Monday Revisited and Helicopter Rescues

Monday Revisited

Monday, which I reported on in the last post, was such a picturesque day, here are some more photos:

TUESDAY

The Fishing Museum and a Drive Home

We awoke Tuesday morning in our hotel, had breakfast, and checked out.  We spent a little more time walking around Concarneau which really is a wonderful fishing port.  Then we visited the town’s highly regarded Musée du Pêche (FishingMuseum).  It sounds boring, but it wasn’t.  Some good exhibits and a chance to wander around on an old fishing boat tied up in the harbor next to the Museum.  They had some excellent movies showing different types of fishing that is done from Concarneau.  Besides being a historically important sardine fishing (and canning) port, it has now become a center for tuna fishing.

 Then we drove to nearby Pont-Aven, a small town noted as a resort where painters liked to congregate.  Gaughin headed the Pont-Aven School started in 1888.  We skipped the small museum and opted for lunch on the terrace of a restaurant right on the AvenRiver.  We sat under a sturdy canopy, a good choice since it started raining very hard while we were there.  Elaine Moules au Curry et Frites; I had Moules au Roquefort et Frites.

Then it was back to Plouezoc’h and Manoir de Keristin (La Maison des Araignées).  Before getting home we stopped at a supermarket to get some stuff a dinner at home and, of course, at the local boulangerie for a baguette and desert.  It rained for almost the whole drive home and the prospects for drinks on the patio seemed non-existent.  Again, the weather changed almost on cue, and it was a beautiful sunny late afternoon cocktail hour at our outdoor table.  Dinner was a simple grilled chicken salad with wine.  Then off to bed after killing the day’s quota of spiders (arigneées).

WEDNESDAY

Air Rescue Training at Pointe de St. Mathieu

It was a beautiful sunny morning and we decided to drive the 70 kilometers to Pointe-de-St.-Mathieu, just west of Brest.  We didn’t have the time to do it on our day in Brest, and the weather was promising.  Well, halfway there the weather turned miserable – ominous dark clouds and driving rain.  Not a good sign.  We carried on, and once again, the weather changed almost the moment we arrived in the Pointe-de-St.-Mathieu area.

It’s a beautiful sight at the western edge of France close to the official border between the Atlantic Ocean and the English Channel.  It has two lighthouses, a monument dedicated to the sailors of France (military and otherwise) who have given their lives in defense of the country, and the remains of an old abbey.  Pictures tell the story better than words.

To make things more interesting, the local rescue workers were practicing helicopter rescues on the rugged rocks below the Pointe.  It was interesting to watch.

Then we bought sandwiches at a boulangerie and ate them in a local park that was unfortunately devoid of any good views.  After lunch we drove home, stopping just outside Plouezoc’h to reserve a table for tonight in a return visit to the Bar du Port.  More on that in the next posting.

There will be one more posting from Plouezoc’h (on Friday).  Saturday we will spend the day driving east to Abbeville where we will spend Saturday night (at the same hotel that Bobby Messina stayed with us many years ago).  I will post again from there.  Sunday morning we drive the hour to Calais for a 10:45 ferry back to the UK.