Safe Return Doubtful

We spent the weekend in the small town of Plounéour-Ménez. Their place for camping cars is in the car park in the centre, next to their seventeenth century  church. Dating from 1651 the Saint-Yves church boasts the highest tower in Brittany, at 50 metres. 

This area is high ground for Brittany, the town at 256 metres above sea level, and  just a few kilometres from the Monts d’Arrée. Rather than the highlight of the hike there being the summits, it is a couple of rock formations that stand out, La Roche Tremblante (the trembling rock), which does supposedly move around in windy weather, and Le Roc’h Trevezel. The communications mast close to here was the object of a bomb attack in February 1974.

The attack was claimed by the Breton Liberation Front, and blacked out television screens for several weeks. Their activism, which had begun in the 1960s faded in the 1990s as a lot of the effort was from their leader, Yann Fouéré, who was several times imprisoned, but getting too old to attend many rallies. He died in 2004 at the age of 101, spent his last days advocating for Breton Nationalism and avoiding being tried as a “wartime collaborator.” In 1944 he was involved in a “Pro-German witch Hunt” and was held in custody for a year. But he escaped, and was sheltered by fellow Nationalists in Wales. While hidden he was sentenced to life in prison and was forced out of Brittany and into the Republic of Ireland, where he secured citizenship. In 1955 he was given a retrial in France and came back, innocent, to form the “Movement for the Organization of Brittany.”

The hiking was good without being spectacular, but in excellent weather with clear skies and temperatures into the 20s in the afternoons. 

Just across the car park from the church is a small arts cafe, the STAL, owned by an Englishman. I took a beer there on Friday early evening and got chatting to the owners and a. Few of his friends sat in their garden. On Saturday at about the same time they came over to the van and invited me again to join them. It’s a good place. The owner makes violins and set up his cage and restaurant as a base from which to display them. 

There were plenty of hikers around, and it was a very social place to stay. 

I’m on the ferry from Roscoff on Wednesday morning so had booked Roja in for his worming tablet this morning, Monday, in Landivisiau, so left early for an 8:30 am appointment. That went well, every vet I have seen over the years before returning to the UK has been excellent, and the cost usually between 40 and 60 euros; today 56, but he does get a checkup as well. 

I found a small car park on StreetView a few kilometers out of Saint-Pol-de-Léon right on the beach. Many of the car parks on the beaches here that do not want vans staying put up a 2 metre height barrier, which is fair enough, as almost all the towns have places for them. This car park is ideal though, small, but quiet, just the odd dog walker, which Roja is very happy about. It’s another cloudless day, though a bit cooler, and he spends pretty much all of the time sat outside. 

There’s a young guy here also, living in his car. He speaks good English and we have chatted quite a bit. I’ve met quite a few people living in their cars in the last couple of years. In this guy’s case, rent is just too expensive, and he enjoys the freedom of the travelling lifestyle. It must be difficult though, especially in the winter, with no toilet, no way to cook or even heat anything up, and limited space to say the least. He’s mid-twenties, with a University degree and does freelance art work when he can find it, and in between works shifts in places like MacDonalds, where he is now. 

The attraction of this place for me is that it is an interesting section of the Brittany Coastal footpath, which we did a section of this morning, and will do another tomorrow.