As we have recently come back from having had just over a week in our gite in Brittany I thought I would break up the posts on how we bought our gite with a little report of the holiday. The weather was fantastic, we had 4 days of glorious sunshine and the rest of the days were cloudy but warm and not a single drop of rain. We went to have a holiday and also tidy things up for the winter so that everything would be ready for our guests next year.
We travelled by Brittany Ferries on the overnight from Portsmouth to St Malo. It was the first time we had taken an overnight ferry and we weren’t sure about it but thought we’d give it a go. Overall travelling on the overnight ferry was great, the ferry crossing basically consisted of eating, sleeping and then eating again, now that’s the way to travel! Having endured the fast ferry on the way back I’m sure I’ll write something soon about the different ferry crossings!
We got to the gite just after 9:00 in the morning on Friday and it was the first time we had been over since July, when we got everything ready for our guests. The gite looked great and had worn very well over the summer rental season and when we walked in we still really loved the place.
My parents were coming over on the ferry on Saturday and staying with us and Kate’s mum Penny and her husband Mike were also arriving on Saturday, but staying at a lovely hotel in Dinan port, so we had a day to ourselves to relax, well not quite. Off we all headed to E.Leclerc in Dinan for the big shop, oh what a joy!
On Saturday lunchtime we met Penny & Mike in Dinan port and had a lovely lunch overlooking the river Rance, sitting outside in the glorious sunshine. After lunch we went for a walk along the river and it was absolutely beautiful. We then headed back to the gite to meet my parents, who were sitting out the front basking in the sunshine enjoying a cup of tea, having just arrived on the fast ferry to St Malo.
On Sunday we all went to Pen-Guen beach at Saint-Cast, as it was another glorious day. It was really beautiful and we sat on the beach and made sand castles and sand boats. These were small affairs to start with but the girls wanted boats they could sit in, so it seemed a competition developed between my dad and I to build a bigger and better boat, some things never change! (That’s my boat Daisy is standing in)
We then had lunch at a restaurant overlooking the beach and had a wonderful meal, again sitting outside enjoying the October sunshine.
After that we had to mix relaxing with getting the jobs done, mainly gardening related, mowing the grass, cutting back anything that has started to get out of hand, trimming the hedges. The garden had been looked after all summer but it still needed a good hacking back for the winter, well that’s in my expert Alan Titchmarsh opinion anyway, let’s hope it survives my hard pruning!
One of our other main jobs was to sort out the sofas, if you’ve seen our website the sofas in the living room are not it’s best feature. They are very comfortable and do not look anywhere near as bad in real life as they do in the photos but in the photos they look like they have dust sheets on them! Kate had done a reconnaissance trip to Ikea in Croydon and had seen some nice sofas so we decided to take a gamble and hire a van and head down to Ikea near Nantes, about 1¾ hours drive.
We did find some sofas there but the ones we liked had to be ordered and delivered and couldn’t be collected, the ones we didn’t like could be taken away today, typical! So in the end we ordered two 2.5 seater leather sofas and a single chair, along with a few other things. We got back to this huge van and placed the few things we had bought in the back and couldn’t stop laughing, they were completely lost sitting in this massive van. Never mind, hopefully we’ll get the new sofas in December and it will all be worth while!!
On the Tuesday evening my parents looked after the girls while we went into Dinan for a meal with Penny and Mike, as they were heading back home on Wednesday. We looked around the port but only one restaurant was open so we headed up to the main part of Dinan. We went to a really nice restaurant where the speciality is a plate of raw meat and a hot salted stone to cook it on. The food was really good and the atmosphere was excellent. It was on rue de la Poissonnerie and when I remember the name I’ll add it here.
On Thursday we went to the lovely restaurant in Yvignac for lunch. Les Templiers I think. It’s only open for lunches but it is very popular with workmen and locals for miles around. It offers a 4 course meal with wine for just over 10€, a bargain. My dad chose something that was described as a kind of sausage but when it arrived the only real resemblance was that it was cylindrical in shape. I don’t really want to describe what it looked like inside but it smelt really, really terrible and supposedly tasted exactly like it smelt. During desert some people sitting a few tables away from us had ordered the same thing. We all sat back and watched in amusement at these poor folk, as they looked at it, prodded it, smelt it and after tasting it pulled some very amusing faces. Having tried smothering it in ketchup they gave in. Unfortunately I can’t remember what it was called so I can’t warn you. Don’t let this put you off going to the restaurant though, if you’re ever down that way, as it is really very good and you get some excellent local dishes!
We did all get a fantastic lunch in Jugons Les Lacs on the Friday in a restaurant on the the main square though and I’ll add the name here, again when I remember it! After lunch we took the girls to the Aquarium at St Malo as they love the place. We had a fantastic time and the shark tank really is amazing. It was virtually empty and for quite a while we were the only ones in the shark tank and the girls just spent ages looking at the sharks and the turtles.
We had a really fantastic break with all the family, had wonderful weather, lots of great lunches and got the jobs done that we needed to. Hopefully the sofas will arrive ok and we won’t have any dramas with trying to sort out Ikea deliveries in France from the UK! If you can get lucky with the weather October is a great time to go for a relaxing break to Brittany.
2 Bedroom Cottage / Gite near Dinan, Brittany, France
Buying, Owning and Running a Gite in Brittany Blog
©Derek Arkwright 2007
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