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France 2010
Day 10 - 11th October - Brittany: Saint Jacques sur la mer, Fort-la-Latte (Part 2)
We then got to witness an interesting activity.
French demonstration
Notice the kids: it's a fun activity for the whole family. A rite of passage, even.
Unfortunately this also snarled the traffic, which delayed us.
When we finally got out of St Malo, we beheld:
The world's first tidal power installation. There was a tour, even.
St Malo
We stopped at a Carrefour for gas (hypermarkets sell cheap gas), and also walked around. We had a diesel car and quite annoyingly, almost everywhere called diesel "gazole". Adding to my annoyance, removing the cap to the car's gas tank required the car key to be inserted (this was probably to prevent the No Country for Old Man trick). I didn't know this, so some guy helped me. And in filling the tank I got diesel on the cover, my hand, the side of the car and the tarmac.
On the up side, when I inserted my credit card into the self-service machine the language switched to English, which was very smart.
2 aisles of wine, sorted by category - this is France
Postcards: "Un gros bisou pour mon gros lapin" ("A large kiss for my large rabbit")
"Les vacances, C'EST DUR mais je m'accroche" ("Vacations. THEY'RE HARD but I hang on")
"En vacances, j'oublie tout" ("On vacation, I forget everything")
"C'EST DUR mais on tient le coup !"
("IT'S HARD but one takes the blow!"
"Ici, le bonheur ne tient qu'à un fil" ("Here, happiness is held up by a thread"
"Une pensée pour ceux qui bossent !" ("A thought for those who work!")
Bear in mind that all these postcards were in a normal supermarket. Gotta love these Europeans (now that's a phrase I haven't used in a while!)
Kouign Amann - from a shop beside Carrefour
This was much better than the one I had in the morning. The butter could be tasted. And there was a lot of it. It definitely beat Palm Oil any day.
The next stop was Saint Jacques sur la mer.
Saint Jacques sur la mer
Beach of Saint Jacques sur la mer
Beach of Saint Jacques sur la mer
Le château de Gilles de Bretagne (The castle of Gilles of Brittany)
I think I took this because the grass looked weird and edible
Looking out from the ruined castle
Boats on the sand
Le château de Gilles de Bretagne (The ruined castle of Gilles of Brittany)
Story of the castle
The translation was actually not bad (in accuracy and completeness)
Castle ruins
"No parking"
Thanks. It's quite obvious.
We then proceeded along the coast of Cap Fréhel.
Blackberries in my hand
Blackberries on the vine
Fort-la-Latte
Romantic painting of the castle
Fort-la-Latte
There was a 5€ entry fee to see an exhibition about the restoration of the fort. Drawing on my vast experience of such "attractions", I decided it wasn't worth it (and it seems I was right).
Rocky shore
Fort-la-Latte
Brittany Coast
Almost all fast food in France is McDonalds. So far I'd seen 1 KFC, a couple of Subways and 2-3 Quizno's.
Cobblestones are nice to look at but bad to walk on. Especially if you're in heels. Which is why I saw fewer hiao feels.