Bonjour, mes braves (Brittany)

Member Name: jackie27

Product:	Brittany
Date:	09/06/01 (299 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very like England, Picturesque

Disadvantages: Very like England

Dear Diary,

Just thought I'd drop you a few lines about our recent holiday in France - ooh la la!

A bit of background first...

dave27 and I fell in love with France, or Brittany to be more precise, getting on for two years ago now when we went to a mobile home park, La Ranollien, at Perros Guirec on the north coast of Brittany, known as the Pink Granite Coast. We had a wonderful time (I won't mention the barbecue I managed to set on fire outside the mobile home, I think dave27 has already written about that one).

Brittany is a marvellous place, seemingly set in a time zone all of its own, sleepy and quiet and resembling nothing more than the south western coast of le UK (understandably enough). Most of the 'beaches' are granite and rock and extremely impressive (unless you're a sand loving beachgoer) and the one by La Ranollien was no different. It was simply breathtaking with enormous rocks jutting out into the air.

The other thing I really went for was the boulangerie - MMMMMMMMMM.... - all hot and mouthwatering croissants and beautiful cream cakes. Every morning started with a trip to the local village for a little of what you fancy. The dave27-ettes' own culinary preference was for the crepes, wafer thin pancakes, all swimming in sugar and lemon, naughty I know, but oh so lovely.

The scenery in Brittany was marvellous and you could wander at your leisure through all sorts of beautiful little hamlets - we were hooked. The words picturesque and charming could well have been invented for this place. Another good point was that contrary to everything I'd ever heard in the papers or on the box about French people, I never found them anything other than warm and welcoming. We love France and everything about it.

I'd just given up my job and was looking for something to use up my spare time and we were so impressed by that camp site and the facilities that I started l
ooking into what was involved in buying your own little piece of French real estate. My first line of enquiry was in mobile homes, because we thought the one we had stayed in was particularly nice.

We went and had a look at a couple of the places in the UK that make them but started to get a few concerns, despite the fact that they were quite reasonably priced, running from about £10,500 into the twenties. We got told that their expected life is about ten years and a friend of mine who lives in France told me that the high winds over there had blown a lot of mobile homes completely flat. Uh-oh!!

That decided things for me - I'd heard that the houses over there are quite reasonable and started checking out this line, using the net. Apparently, there aren't as many bargains now as there used to be two or three years ago, but I certainly found a lot of opportunities. I limited my search to the Brittany area, because we were enchanted with the place and soon found a few specialised websites. It is important to recognise that some of the properties are up for sale at a number of sites and they've each got their own pricing policy, so IT'S VITAL THAT YOU SHOP AROUND.

The one I recommend after all my research is at www.beehive-france.com - this organisation provides an excellent service and is run by an English couple called Nick and Jan Bailey who have been out there for about ten years. Their site also includes a link to renovation services, provided by another English ex-pat, Steve Foster, another recommendation, and if you are going to buy French property, there is likely to be a need for some building works.

Anyway, to cut a very long story exceedingly short, we managed to snap up a real bargain, a little cottage (known in France as a gite) for £7,500!! AMAZING! We had to have about ten grand's worth of work done, but still an amazing bargain.

Steve Foster started work on the gite in May and thi
s little trip, in the first week of June, was to ferry out the kitchen for him to fit.

We'd got a roof rack and a trailer for the occasion and were going out by ferry from Portsmouth to Cherbourg in the very wee small hours of a Wednesday morning. Now read on....

Tuesday

I graciously allowed dave27 to have a kip in until about twelve as he had got a lot of driving to do.

After we'd picked up a trailer from Barlow Trailers and got stuff loaded up we drove through the night and arrived at Portsmouth at about 5.30 in the morning, ready to check in for the sailing at seven of the fastcraft to Cherbourg.

Wednesday

After we got onto the ferry we went and had some breakfast and had about an hour's kip in the seats there. We got into Cherbourg at about 11 their time and set off for our camp site in Dol de Bretagne.

Arriving in France is always exciting and it's always a challenge remembering to drive on the right hand side of the road, but a little nagging does the trick with dave27, who always insists on driving. We've gone to France via Cherbourg a couple of times now and it's a typical ferry port, seemingly always grey and overcast and very similar to Britain. I'm always pleasantly surprised by how much better the French road system is than our own back in the UK and the autoroutes are always wonderfully empty. True, you often have to pay a toll which helps to pay for the roads, but nevertheless the French government has made much more of a success of its road strategy than their British counterparts and it's a real mystery to me why that should be so.

It's about 100 miles (or 150 km) from Cherbourg to Dol de Bretagne and the road goes through some of the loveliest parts of France you could wish to see, all the houses being lovingly safeguarded by beautiful roses and rhododendrons and sporting shutters which lend them a homely country cottage feel. Many of th
e houses are made of the delightful Breton stone and are truly splendid. Coming to France always makes me very happy and this time was no different.

Our destination, Dol de Bretagne is a lovely little town, set near the north coast and packed out with lovely little shops and restaurants. Our first meal on French territory was at a brilliant little place in the village centre, a typically French place called Le Porche au Pain. We'd eaten there before and they do a wonderful skewered beef in Roquefort sauce - my favourite. I'd recommend you checking this place out if you are in town, it's just off the main street through town, but it's an excellent establishment.

The camp site itself (Le Vieux Chene at the tiny little village of Baguer-Pican) and the mobile home were very nice - the toilet was a bit small and poky and had a broken seat, but the rest of it was nicely turned out and very clean. It was quiet and peaceful when we got there but has a wonderful on site restaurant, swimming pool and bar. It's set in wonderful countryside, with a farm next door. It's not as crowded and noisy as many of the other camp sites we've visited and is again to be heartily recommended.

Thursday

We had to get up really early this morning to see Steve Foster who was working on our gite at Plusquellec, some ninety miles away near Callac and Carhaix, and 30 miles south of the port town of Roscoff. It took me all my time to get dave27 up this morning because he was feigning tiredness after his drive.

We drove over there and met Steve and his wife Wendy. We had one major surprise when we got there and that was that the farmer next door had started walking his prize bull through our garden to leave him on a bit of waste land there.

Steve had done a marvellous job in the time he'd been working on the gite and he'd got all the new windows and doors in and most of the shower room. We dropped off
all the stuff we'd been transporting and went over to Chateauneuf to buy some taps and other things we needed. Chateauneuf is more industrialised than the other places I've mentioned so far but is a nice town.

Friday
We were up at seven and back off to Blighty via the ferry at Cherbourg.

Au revoir, mes braves.

Summary: