12/08/2016

. . . and brighten our return


OUR RETURN was a splendid progression and I can do no better than to refer you to the route we took, with minor alterations and adjustments, to bring us back to the Contentin peninsula and our ferry back to Poole and the motherland.

We did not take the Utah beach variation, in case you were wondering (no, I know you weren't, wondering, at all, why would you?).

 As usual we were brought up a little short at the seemingly impossible temperature drop as we came north. Angers was a delight and the hotel pretty good too, right in the centre. We ate superb crepes there. Cahors was our first overnight stop after calling in on Jo, Peter and Nell in Mèze, for a protracted chinwag and town square breakfast.

And thus to another bunch of phares, eastern side of the Contentin, mostly known to us but now recorded a little more thoroughly with d'camera. Excellent fish lunch in St Vaast. No climb up the superb Gatteville light this time, (3rd highest stone lighthouse in the world!) far too many doing the 365 steps to the top – we prefer off season for such exploits. Of course we have climbed it — last time we passed this way . . . Noted that many ascenders seemed to have done so just to get a signal, mobile-wise!  Cap Lévy (another distinctive lighthouse of Contentin) bypassed too this time,  although spotted from several points. But next year's calendar was secured at the shop below Phare-de-Gatteville, lighthouse themed naturally. Incidently, the Bretville lights (anterieur and posterieur) shown below are more commonly called Becquet,  the harbour of the afore-mentioned Bretville, but who cares, I am sure you don't.





I intend in the fullness of time (and if I am spared) to complete this blog with a what-happened-in-between-the-out-and-the-in covering note, but who reads it anyway,  I ask myself?