotel and could quickly (and for Mark importantly, painlessly) get into town for meals or out to the beaches. And the great thing is that because it stays light so late we could bike to dinner at 8:00 or even 8:30, have a great meal, and bike home while it was still daylight.
A little beach time, some reading, some exercise, and a lot of food. On our first lunch we discovered a small … network? chain? family? … of local restaurants. The lunch was so good we ended up visiting two of the other places in their network and they were all really good; the owners have something figured out. And service? At lunch Mark accidentally dropped his wedding ring and it fell through a small crack into an inaccessible crawl space. So the owner called a handyman of some sort who, after we left, pulled up enough of the boards on the patio where we were sitting to recover the ring. That’s service!
The old port
A cute house
This really feels like the Brittany seashore, huh?
Ultimately it was all about the food. This was lunch at Le Bistrot du Port.
Here I am with a wonderful tuna appetizer at Brume, another of our favorite restaurants
Mark was very excited to discover that the Sofitel included oysters in its breakfast buffet. On the second morning he realized that he didn’t really like oysters in the morning.
Dining al fresco at Brume
Just one of almost innumerable great dishes. And this was just lunch!
Here I am in the Bay of Biscay. The air temperature is 64 degrees but the water is no where near that warm. Very refreshing indeed!