Journey's End

Plymouth Hoe - a sight to gladden the heart of any true Westcountryman

The Bay of Biscay entirely lived up to its reputation for the journey home. The Pont Aven is a big ship, with everything that modern maritime design can provide in the way of stabilisation. But by mid-evening, she was rolling and juddering in the swell like the Balmoral on a rough crossing from Ilfracombe to Lundy. A clear majority of passengers took refuge in their en suite facilities. The smug brigade, of which I was happy to be part, had the run of the bars and restaurants. There were some very sorry sights the following morning.

I set the alarm for 4.00, reckoning that that would be about the time that we passed Ushant, so that I could see the great lighthouse of An Creac’h in action. It was a good guess. When I got up on deck, the very first thing I saw was the great white beam piercing the night sky, flanked by the red lights of La Jument to the south and Le Stiff (I kid you not!) on the north end of the island. It was a memorable sight. Sadly, the ship was being tossed around too violently to get much of a photograph, but I did my best. I barely slept a wink after that. The beds on the Pont Aven are excruciatingly uncomfortable, even by ferry standards.

An Creac'h from the Pont Aven

We were an hour or so late arriving at Plymouth, but at least the sun was shining. It had been pouring with rain when we’d left Santander, which made me feel happier about the decision to cut short the trip than has been the case subsequently. Jammed door and dodgy number plate notwithstanding, I should have soldiered on through Galicia.

However, what’s done is done, and it has still been a fascinating trip. All told, I’ve driven just over 5,000 miles through Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, Brittany and Asturias, staying at 37 campsites. In an idle moment (and there were plenty of them) at San Vicente, I decided to rank the campsites, according to setting/view, facilities, proximity to beaches/golf courses/good pubs and value for money. The joint winners were Trevedra Farm at Sennen, and Tully Beach Camping and Caravans, on the Renvyle Peninsula in the far west of Ireland, but several others, including Kersigny Plage, Trevignon, Durness, Camusdarach, Gairloch, Tramore Beach and Achill Island were only a point or two behind.

Sunset at Tully Beach

From best campsite, it was but a short step to best days, best meals and best moments.
Among the former, it was a dead heat between my visit to the Isles of Scilly, on a glorious July day, and the day I spent in West Wales, travelling on the Tallylln Railway and golfing at Borth and Ynyslas, also under cloudless skies. Honourable mentions also for St. David’s, golf at Machrihanish, my trip to the pub with no beer at Inverie and a swim from the silver sands of Camusdarach, the visits to Ushant and to Inishmore in the Aran Islands, and the first proper day of the entire trip, when I travelled by ferry and minibus to Cape Wrath and played golf in the evening sunshine looking out across the stunningly beautiful sands of Balnikeel Bay.

Balnikeel Bay

My best meals were probably those I cooked, or prepared, for myself: the fried plaice at Caheerviseen, the oysters and Muscadet at Les Abers and that magnificent veal chop at Le Conquet. My crab at the Turk’s Head on St. Agnes was unquestionably my best meal out.

Best moments? Well, my first sight of “the most beautiful beach in Scotland”, Sandwood Bay, after a four mile hike, has got to be up there, as has a four iron across a wave-lashed chasm to the final green at Durness, walking out onto Tramore beach on a sparklingly blue and silver Sunday afternoon and the warmest of Welsh welcomes that I received from Ann and John Lloyd Jones on arriving at Hendy. But I guess the pick of the bunch has to be that moment, near Kynance Cove, when I realised that the noisy birds I’d happened across weren’t jackdaws, but were choughs: rare, precious, quintessentially Celtic choughs. If I’d encountered the ghost of King Arthur, I could hardly have been more pleased. (And then again, perhaps that’s precisely what I had done?)

And the worst? I suppose that would have to be crunching Carmen against the railway sleeper, precipitating as it did the abandonment of the last stage of the trip. Apart from that, my blackest moment was when I reached my first peage on the A10, just south of Nantes. It was pouring with rain and there were long queues of cars and lorries, all simmering with Gallic impatience. But I’d watched the couple in front carefully, and leant confidently across the cab, to pluck my card from the slot in the machine. Except that when I looked, it wasn’t there! The bloody machine had broken down! With half of France waiting and hooting behind me! In a state of flat panic, I climbed out of the cab, to give the machine a good kicking. It was then that – thank God! – I spotted that there was a second dispensing slot, at lorry driver height, and poking out of it was the ticket I so craved. Rarely in my life have I been quite so relieved!

But what, you may well ask, of the avowed purpose of the journey which was, as I recall, “to explore the links between the peoples of Europe’s western seaboard”?
That there are such links – at least between the “British” Celts – is obvious, in language, religion, culture, climate and geography. But that certainly does not mean that all Celts are the same. The various tribes are as different from one another as they are from other so-called “races”, like the Anglo-Saxons, Franks or Vikings. The most obvious example of this is the North and South Waleians. This came home to me most vividly when I was talking to a short, dark, swarthy Pembrokeshire farmer, who prides himself on his Celtic ancestry. “Celtic Odyssey, is it”, he said, with a note of disbelief in his voice. “I never realised you were a Celt”.

“Oh yes”, I replied. “More than 50 per cent. All my mother’s family were from Anglesey”.

“Ah”, he said, the light dawning. “Anglesey. That explains it.”

Having said that, it is possible to argue that the generality of Celts do share some characteristics, chief among them probably being a fundamentally passionate nature. They are instinctive, rather than necessarily rational, in how they think and act. They are driven by spirit and soul as much as by logic and analysis. They also all have something of a chip on their shoulders: Irish, Welsh and Scots about the English; Bretons in relation to the French; and Asturians when it comes to the Spanish.

One thing they do all share is the glorious Atlantic seaboard, and its rather less than glorious climate. It would be surprising if this had not produced both a deep sense of man’s insignificance in comparison with the immensity of sea, mountains and sky and a certain fatalism in the face of the unrelenting elements. Against that background, it is not to be wondered at that religion, both pagan and Christian, has always played so strong a part in the life of the Celts. If there is one thing more than any other that united the British Celts it was Celtic Christianity.

As for what the trip has taught me about myself – my “voyage of self-discovery”, as my son George called it – I think it is probably that, for all my Welsh ancestry, I’m not really Celtic at all! I’m as much of a typical tight-arsed, list-making, home-loving, beer-drinking Englishman, as I am a passionate, instinctive, soulful Celt. And besides, I really cannot stand that awful Irish/Breton folk music – “all that fidde-de-dee stuff”, as my wife Claire calls it. Not that I don’t have a well-developed emotional side. A Welsh or Cornish male voice choir can move me to tears. But I’d sooner go to the dentist than sit through a concert by the Dubliners.

What I am is a Westcountryman. There is no finer sight in all the world than sighting the tors of Dartmoor as the ferry nears Plymouth. The more I travel, the more I appreciate how deeply fortunate I am to have been born and lived most of my life in the South-West of England.

But it’s been what I’ve experienced, more than what I’ve learned, which has made the trip so wonderful. The mountains, the cliffs, the seascapes, the moors, the beaches, the crosses, the dolmens – and just the occasional pub or golf-course!

Carmen was a reliable and comforting companion, ultimately betrayed by the incompetence of her driver. Once she’s been repaired, she’ll be sent into hibernation for the winter and we’ll be back on the road next summer.

So that’s it for the Celtic Odyssey blog. I am toying with the idea of starting a new one in a couple of weeks’ time, relating my experiences as a newly freelance farming journalist and commentator. In the meantime, thank you for your company. I’m not entirely sure how many readers I’ve had, but however many or few, I can assure you that you’re all hugely appreciated.

September 11: Thus far......

I caught the bus from San Vicente into Oviedo yesterday. For a round trip of 200 miles, the fare was 17 euros. And it was well worth it. Oviedo, the capital of the Principality of Asturias, is a handsome, well-proportioned, if slightly claustrophobic city. The streets are all lined with buildings at least ten storeys high. You can barely see the sky, let alone any landmarks. It took a long time for me to find my bearings. Most of the central shopping area has been pedestrianised, and is paved with marble the colour of a Spanish dawn. Walking on it in my M and S loafers produced the most frightful squeaks and squeals!

Oviedo Cathedral

Having said all of that, the area around the Cathedral is lovely: ancient, narrow streets, lined with restaurants and sidrerias; leading off into little squares, like the Plaza Trasscorales, with its bronze of La Lechera – the milkmaid – and in which, more to the immediate point, was situated the restaurant where I had set my heart to dine on a veritable feast of Asturian specialities. Only two problems: the restaurant didn’t open until 8.00 and the last bus was due to leave at 8.45. So I contented myself with wistfully jotting down the list of things I would have eaten, had circumstances allowed:

Cream of crab soup
Pote – beans, greens, pork and blood pudding
Fabada – the national dish of Asturias – a quite delicious bean and pork stew
Braised boar with potato croquettes
Rice pudding, crepes and pastries

All this for 32 euros, in one of the smartest restaurants in the city.

There is one consolation: I am several pounds lighter than I would have been if I’d got the other side of that lot!

The bronze of La Lechera in the Plaza Trascoralles

I followed the tourist trail, to the cathedral, with its 9th century chapel , and then roused myself to climb the seemingly endless hill which leads to two of the most ancient churches in Spain: Santa Maria del Naranco and San Miguel de Lillo, both also dating back to the 9th century. They were worth the climb: both beautifully proportioned in their different ways, and built in a style which I’m told was unique to Asturias. I bought a ticket for 3 euros which entitled me to go inside both churches – except that it didn’t. They both remained firmly locked. It turned out that if I wanted to see inside I would have to wait until a sufficient ‘groupo’ had assembled to make it worth the guide’s while to show us around. He, meanwhile, was having a pee in the hedge, and as the commentary would be in Spanish, it frankly didn’t seem worth waiting for.

The 9th century church of San Miguel de Lillo, on the mountain overlooking Oviedo

So down the hill I strode, in search of supper. I decided eventually to try one of the many sidrerias in the Calle Gascona. Cider is the Asturias national drink. The locals appear to consume nothing else. Cider-drinking is a ritual conducted with an almost religious solemnity and attention to detail. First is the ‘escanciar’: in your right hand, you hold the uncorked bottle, stretching your arm as high as it will go. In your left, the broad-brimmed glass-beaker, which you hold as low as you can, slightly tilted, so as to maximise the distance between bottle and glass. Then you pour, and if you’re any good at all at it, you pour with the utmost nonchalance, looking up at the sky and whistling a happy tune, confident that years of practice will direct the golden stream unerringly, not merely into the glass, but onto the side of the glass, just below the brim. The idea is that the long drop will maximise oxygenation of the cider, producing a gentle, almost creamy effervescence in the drink.

But that’s only the half of it. Only about half an inch is poured at any one go. The recipient is required (and I use the word advisedly) to drink most of it, and then hurl the last few drops against the side of the bar, off which it will drain into a gutter. This is called the “culin” and the logic this time is that, cider drinking being a group activity, by swilling out the glass with cider, you have disinfected it for the next recipient of the escanciar.

It is, as you can imagine, a picturesque business, which involves the waste of a prodigious amount of perfectly good cider. I would hazard a guess that more cider is poured away in Asturias each year than is consumed in any of the other Celtic nations, with the possible exception of Brittany. It was when I first visited Asturias in 1994, that, with my late and much lamented brother, Chippy, we discovered this extraordinary business. We took to it with some enthusiasm! He was much better at the escanciar than I was, but I did my best to make up for it with the violence of my culin!

That was in typical rough and ready rural sidrerias, whose floors were literally awash with cider. In the posher parts of Oviedo, they have to strike a careful balance. So the barman pours (expertly, of course) your cider, and only the standers-at-the-bar are encouraged to chuck the remnants in the gutter. The place still stank of cider, but it was smart enough to charge some pretty fancy prices. I accompanied my bottle with anchovies, peppers and cabralles cheese – classic Asturian cuisine. The Olde Cider Bar at Newton Abbot this was not!

And thereby hangs a tale. It was visiting Asturias in 1994 and encountering the fierce pride with which they nurtured and protected their regional specialties, like fabada, that gave me the idea of starting Westcountry Cooking, to encourage chefs and restaurateurs to make a point of using our own wonderful ingredients, in dishes that speak as profoundly of the South West as Asturian cooking does of this beautiful region. I like to think that it had a small influence on everything that has happened since.

Apart from one or two thunderstorms, the weather has been hot and sunny. I have been surfing. Three to four feet and clean, is how I think the professionals would describe it.

The beach at San Vicente in early morning sunshine

On Tuesday morning, I was taken by taxi into Santander to procure Carmen’s temporary number plate. The taxi driver, inevitably, was called Manuel. He had no English and I have no Spanish. We proceeded at a truly frightening speed, Manuel making phone calls to various friends and family, the Spanish definition of 'hands-free' appearing to mean no hands on the steering wheel. He struck me as a sociable soul, who clearly wanted to make conversation with his passenger “Gillsaw”, as he called me. Football came to the rescue. We exchanged the names of Spanish footballers playing for English clubs, accompanied by facial expressions, shakes of the head or thumbs up to indicate approval or otherwise.

Anyway, we secured the number plate and, although it is the wrong colour, I trust it will serve. It is stuck on with parcel tape, which may or may not survive the storm that is blowing in from the Atlantic as I prepare to drive to Santander to catch the ferry for home, with very mixed feelings.

September 8: On giving it best

With a heavy heart, I have decided to return home early, with the Celtic characteristics of Galicia and Portugal still unexplored. The immediate excuse for thus bottling out is the three day (so far) delay in obtaining a replacement number plate for Carmen, plus the damage to her nearside, which makes it impossible to open the door, and means I have to clamber in and out of the driver’s compartment.

However, the truth of the matter is that I am travel-weary after the long slog south and really rather lonely. Being on one’s own is not a problem, when you can drop into the nearest pub or golf club and either pass the time of day with whoever may be there, or simply listen to other people’s conversations. But when you cannot understand a word they’re saying, or vice versa, you do feel a bit out of it, especially if there is no Times or television to help one while away the uneventful hours. So the prospect of driving several hundred miles through remote, inhospitable (so they say) Galicia, in a damaged van, with no company and a distinctly iffy weather forecast was not, I am afraid, one that ultimately appealed.

I knew that the game was up when I woke up this morning, pulled back the curtains to reveal a blameless sky of the brightest blue - and felt my spirits lift not a millimetre.
I am sure that Galicia is fascinating, and I deeply want to visit Porto and the Celtic sites of Northern Portugal, but both will have to wait until I can persuade someone to come with me.

In the meantime, the weather has been ironically blissful. Today has been by far the hottest day both of the trip and of my summer. I spent large parts of it in the sea, trying to cool off. This was pleasant enough at the time, but has left me with a blocked left ear. Although even that has its consolations, as it is helping to muffle the deafeningly loud music that is pounding out across the estuary towards the campsite, on account of the continuing Fiesta. Last night, the disco went on until 2.30! The very helpful man in the campsite reception warned me that I might be woken early tomorrow morning. God knows what that may involve. Probably yet another volley of deafening artillery shells, fired from the battlements of the fortress.

The town clock has a most melodious chime, reminiscent of the hours being struck on a spinet or, yes, a melodion. But at what appear to be random hours of the day, this is the signal for the aforementioned howitzers to open up over the bay, frightening the dogs and shattering the reveries.

However, you must not get the impression that I dislike Northern Spain. Very much to the contrary. The scenery is spectacular, the people are kindly, the food is much better than in Brittany and only two thirds the price, and the sea is wonderfully clear and almost silky smooth to swim in, even when there’s a decent swell running, which there certainly has these past three days. The surf has been by far the best of the entire trip.

Tomorrow, a taxi is due to arrive at the campsite at 9.00 to take me to an unnamed destination, where a new number plate should await me. Assuming that we don’t end up driving to Madrid or San Sebastian, I then intend to catch the bus to Oviedo, the capital city of the Principality of Asturias, to sample what the real Carmen promises me will be a “Pantagruelic” feast of Asturian specialities at El Raitan. (No, I didn’t know what it meant, either. Turns out that it’s from a ‘gigantic prince’ called Pantagruel, in Rabelais. But then Carmen always did have a better grasp of the English language than most of us in the NFU for whom it is our native tongue!)

In the meantime, I have been drowning my sorrows with some of that Breton bottle-conditioned beer that I mentioned a few days ago. The Duchesse Anne was excellent – beautifully malty, without being sweet, well-hopped, amber-coloured and quite strong. The Belle Ile was a bit of a disappointment. Despite having left it to settle for the whole morning, it was chock full of sediment when I opened it at lunchtime. It settled down eventually, and turned out to be a rather heavy, malty brown ale – the sort of beer that Newcastle Brown doubtless was before it was debased.

And if you’ve deduced from that last paragraph that that one of the reasons for my early return home is that I’m pining for a decent pint of good old Westcountry beer, you’d be spot on!

September 6: It never rains.......

Bloody typical! You drive completely unscathed for 600 miles through flood, tempest, mad Polish lorry drivers, umpteen peages and even an inspection by the Spanish border police; then, as you’re inching towards your selected pitch among the pine trees – crunch! The hem of Carmen’s rather voluminous skirt had become entangled with a low-lying, jutting out railway sleeper, with predictable and doubtless expensive results. I cannot now open the side door, but she is at least still driveable.

Or she would be, if it wasn’t for the other little problem that I detected, when I came to get my bike down from the rack at the back. Where the rear number plate should have been was a blank, grey space. The plate had been there when I left my overnight campsite at Castets, a few miles north of Bayonne, no doubt about it. But somewhere in the ensuing 220 miles it had evidently been shaken, or possibly flushed, from its moorings, by the bumpy Spanish roads or the incessant deluge. I retraced the last few miles between here and Comillas, where the road had been particularly bumpy, but to no avail. So I rang NFU Mutual International Rescue (cue Thunderbirds theme music) and got, not Virgil or Lady Penelope but a rather baffled French woman, to whom I explained my predicament. I am still awaiting her call back.

Still, there could be worse places to be marooned. San Vicente de la Barquera, on the coast about 35 miles west of Santander, isn’t quite in Asturias, but it is a very handsome town, with two fine bridges and a magnificent sixteenth century ducal palace. I am looking across the estuary at it now, with the houses of the town clustered at its feet and the Picos de Europa behind it in the distance (in truth, that last bit is poetic licence, because although I know that the Picos are indeed somewhere out there in the distance behind the Palace, I can’t actually see them on account of the low cloud and heavy rain!)

View from the campsite - San Vicente de la Barquera, with the Picos in the background

However, it has to be said that after my twin misfortunes I wasn’t really in the mood to enjoy the series of explosions, accompanied by air-raid sirens, which emanated from the town’s lofty fortress. It would appear that some sort of fiesta is taking place. Mr Grumpy wishes them joy, although he won't be amused if the amplified striking of the town clock goes on throughout the night!

Asturias and Galicia are the odd ones out in the co-called “League of Celtic Nations” in that their Celtic languages have not survived. As far as I can gather (and I stand to be corrected) their claim to be Celtic rests on the North-West coast being the final refuge of the Celtic Iberians, when the Romans finally conquered the peninsula in about 200 BC. Somehow or another they clung to the coastal fringe of Northern Spain, and there they have remained, cut off from the rest of the country by the Picos and other formidable mountain ranges, with their own very distinctive customs, cultures, cuisines – and climate, which tends to be sunny in the morning and wet in the afternoon.

San Vicente at night - shame you can't hear the music

Legend has it that as the Romans pushed ever further north and west through Spain, some of the native Celts took to the sea, and ended up in Ireland, possibly as the Fir Bolg, or whoever it was who built Dun Aenghus and similar remarkable stone forts, or possibly just as a smattering of settlers, cast ashore on a distant land. I think I tend towards the latter.

Of connections between Celtic Northern Spain and Cornwall, I could find no trace, until my mother (learned lady that she is) recalled some lines from Milton’s Lycidas, in which the poet mourns the death of his friend, drowned in the Irish Sea, and wonders where his bones might have been carried:

“Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides
Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide
Visit’st the bottom of the monstrous world;
Or whether thou to our moist vows denied
Sleep’st by the fable of Bellerus old,
Where the great vision of the guarded Mount
Looks towards Namancos and Bayona’s hold.”

Bellerus is an old word for Cornwall, the Mount is St. Michael’s, between which and the Spanish ports of ‘Namancos and Bayona’s hold’, there is nothing but open sea. Even in the sixteenth century, it would seem to have been accepted that the Celtic nations looked to each other, in every sense.

I bought myself a splendid pork chop in San Vicente this evening, and am feeling slightly more mellow, having consumed it with local beans and carrots. But it has still been a pretty rotten day.

September 4: The road to Hell -or Heaven?!

I was going to conclude the Brittany leg of my journey with a visit to the extraordinary ‘alignments’ at Carnac, and a crossing on the ferry from Quiberon to Belle Ile en Mer. But Carnac is strictly speaking pre-Celtic and Belle-Ile – whilst undoubtedly living up to its name – I have visited before. The clincher was the weather forecast, which is dire.

So I decided to cut short my visit by a day and catch a ferry to Belle-Ile’s little sister, the Ile de Groix, where I’d never yet set foot. The only drawback was that the ferries sail from the deeply unlovely city of Lorient. It was built in the seventeenth century as a jumping off point for the French East India trade – hence the name – and, from what I can gather, its architecture has always been more functional than decorative.

Lorient does, however, have a most magnificent, well-protected, natural harbour, and it was the obvious choice when Hitler was deciding where to base his Atlantic U-boat fleet. In the final stages of the war, the city was bombed unmercifully by the Allies. They flattened everything – except the U-boat base, which was built of concrete several metres thick. It is now a rather sinister tourist attraction: “the strongest fortress of the 20th century” is the boast, and I wouldn’t doubt it for a moment. It is also quite spectacularly ugly and menacing, and is thus entirely in keeping with its surroundings.

The U-Boat base - Lorient's premier tourist attraction

However, there was no avoiding Lorient if I wanted to get to the Ile de Groix, so I sought out the nearest campsite to the city, so that I could cycle to the ferry terminal, rather than having to find an over-sized parking space for Carmen. In this respect I was lucky. I lighted upon Armor Plage, which although now just a suburb of Lorient, does have several good beaches (from one of which I swam in yesterday’s windy sunshine) and an excellent municipal campsite. I cannot image any English campsite-owner choosing the name Camping Seaweed, which is how Camping des Algues translates, but I’ve not been too oppressed with kelp, and in every other respect it is ideal: just behind the beach, on the edge of what is a pleasant little town, and reassuringly protected by German gun emplacements!

The weather was blustery and grey, as I set off shortly after dawn to catch the only ferry of the morning. They say that French traffic systems are much friendlier to cyclists than English ones. Not in Lorient, they aren’t! My route consisted almost entirely of dual carriageways, along the edge of which I was obliged to creep, hoping to God that any mad Frenchman turning right would spot me in time. I’d got to within a mile or so of the Gare Maritime, when I suddenly spotted a road sign consisting of a big red circle with a bicycle symbol inside it. There was no indication of any alternative route, and by this stage it was raining hard. It took me at least another half an hour to reach my destination, with no help whatsoever from signs, road markings or my fellow road users, and by that time I was soaked.

However, all was well in the end. I warmed to the Ile de Groix as soon as I discovered that its patron saint is none other than our own St. Tudy, who travelled with St. Brioc from Wales, founded his church near Wadebridge and then went on to the Ile de Groix. This connection was sufficiently heart-warming even to take the sting out of the Ile de Groix’s chief military claim to fame, which is that the women of the island, led by their priest and in the absence of their menfolk, who were all out fishing, succeeded in frightening off a heavily armed English fleet in 1703 by dressing up as men and using milk churns to simulate cannon. What brave lads those English must have been!

I hired a bike and completed a circuit of the entire island, pausing at Locmaria for moules frites and a demi of vin blanc for lunch. I visited the two lighthouses at either end of the island, Pen Men and the Pointe des Chats, I looked hard into Port Saint Nicholas, without making a sound, to see if I could spot “The Quiet Fairy” to whom this is home, and I looked deep into the Trou de l’Enfer, surprised that there should be two Hell Holes (Lorient being the other) in such close proximity. When I reached the sheltered south-west of the island, I even went for a swim off Les Grands Sables, which has the rare distinction for a beach of being convex, rather than concave.

Les Grands Sables on Groix - lovely, and with a touch of pink, even under grey skies

There is an old Breton proverb which avers that “Who sees Groix, sees his joy”, and for all the grey skies, blustery wind and intermittent downpours, I was pretty joyful. It isn’t as smart as Belle-Ile and none of the beaches compares with the magnificent Port Donnant, but it is pretty, has no pretensions, is largely unspoilt and, when the sun is shining, I’ll bet it’s a little heaven on earth.

This is my last night in Brittany. Tomorrow, I start the long trek south to Asturias, where I hope to arrive on Saturday evening. I don’t feel I’ve in any way done Brittany justice. But then you would probably say much the same even if you spent an entire summer here, let alone just ten days. There is just so much coastline to see, so much culture to soak up, so much wonderful food to enjoy and so many beautiful places to visit – Lorient not included. Every August, they hold the “Inter-Celtic Festival” here. If it was anywhere else, I might be tempted to go.

A culinary note on which to finish: French supermarkets having never apparently heard of either mint sauce or redcurrant jelly, I have taken to accompanying my coteaux d’agneau (of which I am inordinately fond) with a large spoonful of my wife’s blackcurrant jam. Like Gibbo and Groix, it is a match made in heaven!

September 2: A la recherche de temps perdu

I am a terrible one for nostalgia. I love nothing better than to wallow in lost but happy times, or what Henry Williamson called ‘ancient sunlight’. So if my exploits of the last couple of days seem to have something of a sentimental journey about them, you will understand why and, I trust, be appropriately forgiving.

I stayed last night at Audierne, about five miles from the Pointe du Raz. It is a pleasant fishing village cum holiday resort, tucked just in behind the coastline, around a little estuary. The last time I was here was on the second part of my second honeymoon. As the storm clouds gathered yesterday evening, I cycled into town from the campsite at Kersiny Plage to revisit old haunts and bring happy, sunlit memories back to life. The town didn’t seem to have changed one bit, and, sure enough, there, out by the breakwater, was the Brasserie de Grand Large, where I had downed my first pression as a newly re-married man, on a gloriously sunny evening back in May 2001. My reverie was rather rudely curtailed when I discovered it was shut!

However, the Hotel du Roi Gradlon (the Breton equivalent of King Arthur), where Claire and I had stayed, overlooking Audierne’s long white beach, was very much open, so I had a drink there instead. It is a rather unprepossessing building, but in a glorious situation. A double room with a balcony and fabulous views out to sea will set you back 79 euros, which strikes me as about as decent value for money as you will find in these parts, especially as the food is excellent as well. I can recommend both Audierne and the Roi Gradlon unreservedly – and that’s nothing to do with rose-tinted spectacles!

Today, I drove through relentless and torrential rain to Trevignon, which is a few miles south west of the handsome fishing port of Concarneau. This is another place which holds the happiest of memories. I used to come here with my three children, Joanna, Becky and George, when we holidayed in Brittany back in the 1990s. There is a whale-shaped rock about a hundred yards offshore to which we used to swim out and then dive off – George, aged about six, included! The poor little lad almost drowned getting there, but once he’d made it, he would hurl himself time and again into the deep blue water, as if it was the greatest thing in the world.

Now, you know what you've got to do!!

I was determined to do it again, for old times’ sake, but although the sun had come out by this stage, the overnight storm had left a tempestuous sea in its wake, and whilst I managed to swim out to the rock, I couldn’t clamber onto it. Weather permitting, I’ll try again tomorrow. But it was still good to be back on what is one of my favourite beaches in all the world. It is a perfect crescent, with granite rocks on either side, and the quartz in the white sand makes it sparkle with a million tiny points of light when the sun shines, as it did eventually this afternoon. Happy days!

However, you will be reassured to learn that I have not entirely been neglecting my Celtic duties in all this self-indulgence. Yesterday, en route from Camaret to Audierene, I visited three of the most famous places on the Brittany tourist trail. First stop was at the Menez Hom, which isn’t quite the highest point in Brittany, but probably is the closest thing they’ve got to a sacred mountain, like Croagh Patrick. At just over 1,000 feet, it is a modest eminence and, the French being the lazy beggars they are, they’ve built a road almost to the top. Still, the views back over the Crozon Peninsula and out across the Bay of Douarnenez are stunning, and the weather was clear enough to be able to appreciate them.

Then it was onto Locronan, which is the Breton equivalent of Castle Combe, or Milton Abbas or Clovelly: a model village, all cobbled streets and old stone houses with hanging baskets and window boxes, grouped around a handsome church. Locronan has featured in dozens of films and television programmes including, most implausibly, Roman Polanski’s ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’. It doesn’t look remotely like Dorchester, but it’s charming enough.

My final stop was at the Pointe du Raz, supposedly the most westerly point in mainland France, and the Breton equivalent of Land’s End. It is visited by millions of people every year and although the inevitable shopping village is less tacky and much less further away from the cliffs than at Land’s End, it’s not really the place to go to commune with nature at its wildest and most Celtic. Having said that, the views out to sea, across the truly frightening tidal race that gives the headland its name, to the island of Sein in the distance, are well worth the trek and the 6 euros you have to pay to park. I took a picnic, which included a cheese and tomato baguette into which I bit rather too energetically, squirting tomato all down my shirt and shorts.

The Pointe du Raz, with La Vieille in the foreground

This was a pity, because I was enjoying myself, having actually found a sheltered and reasonably secluded spot, over-looking the Baie de Trepasses (so called for the number of drowned corpses that used to wash up there). Beneath the waves here lies Brittany’s Lyonesse: the lost city of Ys, which was drowned when King Gradlon’s wicked daughter opened all the sluice-gates. The Arthur/Gradlon legends are by no means identical, but they do have many common features, including Merlin. They are, of course, two trees from but a single root, and a root, what is more, that was essentially historical, rather than mythical.

No golf so far, but I have discovered some real Breton beer. I haven’t drunk it yet, so will report in due course.

August 31: A Laver of a crab!

Classic Crozon: looking north from the Pointe de Penhir to the Pointe de Toulinguet - and the beach where you're not supposed to swim!

August 31 A Laver of a crab!

I am at Camaret, on the Crozon peninsula, which juts out from the Brittany coast south of Brest rather like a giant anchor, albeit one with all sorts of odd-shaped prongs at its business end. Crozon appears to be off the main Anglo-German tourist routes. I saw as many English cars en route to the Cap de la Chevre this morning as I would expect to encounter French cars on the way to the Lizard. My appalling linguistic skills are therefore more of a handicap than ever. I can work out in my own mind what I want to say. It is when my interlocutor asks me a question in reply that I go all to pieces. Pathetic, isn’t it?

Yesterday, the shone sun, for the first and – if the weather forecast is to be relied upon – possibly the only day of this leg of the trip. I spent the first part of the afternoon basking, swimming and reading on the almost deserted beach below the campsite. Then, when the incoming tide left nothing more than rocks to perch upon, I took myself off to Camaret-sur-Mer on the bike. It is a pretty little fishing town, with a long line of shops, bars and restaurants along the harbour. Not in the least bit chic, but quite smart. Having chosen a restaurant at which I would sup later, I went to explore the standing stones at Lagatjar, which rather suffer in their impact from the modern housing estate which has been built alongside, and then onto Pointe de Penhir, one of several dramatic headlands that stretch out in all directions from Camaret and Crozon. It was still sunny and warm, so I decided on a final swim before supper, on what looked like an inviting beach. But when I got there, I was confronted by huge notices saying “Baignade Interdit” by order of the Council. However, no-one seemed to be taking the slightest notice of them, so I didn’t either.

A suburban Carnac - the stone rows at Lagatjar, on the outskirts of Camaret

My meal at La Voilerie was OK, but no better than that. The fish soup was exemplary but there was something slightly odd about the crab mayonnaise. There appeared to be the correct number of arms, legs and other bits and pieces, but the pincers in particular were of strikingly different dimensions. I concluded that either my crab had been an assemblage from more than one crab, or, like Rod Laver, it had spent a lot of time playing tennis, leaving one forearm much larger than the other! At any event, whilst, at 10 euros, it might have been cheaper than my crab at the Turk’s Head on St. Agnes, it was certainly no better.

With half a bottle of a modest Muscadet, the bill came to 26 euros, which represented reasonable value. It’s the booze that’s become so expensive here in recent years. A 250 ml ‘pression’ – that’s less than half a pint of fizzy lager – will now set you back 2 euros 40, even in a scruffy tabac, and a glass of wine is the same price. That’s the equivalent of something like £4.20 a pint at the current exchange rate, and it’s frightful stuff as well. Wine in the supermarkets and ‘caves’ is still marginally cheaper than in England, but I’ve yet to find better value over here than the magnums of Chilean cabernet that Tescos were selling for £5 a throw just before I left. I even brought a couple with me; now that’s coals to Newcastle if you like.

The weather hasn’t held. By the time I was making my way back from Camaret the thunderclouds were building, and the most tremendous storm broke over the peninsula at 2.00 this morning. I’ve never heard anything quite like it. It sounded as if God was hurling wardrobes around in the attic, and the lightning was so incessant that the countryside appeared floodlit. And my God, didn’t it rain!

An ominous sky - the night before the great thunderstorm over Camaret

Today has been mostly grey and drizzly, although the sun did break through just after lunch. I cycled via Crozon and Morgat to Cap de la Chevre, which about 12 miles south of here. If there is such a thing as a ‘typical Breton small town’ then Crozon is it: narrow streets of ancient houses leading off from its central ‘Place’ where a market was in full swing right outside the church. It has to be said that the fish and vegetables here are in a completely different class to anything on our side of the channel. One of several fish stalls had the most beautiful turbot on sale for 26 euros a kilo. I was sorely tempted to buy one for my supper, but then it dawned on me that it wouldn’t be improved by several hours in a rucksack on my sweaty back.

The Cap de la Chevre is my third cape of the trip so far. It translates as ‘Cape Goat’, which doesn’t have quite the same ring to it as Cape Wrath or Cape Cornwall. Nor am I entirely sure which are the two seas whose meeting point it is supposed to mark. Presumably the Bay of Biscay and the English Channel, although Point de St. Mathieu (which I can see out of Carmen’s windscreen as I write on the other side of the Rade de Brest) would be a much more obvious choice. But it is a magnificent headland and does command spectacular views on every side, from the Pointe du Raz and the Ile de Sein in the south to Ushant in the north. My distinguished predecessor (in the sense of being a Celtic traveller) R.A.J.Walling was so impressed with the cape that he declared it “the true finis terre – the end of the earth” (The Magic of Brittany – highly recommended).

Now it is raining again and it is time for supper. After moules for lunch at Morgat, I’ve bought myself some steak – local, of course, but with English mustard!