This was a really long day. An ambitious amount of driving in hindsight and a vast under-estimate of the time it’d take, but nevertheless we saw so much in our first stretch of driving along the western coast of Brittany.

    

  

Before leaving Concarneau we visited Ville Close, the walled old town. It was very busy and we had a long day so we only stayed long enough to buy a yellow Breton rain jacket (for me) and a cheap pair of comfy shoes (for my mom).

  

  

  

  

  

  

The first ‘lighthouse stop’ was at Benodet, a lovely little place that reminded me a lot of the Western Cape’s Langebaan, not least because of a very NG-looking church, probably the only modern (and hideous) church we saw on the whole trip.

  

  

We stretched our legs at Pont-l’Abbé but the tide was out (as it perpetually seemed to be for us) and there wasn’t really much to see…

  

Perdrix lighthouse in Loctudy was very cute, and conveniently close to the harbour, where we did a quick drive-through for a photo.

  

On the way to Penmarc’h and the very un-Breton-sounding Phare d’Eckmühl (interesting history on the name) we hit insane gridlock traffic. We didn’t know why or what was going on but it took us an eternity to near the lighthouse and then we struggled to find parking before settling on a field with a precarious ditch (I sweated bullets reversing out of it but we managed).

When we stepped outside we heard the sound of…bagpipes?! Walking closer and joining the crowd we saw what was going on: a parade! It was amazing! Waves of different displays and groups marched past the lighthouse and into the square, ranging from pipers to people in different traditional and historical outfits to old men on tractors. A horse and a stuffed fox also made appearances. We had no idea it was happening and somehow we arrived just in time to watch it. Magical.

    

  

  

  

  

  

It was now getting late and somewhere outside Audierne we took a wrong turn looking for the coastal route and pulled over to call our bnb host to explain we’d miss the 7pm check-in time. She was super cool and said we weren’t far, just 15 minutes if we skipped the coast and drove straight north.

Before we did that though we noticed that we’d somehow stopped next to an empty plot (next to a bunch of houses) that had become the most astonishing summer meadow. It was truly breath-taking, I’ve never seen a field like it before.

  

I’d hoped to go to Pointe du Raz but it was quite out of the way and we were exhausted, so we headed straight to Cléden-Cap-Sizun from Plogoff.

  

The church in Cléden-Cap-Sizun was one of my favourites from the whole trip – just totally gorgeous.

  

  

We finally arrived at our bnb: Chambres d’hotes de Keryann. It’ll be under new management now – our host, Isabelle, was about to return home to Canada and we were among her last guests. She was lovely and we had a great stay with her.

– – –

BZH 2017: Intro  |  Pt 1  |  Pt 2  |  Pt 3  |  Pt 4  |  Paimpol 2017 – Festival du Chant de Marin 
Pt 5  |  Pt 6  |  Pt 7  |  Pt 8  |  Pt 9 |  Pt 10  | Pt 11  |  Pt 12  |  Saint-Malo: La Route du Rock Festival
Pt 13  |  Pt 14  |  Pt 15  |  pt 16  |  Pt 17  |  Pt 18

If you travel and you don’t use Booking.com you really should it’s the best! I’m not 100% sure how the referral codes work but try mine if you haven’t used one before for a discount after your first trip: https://www.booking.com/s/35_6/rattsi32