Biking Day 30

• Length ridden: 101 km
• Ascent: 700 meters
• Rating: 7.0 out of 10 - not too bad, but the previous two were nicer
• Highlights: Cathedral in Quimper, Concarneau
• Lowlight: Nothing - however, the prior two or three days were so beautiful, they were hard to exceed
• Map of the day to Lorient
• Map of the day from Lorient

There was something quite dumb I did that previous night - while I did search for it, I did not find a socket to charge my electronic stuff - only to discover these in the morning, though somewhat hidden out of sight. This meant the inevitable thirst for electricity - as the the GPS navigation did drain the battery - not to mention listening to news and music on the radio.

On my 30th biking day, I was a bit slow in getting ready, to allow time for as much charging as possible and it was only at 8:30 that I had left the ***** campground with the secret electricity sockets. Quimper was amazing the previous evening, I made a few more circles in town in the morning, plus visited the cathedral, which was now open to the public, which pretty much meant me being alone in it at this early hour. An interesting fact is that the nave is bent 8 degrees, instead of following a straight line, just look at the picture below. There is still debate why this is so, you can read more about the topic here, should you wish to.

The stained glass windows were amazing and I could not get fed up by the entire cathedral building in this medieval town.

A donkey gave me a farewell kiss.

Just two hours later I reached yet another wooow! city, called Concarneau. It is a 350-metre-long and 100-metre-wide island, which walled fortifications, connected to land by little bridges. Inside the protecting walls, there are charming houses on the cobbled streets.

Outside the walled town was a fishermen`s port, where a flea market was in progress.

I did not want to spend too much time on finding a place to eat, so a crêperie did the trick, this time it was quite OK. I liked the way they manufactured the pancakes, probably some consulting company advised them how to mass-produce.

Outside town was a port with a shipyard, where workers were busy constructing a new vessel for the French navy. Based on bad experiences on taking photos in inappropriate places (e.g. being arrested in Tiraspol in Transnistria [part of Moldavia], here is the link in case you want to read my story or being shouted at near the Royal Palace Vietnam - my blog of that trip is here), I thought it would be better not to take too many photos of this.

As an exception, I did study the map here regarding the road that was to follow, as the coastline was rigged, with long inlets and it would have been rather inefficient to ride to the coast and then have to ride back as there would be a patch of water ahead - so I picked a road a couple of miles fron the shore that allowed straight going.

Pont-Aven is located at the head of such an inlet. This small town is known for the painter Gaugin having founded a school of artists there at the end of the 19th century.

In Riec-sur-Belon I found a church with an architecture that is typical of the area, where the bell tower is flanked by a turret - it containing a staircase that provides access to the bell chamber. Interesting! Below is Saint-Peter´s church from the 18th century.

I was glad to have arrived in Guidel, which had an easy name and had a pretty center.

Lorient was the name of the next large town - similar to Brest, it was wiped out int the Second World War by literally thousands of bombs having been dropped onto the city. In this town, under the patronage of XIV, the French East India Company was founded, importing coffee and spices from Asia by sea. So, yes, it is an important port town, the website tells me there are six ports to be found. I took a rest in front of a modern performance hall, then decided to take a ferry to cross the river Blavet as vs. riding through the north to a bridge - see, I am getting a bit lazy.

Preparations were being made for a huge week-long event, the Lorient Interceltic Festival, which was to began a few days later. This festival  brings together people of Celtic origin for ten days, promoting all forms of music from ancient songs to folk, rock, jazz, and symphonic works in an extremely prolific creative environment. Well, I decided not to wait for it - but possible return sometime in the future.

The ferry ride was not too long, maybe a quarter of an hour or so and I continued towards the west. It was so that I got to a small settlement called Plouhinec, where a big party was in full swing. with the small town center in front of the 16th century church having been cordoned off, a stage set up and people in good mood celebrating, eating, drinking.

One of the organizers told me that this was each Wednesday in the summer, so my timing was quite good. I asked her about places to stay, the next campground was quite far away and I did not see any vacancies on the booking sites. She winked at me, asked if I had a tent - and told me to ride to the coast, where I would find a parking lot with a large patch of grass - while quite illegal - I would not be disturbed. I got some food to go (again, some galette) and found the parking lot, with a few cars parked still.

On the beach behind the parking lot were only one or two families; one teenager kid was kite-flying, he was very capable, he kept the kite up in the air for a couple of minutes without it crashing, while making wild maneuvers with it. On the beach I had my dinner, which was quite OK (still, no love with the galette and me...).

I thought it was best to wait till everyone leaves, prior to pitching my tent. The owners of the last car were about to depart, they had two dogs; so I thought I would start scouting the best place to put up my tent. When the dogs saw me approaching, they tore free from their masters and charged at me, I was quite startled, so I stopped - and a feet or so away from me, they too stopped their attack as well, with their masters apologizing for the scare. Phew.

So now I was by myself, put up my tent next to some bushes, which protected me from the wind - when I heard an car engine. It came closer and closer, turned into "my" parking lot. I thought it was a police patrol or possibly someone with a bad intention, but it did not even stop, left without stopping. Maybe my tent scared it off. There would be no more disturbances that night, I slept quite well.

I rode a little over 100 kilometers that day. It was a nice day, but not as adventurous as the prior two.