The coastal road westwards finally gets to the coast at the bay and village of St Michel-en-Grève, site of a memorable spring holiday for the Melling Smiths some years back. You'll find the place getting honourable mention in my sister blog phares sighted but today we simply pass by, pass round the grey sand bay (Lieue-de-Grève) and then go tootling down minor roads on the headland opposite (the Corniche de l'Armorique etc), to visit that shoreline or this excrescence: I won't detain you with the detail, we all need to get on, and in our case we need to get on that ferry.
At last a very distant view of Triagoz Islands (mysteriously omitted from p72 Michelin) is obtained through passing flocks of fishing gannets: crowning this achievement, the unmistakeable stack of the phare itself. Result! The weather isn't quite as gloomy as my snap suggests of course, it is bright – but not exactly sunny at the moment the image is secured. Sorry about that sailing dinghy.
Need to brush up on your knowledge of this distinctive light? Why not visit my post on the subject– you know you want to: here is a link: triagoz explained
We drive on after visiting sundry other viewpoints, and then proceed by the littoral-hugging road right up (to Morlaix) and back down the ria that connects Morlaix to the sea. Here comes another view that fills our hearts with pleasure, so very inadequately captured here, no doubt the subject of many a box-brownie output, the view to the Rade-de-Morlaix. A roadside montage! A festival of cardinals, land-marks, islets, buoys, mussel beds, minor lights and even a fort. Mercifully free of pedaloes, luxury yachts, dinghies and other blots on the seascape, this quiet sabbath morning.
Need to know more about the two lighthouses featured in these views? Of course you do! Visit my post on said stretch of briney by clicking on this link! And excuse any repetition you might detect by so doing, I'm only human.
But now our time is almost up. We must away to the pleasures of the ferry check in, no time even to wander into Roscoff central, and no inclination to either as it is reputedly a french holiday weekend and past experiences suggest that Roscoff then tends toward honeypot status. We are content to sit out the last hour quayside before being called onto a lightly loaded Armorique, to sail off across the mill flat waters which separate us from the gloomy coast of distant Albion. Yes we have a cabin, should we wish to isolate ourselves from other voyagers, but this boat is so quiet we take our reading matter into the bow windows where we eat both lunch and supper. We dock in the gathering gloom of a Plymouth Saturday evening and are off and out on the road to North Devon in as little as twenty minutes.
Before we leave Fr terra firma and when we profer our passports to Fr customs, it is pointed out that my passport has no entry stamp. I know. Spotted that a few days after arriving via St Malo. Her colleague there fell down on the job but stayed focussed long enough to stamp both Dr G and Mme Melling's PPs. So, the Roscoff officer informs us, she cannot issue an exit stamp to my good self as I am not in France, er – technically. Ah. I suspected as much.
So if I want to come to France tomorrow (she goes on to explain) I will be able to stay in the Republique, and in the EU in general, up to the full 90 day limit in any 180 day period now operational (after the Brexshit f**k-up took away our EU citizenship – these last words mine, not hers). Whereas Mme Melling? --- only 42 days remaining for her, should we decide to turn right round and come into Fr, that is: arrivals, rather than departures, as it were.
Don't tempt us!
Got to get some gardening done, etc. etc.
but then we'll be back, sometime in late June, if we are spared.
Watch this space!
