Nantes is one of France’s great provincial cities and stands – in the minds of the French – for the Atlantic West as Marseille stands for the South and Strasbourg for the East. Foreign visitors may be familiar with the city as the entry point to two of the country’s most famous tourist regions: Brittany,…
Holidays are full of surprises! Or at least, they should be because that, after all, is the very essence of a break: to abandon your every-day routines and their dull predictability. Not all surprises can be pleasant, of course, but the bad surprises are the price we have to pay for the travel experiences we…
If we have so far – with last week’s post and the dispatches from our previous trip to Brittany – given you the impression that this corner of north-western France is all stone, sunshine and dramatic rock formations, then today’s visit to the Ile Grande provides the perfect opportunity for setting things straight. This island…
All walks are different but the most interesting ones fall into one of three broad categories. First of all, there are mountain walks, which – to use a musical analogy – are a lot like opera. Full of excitement and drama, they always make you anticipate the next narrative twist along the route in the…
For almost a thousand years, Saint Malo has been the best defended town not only in Brittany but in the whole of France: the only one that has been continuously surrounded by a fully functioning defensive wall. There has, after all, always been a lot for Saint Malo to defend itself against: the extent of…
Having explored the Brittany coast to the west of Saint Malo for last week’s hike, we will today turn in the opposite direction. But although the landscape around Rothéneuf – the starting point for today’s exploration of the GR34 coastal path – may look familiar with its mix of dramatic scenery … … and more…
A few years ago, French hikers were asked to name their favourite hiking trail in the country, and it was the great Brittany stretch of the nationwide coastal path that received the largest number of votes. I don’t know whether this vote was a one-off or whether it is conducted every year or so, and…