Plonevez-Porzay, Locronan and Quimper Brittany

With rain forecast, we left the motorhome aire at Morgat and set off in the direction of Quimper. Stopping at the supermarket petrol station we topped up Zagan’s tank with diesel at €1.69 a litre (£1.46), €0.30 cheaper than when we drove onto the peninsular thanks to the French Government – Merci, Monsieur Macron. We had the village of Locronan marked out as somewhere to visit and stay, as well as Quimper, although we weren’t sure which one we’d up end sleeping in. Within ten minutes though the skies started to look foreboding, so we changed plans. Park4night was opened and we instead stopped at the free motorhome aire in Plonevez-Porzay (N48.125015, W4.224435). We really don’t mind paying to stay in places, but if we’re just going to be sitting in the van with rain splattering off the windows, we might as well do it somewhere free.

As it turned out, when we arrived at Plonevez-Porzay the skies had got a bit brighter, so we grabbed an umbrella and risked a quick walk into the village to grab a baguette. Being Sunday we didn’t expect to see much happening, but it turned out that Sunday was market day. There were queues at both boulangeries, another queue at the charcuterie and there wasn’t a free table to be seen in the cafe opposite the church. Queuing at the boulangerie I eyeballed what was left of the cake display, but managed to resist and just purchase a baguette traditional for €1.20.

We made our way across to the market in the car park behind the church to find more queues, this time for the rotisserie chicken stall. Folks were ordering chickens and given a time later to collect them. In the past I had just rocked up to a stall like this and expected to walk away with a tasty cooked chicken, but I’ve since learned that in smaller places you need to order. Looking at the size of the queue and the number of chickens turning on the spit, a quick calculation told us that we wouldn’t be having chicken for lunch.

Jay found himself drawn in by a stall selling traditional Breton cakes. I’ve lost count of the number of times we’ve fallen for the ‘regional cake promise’ – they look so inviting, but inevitably end up being fairly bland. I tried to remind him about the numerous cakes we’d bought in the past, hoping to find the ultimate ambrosia, but ending up with a dry sponge that we then had to buy jam to make it palatable, but I could tell it was a lost cause.

There were three choices on offer, natural, prune and apple. We opted for the apple and asked for the large piece that was left to be cut in half, the stall-owner half shrugged and half shook her head, it was all or nothing. I asked Jay to find out how much it would be as, like the chickens, the price was per kilo. She tore off a sheet of kitchen foil and placed the cake on the scales, ‘sept euros quatre vingt cinq‘ she said starting to wrap the cake. So decision made, we’d got ourselves a roughly £8 slice of Breton Far, a type of flan. To me it tasted very similar to an egg custard, but without the pastry or nutmeg, Thank goodness we went for the apple version to give it some flavour. We justified our inability to stand-up to the stall holder by the fact that the aire was free, we were supporting local businesses and it would all be fresh local ingredients. And I just know we’ll fall for the ‘regional cake promise’ again at some point!

The rain came and went in waves throughout the rest of the day, Jay managed to get out for a run around the football pitch next door, and slowly the motorhome aire filled up. It was a lazy Sunday TV type day and I made the most of it. Thank goodness we didn’t take the satellite dish off the top of Zagan. We considered it a while back, as we stream our TV through the internet at home, but now data abroad is restricted the dish means we can happily watch Countryfile and not wonder how many megabites it’s costing us.

This morning we were up and away by 9.30am – which is early for us. The drive to Locronan took about five minutes, and we suspect a lot of the camping cars in the free aire were either on their way to or from the village as the aire there was about €10. Arriving at the village there was a large car park on the right and the motorhome aire on the left. We pulled towards the large car park and were met by an attendant who checked that we were only visiting for the day, otherwise we’d have to go into the aire, and on handing over our €4 gave us a windscreen sticker and told us that it’s valid for the year. A great deal if you live nearby, not sure we’ll get much use out of it though.

Locronan is one of around 160 villages in France that have earned themselves the title of Les Plus Beaux Villages de France, ‘most beautiful villages in France’, in fact The Guardian listed it as number one in their list. We’ve visited a few of these villages over time, and even with grey skies over grey granite buildings the village earned its title. Vehicles were banned from the centre between 11am and 7pm to allow us tourists to have uninterrupted views of the stone houses. Of course, we were there before 11am, so while we had the odd car in our photos, we had many fewer people than later in the day.

The village found its wealth by manufacturing sailcloth, cornering the market in the 17th Century by suppling not only the French Navy but also Spanish and English merchant shipping. However Louis XIV abolished the village’s monopoly on hempen sailcoth and its economy soon collapsed. These days Locronan has recovered some of its affluence through tourism, with many of the houses now being souvenir shops selling striped jumpers, napkins made of sailcoth and Breton biscuits. I find these kinds of village hard to work out, they are lovely, but they are also all done up so nicely with perfect pointing and pastel hued woodwork that to me they’re a bit fake. That said I admit that I, and thousands of others, probably wouldn’t visit if it was just a normal workaday village. So I simply see them as what they are, tourist attractions. A bit of a oldy worldy theme park, but where the fabric of the place is real and not fibreglass.

After a couple of hours wandering, the streets were starting to get busy, and we’d seen pretty much the whole place, so we jumped back into Zagan and headed for the municipal campsite at Quimper (N47.990284, W4.120003). It was just before noon when the reception closes, so we were told which pitch to park in and come back in the afternoon to do the paperwork. After a spot of lunch we watched the BBC news to see the announcement of who the next UK Prime Minister is – Liz Truss beat Rishi Sunka (in case I’m reading this back in a couple of years time and we’ve had several more since – we do seem to be getting through them).

The centre of Quimper is a couple of kilometres away from the campsite, and as you would expect the campsite isn’t in the poshest of neighbourhoods. We walked a kilometre down to the river and then followed that to the town centre. Our ancient guidebook told us that the place was worthy of half a day, including the museums. Sure enough within a couple of hours, we’d seen the main sights and were usherd back to the campsite by a downpour. We’ve now come to the conclusion that we’d rather spend our time by the sea, so instead of stopping here for two nights, sorry Quimper, you’ve become a one nighter. Most likely we’ve been sightseeinged out by Locronan, and haven’t given Quimper a fair chance, but that’s how it goes sometimes.

Ju x