Journey to Armorica, or along the English Channel and back
Journey to Armorica
My trip was organized in a hurry: because of the crisis, there were long financial difficulties, but at the last moment I was able to go to France, which I planned to "give myself for a round birthday".
So. The route was: Paris —> Giverny —> Rouen —> Fé camp —> Etretat —> Honfleur —> Deauville —> Caen —> Bayeaux —> Cancale —> Saint-Malo — Dinan — Fort Latte + Cape Frehel —> Ploumanyak —> Paimpol —> Perros-Guirec —> Cape Ra —> Carnac —> Vannes —> Ussé castle —> Villandry castle —> Chenonceau castle —> Paris — Chartres — Paris
travel itinerary
Total for hotels: 3 nights in Paris (Campanile Paris Est-Pantin), 3 nights in Saint-Malo (Ibis Saint Malo Plage) and 1 night each in Rouen (Kyriad Rouen Centre), Caen (Royale Caen Centre), in the Quimper area (Ibis Quimper - transit), in the Nantes area (Ibis Nantes La Beaujoiere Parc Expo - transit).
I don't have any comments about Normandy. As usual in tourist trips - a lot of places, little time. But when is it too much? In general, we managed to see interesting places of all points of the route. Of course, Fé can is famous not only for Benedictine, but even before William the Conqueror there was the abbey of the Holy Trinity (which is more than 1000 years old! ). Deauville seems to me like an eternal appendage of Honfleur, a secular place on which it is a pity to waste time. There was very little time for Caen, because we arrived late, everything was already closed. Therefore, they did not go into the abbey founded by the same William (today it is a “public” place, and therefore you can get there only on working days and hours). And these places are also connected with the Second World War, because it was here that the liberation of France began. And this, you see, is an important event when you look at the country on a trip. In Saint-Michel, the time had already been distributed so that the tour of the abbey was crumpled. If you read the information while moving around the abbey, then all the allotted time is spent on its inspection. And we also had lunch. Moreover, at the time when we left the abbey, many catering points were no longer accepting visitors: lunch time was ending. But in Normandy, we still saw a lot of really significant places for the province, starting with the capital. We saw those places that are associated with historical figures. That is, the picture of the province has developed quite understandably.
As for Brittany. . . Well, from my point of view, there was no inner idea at all. We did not visit either the former capital of the province of Nantes (the transit hotel was far from the city in order to go there on our own), nor the modern one - Rennes.
There is nothing to do in Saint-Malo for more than 3-4 hours. We spent 3 nights there. In the evening we looked at the buildings of Vauban, learned about the corsairs, looked at the ducal castle, walked along the walls of the old city, watched the tide-ebb-sunset. It's enough. You can go further.
For the first time in my life, I learned about the existence of Fort La Latte, Cap Frehel, Ploumaniac, Paimpol, Perros-Guirec a week before the trip, when, having hardly found these points on the road map of France, I also hardly found them on the Internet and I read something, and in most cases the information is only in French. I thought that we would visit villages where Celtic Breton customs or the centers of the dispersed Celtic church were still preserved. Alas. There was only nature here. It is unlikely that Brittany, where the oldest free-standing monuments in France are located - menhirs, where the population is most religious, where there are festivals and holidays of Celtic culture, known all over the world, where everything is permeated with legends about King Arthur, Merlin and others, deserves a visit. only natural attractions, and not known to anyone. And we “examined” the world-famous Karnak from behind the fence! Why even go there? And in the north of Brittany we trudged at a snail's pace. But they returned from it to Paris along the highways, stopping only for the night at Nantes. Well, for a change on this road, we stopped on the road to 3 castles (already on the territory of the Pays de la Loire).
Castles, of course, I really wanted to see. But why did they choose these? If we follow the previous route, we had to choose places connected somehow with the characters of those places where we were. Looks like it was just a stopover on the expressways. So that it would not be too boring to return. They brightened up this speedy comeback.
It should be noted separately that the route is designed in such a way that if a group for a radial trip is not recruited somewhere, then the trip does not happen. So it was with the same Fort La Latte (the group refused to go, and we stayed in Saint-Malo for the day). It's good that there was a rarely passing trip to these places on a steamboat. Therefore, 5 people from the group, who still wanted to go somewhere, took advantage of this opportunity. But this is already an independent event, which could not take place. The second breakdown is Chartres. The group also did not want to go there. I was the only one who wanted to. And since I didn’t prepare in advance for the possibility of a route disruption, I lost a lot of time on various organizational events in order to get there anyway. It is not clear why radial trips are needed in a sightseeing tour? This is usually offered in the beach option so that people do not get bored and have a little fun. The sightseeing tour involves a scheme: we got up in the morning —> got on the bus with things —> we all went to the next point together. It is impossible to stay, because you will have to catch up with the group on your own. But at the same time, none of the declared is lost. Everyone is going anyway. You can not go to the museum / fortress / any other paid object, but there will be no disruption to the trip plan.
I will write about each place separately later.
