Farewell to Brittany

Bidding goodbye to our musical hosts at Keranot, we biked off this morning in no great haste back to Roscoff, sticking to the roads which abound. This tractor driver assumed we were lost when I paused to photograph him and his two colleagues, planting cabbages in nifty fashion. The fields all grow vegetables in this Léonard land.

Morlaix

Tonight is our last night at Keranot. We shall miss our gite, with its sparrows and the swallows and martins swirling around our little terrace and diving through the barn door opposite. We shall also miss the 10pm sunshine on our lane. Yesterday's stormy weather cleared the air, but it was 32 degrees in Morlaix this afternoon, so we are happy to be back here in the relative cool - and away from the traffic. Actually we rode into Morlaix along empty side roads for the most part: there are many of them, all in good nick - a calvaire at every junction. Leaving our bikes at the station, we walked across the amazing viaduct. My photograph shows the arches, and one of the pipes draining water from the track high up above.

Keranot

I am still struggling with my Hudl camera - or rather cameras. (Do I really need two?) Caroline forgot her glasses, so had to bike back down "our" lane to fetch them, giving me this opportunity to have another try.

Incidentally, one of our perennial gripes about going on holiday was how feeble the bulbs were in other people's bedside lights. Now, thanks to tablets, it's no longer a problem.

Were there a best kept hamlet competition in Leon, Keranot would never make the short list. It consists of some half dozen houses at the end of a no through road, the steep route down to the mill now impassable except on foot. As the sign indicates, cars need to make a detour. We walked down the other evening, discovering amongst the trees a secret garden wedged between the Koad Toulzac'h river and the mill race. M. Louis Lapous still mills, but not wheat: only oats. His creme d'avoine seems widely known around Finistere. (No more room in our panniers though!)

Specs recovered, we cycled off to Saint-Thegonnec for lunch with friends who live on the coast. Upon entering the Restaurant du Commerce, its car park replete with white vans, I felt some 40 pairs of workmen's eyes trained on the four of us.

La Fontaine du Christ

We stopped here en route for Pleyber-Christ this morning. It was not something you would do if you were in a car: too much kerfuffle. But easy as anything when biking. The fountain, long a ruin, has now been rescued, and is presided over by a smiling, bearded stone Christ. It could be mediaeval, but isn't. We saw a similar sculpture yesterday in Guimiliau church, a Flight into Egypt which we were surprised to see dated 1992.

A garden flourishes beside the fountain, with a blue hydrangea: its petals have gathered on the cobwebs beneath Jesus' outstretched arms. The massive slate-topped bench to the right indicates this might be a minor place of pilgrimage, or at least the destination for a Sunday walk.

Five pine trees stand guard over a calvaire at the junction just adjacent, one of half a dozen we passed on our short ride today. (There are 30 in "our" parish alone). But this one differed: in place of a backing group (often a Virgin and child), there were two ensembles, one either side - a Pieta and a man and a boy. One of the series of excellent drawings on display in Pleyber-Christ church indicates the boy is leading the blind St Herve. [How do you do accents on a Hudl?]

Didier Bourel

Caroline finds it hard to resist a pottery, and today's (chez M. Bourel) was a goodie it seems. Despite full panniers on our bikes, we somehow have to accommodate two new mugs on our way back to Plymouth on Saturday.

The ride to Lampaul-Guimiliau turned out to be easier than I expected. Not a single car passed us, as I can remember. After the pottery visit, we ate very well at Hotel des Enclos, and liked the Parish Close and church more than the better known ones at Guimiliau itself, nearby. But the hot weather continues, and two churches are quite enough for today thank you.

We just avoided colliding with a funeral at Lampaul-Guimiliau: three of the mourners sat at the next table in the restaurant. The priest was the same as said mass at Saint-Thegonnec on Sunday. "How many churches do you serve?" I asked him. "Four of us look after 23," said he.

"Ars et Fides"

This European association of associations exists to promote religious buildings as vehicles for a living Christian community to use for prayer. I came across it for the first time today, here in Brittany when a badge-carrying young woman at Sizun asked whether we would like a guided tour of the beautiful Parish Close. She was spending the month there as a volunteer with SPREV, the French member association of Ars et Fides. No bible bashing is very much the rule of the game, she told us, having solved a number of tricky art historical puzzles for us with ease and charm.

My photograph shows our jolly, saxophonist landlord, even more bemused than me by my Hudl camera.

Saint-Thégonnec

The four kms. from our gîte to the nearest shop (in Saint-Thégonnec) seemed - from England - likely to be a challenge for those like us without a car; but the hills are gentle, and when you've nothing else to do it's a doddle. Approaching every decent-sized settlement in Brittany, we have come across cycle paths anyway, and the roads are pretty empty.

Before mass this morning, we explored the parish close, one of the finest of its type (we read). In the basement of the ossuary we came across a painted oak "entombment": besides the usual characters surrounding Christ's body, there are three angels, one clutching the nails and crown of thorns. It's the work of a Morlaix man, Jacques Laispagnol, completed in 1702.

My photograph shows the upper storeys of a café below Saint-Thégonnec church.

Brittany

After a smooth crossing, we landed in a deserted Roscoff at breakfast time and made off towards coffee, croissants and the parish church's Renaissance belfry. Notre-Dame-de-Batz Croas was open, so we went in to explore before our cycle South. This alabaster bas-relief is one of a group of seven originally - now reduced to five: two were stolen - made in Nottingham in the late 15th Century. The Holy Spirit at Pentecost is shown descending on Mary and the Apostles.

Why, I wondered, were there still 12, Judas being dead? Ah, I see from Acts that Matthias was chosen to replace him before Pentecost.