Brittany

Bordeaux vineyard

We’ve had a fabulous time in and around the Bordeaux area of France, and are now driving along the Route des Châteaux to Brittany, seeing some beautiful wine estates on the way.

All through the area, winemakers were inspecting their heavily laden vines and obviously looking to get the exact right time to harvest.

We eventually reached St Jean d’Angely where we had arranged to visit John Parton, the uncle of Julia, a colleague of Leigh’s in Wellington.

John was delightfully welcoming and allowed us to set up our motorhome Vanni on his lawn, and provided us with access to power and water.

Marg, John and Leigh at John’s house in St Jean d’Angely

That evening, John shared a bottle of the locally made Pineau. This wine dates back 100 years before the French Revolution.

Apparently a wine producer poured some grape juice into a seemingly empty Cognac barrel. He forgot about it and rediscovered it a few years later and Pineau was born. It’s a sweet and delicious after-dinner wine. 

We enjoyed a very peaceful sleep that night. But autumn is coming - we had rain in the night, and are being showered with the soft patter of leaves on the top of Vanni. The wind quickly blows our washing dry with help from the sun peeking through the clouds.

This is a lovely part of France.

Marg in St Jean d’Angely, France

The next day was Saturday and there was a market on, so we walked in to St Jean d’Angely and enjoyed participating in the activities of this small village.

The market was fantastic and we bought fresh veggies, cheese, oysters and mussels, along with some steak for a BBQ feast with John that night.

Leigh cooked up a storm on the ‘barbie’ but unfortunately the steak was the wrong cut, and quite chewy (we don’t speak French and asked for the wrong meat!). However, the oysters and mussels were fantastic.

After a few days in this pretty town, we drove north-west toward the coast, heading for La Rochelle.

Leigh at the entrance to the old port in La Rochelle, France

This a 1000-year-old city sits on the Atlantic’s Bay of Biscay. It’s been a fishing and trade port since the 10th century, and you can see evidence of its ancient history in the stately towers at the entrance to the Vieux Port (old port).

The old town is lovely. We walked around the wee streets enjoying the Renaissance and medieval architecture. This city is often called La Ville Blanche (the White City) because of its very white limestone cliffs, and many of the buildings are constructed out of this local limestone.

We ate our baguettes while at the waterfront, then wandered around a bit more before moving on to Nantes, our next stop.

Château des Ducs, Nantes, France

We visited Nantes 15th century Château des Ducs, then walked through to the old centre. It has attractive and narrow streets, and we saw several sights including the Place Royal, and Place Saint-Pierre with its lovely 15th century cathedral.

Nantes was for hundreds of years, the quaint capital of Brittany. Now-days, it's a big industrial city, so we moved on to our next stop, St Malo, where we found a great campsite for the night. 

The next morning, we were up at 6 am, and leaving Vanni parked in St Malo, we walked in the dark around the waterfront to the ferry terminal. We were off to Jersey to see our friends Anita and Denisa. 

Marg, Tui, Grant, Anita, Denisa

Anita and Denisa with their doggie Wolfe, have a beautiful home there. That night, Anita prepared a fabulous meal and we shared it with two Kiwi guys, Grant and Tui, who live next door.

We had a wonderful evening catching up with Anita and Denisa, and chatting ‘Kiwi’ stuff with Grant and Tui. We also enjoyed meeting Anita’s Dad, Larry who had lots of great stories.

Jersey is not part of France but is officially part of the British Isles. It is a beautiful island and is so, so green.  

Over the next few days, wonderful Anita drove us all over the place showing us the sights of Jersey. 

The rocky coastline of Jersey

We saw lovely sandy beaches and rocky coasts with plenty of fishing boats.

We think it would be very easy to get lost here if you didn’t know which lane to go down, as there are hundreds of little winding lanes and streets lined with trees, but not many signposts.

There are many small villages with old quaint houses, churches and other buildings, built out of the island’s pink granite - all very attractive. 

We saw remnants of the German occupation during WWII, including tunnels they had excavated, and informative displays showing how hard it would have been living in Jersey during that time.

Polo on the beach in Jersey

We visited the inaugural Jersey beach polo match the next day, and found it quite exciting, and we had great fun mixing with the locals.

Later, Anita and Marg popped into a supermarket leaving Leigh in the car with Wolfe. Coming out, they noticed the car alarm roaring and the lights flashing. It had automatically locked Leigh in, when she tried to open the window - oops!

The next day we caught the ferry back to St Malo with Anita and Denisa who were headed to the Czech Republic, while we were headed to Paris. We'd really enjoyed seeing Jersey, had some wonderful food and wine, and loved our time with friends.

Leigh with the fortified walls of St Malo

While in St Malo, we decided to look around. It’s a small walled coastal town that was once inhabited by pirates. It is heavily fortified and we loved seeing the tall granite walls, ramparts, and towers that protected the place against English and Norman attacks.

Then we heard that a gale was forecast, so we decided to leave. On the way, we drove to nearby Mont-Saint-Michel. This amazing UNESCO World Heritage Site is an island with an 11th century abbey at its peak.

Unfortunately, we had to walk 2.5 km to get onto the island. As we were trying to beat the gale and bad weather, we drove on some sandy little roads to get a photo instead of walking, but it was quite a way out.

It was time to go. We have a long drive in front of us as our next stop is Paris.

This blog describes part of our 6 month campervan trip around western Europe, which began in Prague in April.