Our last day of driving took us from Carnac to Rennes via (accidentally) ‘France’s favourite village’ – an actual award it received in 2016 – Rochefort-en-terre, as well as pretty riverside town and some menhirs in St. Just.

Looking at the map while planning our trip I hadn’t really found anywhere of particular interest between Carnac and Rennes. But while we were driving we saw a sign for  one of the ‘Petites cités de caractère’ and we knew from experience those were always worth a stop. So we popped into Rochefort-en-terre.

…I was not prepared how beautiful this town would be. Also it had a rating of like 3 or 5 (or whatever the max number is) of flowers – also a helpful guide along our travels – and literally had flowers everywhere. It was a ridiculously beautiful place, truly. Why I hadn’t come across it in my planning I’ll never know.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

Not knowing anything about the place we just wandered around, and when we found the map of the town and discovered that there was a castle it was just an added bonus.

  

  

  

  

  

  

   

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

Next to the car park was a convenient picnic spot – a beautiful meadow-like park area complete with tables and benches.

  

  

  

Back on the road we passed a lot of beautiful places, sadly I was a bit stressed about returning the car and we didn’t stop, except briefly to walk on the bridge (and admire the flowers!) in Saint-Martin-sur-Oust.

  

  

The archaeological site just outside St Just is quite small and unassuming, and we were lucky to have it all to ourselves in complete quiet. I really like the standing stones, they’re so mysterious and ancient and it was lovely to get to see so many different alignments and artifacts during our trip through Brittany.

  

  

Coming back into Rennes was hyper stressful. Driving along the country roads throughout the trip had been a mostly enjoyable experience but the sudden transitions from that to busy hubs had always been jarring and anxiety-ridden (I’m looking at you, Saint-Brieuc, Concarneau and Saint-Malo).

As some time has now gone by, I think it’s okay to admit that I broke about 4 traffic rules in 10 seconds at the last stretch of our journey. The roads were a nightmare and the GPS being a pain again so I did some horrifying move that involved a u-turn, a red light and a busses only lane…but it was all over very quickly and it did the trick – we got to our rooftop drop-off for Sixt, gave everything a once-over and a dust-off and said a last goodbye to our faithful Clio before returning the keys to Sixt.

We stayed on the same street as at the start of our trip but at a different hotel this time – the Hôtel Campanile Rennes Centre Gare. A business-style no fuss place, it was exactly what we needed and the staff were super friendly and helpful in printing our train tickets for us.

We even used the TV, and had a really enjoyable and chilled night watching local TV including some kind of feel-good show (La Dream Company) which helped people to follow their dreams or something…it was actually really sweet!

– – –

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