Month: April 2025

Walkies in France

April 17, 2025 / fiandadrian / 0 Comments

We had decided not to sail to France this year, but we weren’t going to miss out on visiting France altogether. We hired a car, booked some Gites and drove to the years last Plymouth to Roscoff ferry.

We love accommodation that moves while we sleep. Travelling with Bernie we have to book a room on the ferry anyway. Its such a joy to wake up and find your room is in a new country.

Exploring the Brittany coast we came across an appropriate seafood restaurant for lunch overlooking the coast. Food is important, simple and tasty here and we weren’t disappointed. After an overnight stop in Brest it was time to head south for a few nights near Vannes.

Bernie found a good lunch spot and we were soon tracking dear and watching ducks

A stop at the markets provided the essentials

The area was known for its oysters but all the oyster shacks were closed for the winter. Our host told us French people get oysters at the L’eclerc supermarket where we found them fresh and inexpensive. We took a trip into Nantes and visited the WW2 submarine pens and the site of the famous WW2 commando raid on the dry docks at St Nazaire.

Submarines used to live in the building on the left

Next day we were heading south to the Dordogne region, but co-incidentally were passing Les Sables-D’Olonne on the same day as the Vendee Globe solo sailing around the world race started. Along with many thousands of others we waved as the sailors headed out to the start line.

The skippers were introduced to the crowd one by one, jumped on their boats and head out to start the 2-3 month trip around the planet

This was the view from our window in the little stone village in the Dordogne

We set about sniffing around the area. We were told not to walk outside the village on Sundays due to the boar hunting

One day we visited the village Oradour-sur-Glane where the Germans had massacred 643 residents in 1944 and then burnt the village to the ground. The village has remained as it was 1944 as a memorial. A sobering place to visit.

A visit to the market means difficult choices. Can we get a slice of all of them?

And if the markets are closed there is always the vending machines

The sun setting on a delightful stay in the Dordogne

On the drive north we stopped off a wolf reserve. The wolves were spooked by the local boar hunt passing by and were very active during our visit. Poor Bernie was relegated to the car.

Our next stop was in the Loire valley know for its chateau and wines. We found limestone cliffs that used to be used for housing, but mostly garages and storage now.

A winery we visited had kilometers of underground tunnels used for wine storage. We were the only people in the tunnel on a wet dreary day in late November.

The tunnels were illuminated with projections of local art works

There is still some wine stored in the tunnels

And evidence on the wall of past bottle storage

He got very excited when he saw the signs and tried to ignore the speed limit

This was perhaps the finest garden Bernie has wee’d on

But he had to stay in car while we explored the inside

After every good chateau comes a well deserved galette

We took a day trip to Domme a hill top town. The multiple car parks outside the town hinted at the summer time tourist congestion. In November it was quiet and a delight to wander around the streets.

We visited Leonardo da Vinci’s last home at Amboise. Bernie loved the garden and was even more excited to have his Mona Lisa moment

Inside Leonardo was no longer there, but his cat was still on his desk studying his sketches

We even had an unseasonal snow fall before we left

Net stop was Cherbourg to catch up with Marie

All too soon we were boarding the ferry back to not so sunny England for a family Christmas, friends New Year, winter boat jobs, and a trip to sunny Australia.

Onward to France?

April 17, 2025 / fiandadrian / 0 Comments

The time had come to move on to the French coast where we were hoping to leave Away over winter. But our time at anchor had allowed our annual end of season rethink (we always end up changing our winter location). Visas, dogs, family and accommodation costs meant it would be more sensible to return to Falmouth.

A solid north easter ruled out a trip to Alderney which has little protection from that direction. But it did promise a fast sail across the channel. A local mentioned that once we past the overfalls it should be reasonably comfortable. Sorry, what overfalls? We couldn’t find mention of any overfalls north of Guernsey in any of our guide books and no rough water markers on the chart. We even read an article by a local saying they had never encountered overfalls in this area.

Leaving St Peters Port at that time of day

The 20-30 knots of north easterly wind met 4 knots of spring tide flushing us out of the Little Russel channel. We soon spotted a line of breaking waves. For the following half hour we tried to set the speed fast enough that we could control the boat and not turn side on the the waves, but slow enough as to spend as much time in contact with the water as possible.

Once clear of the overfalls we were trucking towards the English coast

Bernie recovered from his traumatic morning

We were making good progress and decided to head for the Dart. We found a visitors pontoon which was mostly empty this time of year. Apart from the naval college on the hill and associated maritime comings and goings there was a steam train chuffing in and out of the station across the river. It even accepted dogs possessing the appropriate ticket.

Changing to the other end of the train for the return journey

There is an observation car at the front of the train from which you can enjoy the scenery across to Kingswear

He may not have enjoyed the view, but any morsels of digestive biscuits carelessly dropped under the seats were duly cleaned up.

We enjoyed an explore up river on the local ferry and went for a walk.

A ferry up the Dart took us to the village of Dittisham where this guy was resting on the pontoon.

However, soon it was time to begin the trip west towards Falmouth. A quick passage to Plymouth was in order as we had never been there and the weather wasn’t looking too great.

On the way to Plymouth, we dropped in to the familiar Salcombe. On arrival we were dodging heavy rain showers and were quite surprised to find surfers on the bar as we passed. Perhaps a chunky swell, outgoing tide and shallow water were not ideal conditions to enter.

Up the river from Plymouth past the busy naval docks the river becomes altogether more relaxed

From our anchorage we dinghyed up to St German. Here the 32 arches of the St Germans viaduct built in 1908 carry the Plymouth to Falmouth railway across the river. We later became familiar with the train which we used to get to London on several occasions.

Time to leave the tranquility and head further along the coast.

Leaving Plymouth for Fowey was a beautiful day. Except we did manage to pick up some weed in the thruhull for the engine cooling. Our fancy new exhaust temperature sensor alerted us and Adrian went for a quick swim, in a wetsuit, and cleared the weed before we have a repeat of this years shenanigans.

Leaving Plymouth we had red sail conditions for the trip along the coast to Fowey.

We had visited the town of Fowey before so this time chose a walk along the coast north of the river.

After our beautiful walk in Fowey, it was time. Time to accept the season was over and we’d had an unlucky year. Time to accept that we didn’t get to France. No matter, there are other ways. Off we trot to Falmouth and our winter berth.