If I am going to continue to plough this furrow (the jury may still be out on that) I have to warn any benighted soul who is cleaving to this dog's breakfast of a post, any poor being who is gagging for the continuation of drivel already dished out prior to the new year at hand, I have to warn you dearest 'fan', that this first (possibly only) rant of 2025 simply records our proposed itinerary or progress associated with our planned spring visit; doing in a manner so as to act as an aide-memoire to your author, should he be spared long enough to forget the actualité and yet still have a wish to refresh his creaking synapses at some future date: like next month, week or tomorrow. In short, there is little for you here, especially if you still fail instinctively to cross-reference the Michelin A4 wiro bound Road Atlas of France with the itineraries below when wasting your time herewith, and are simply trawling through this blog in the hope of some crumbs of enlightenment. OK, I'll slot in a few images to alleviate the frustration my prose may elicit ……
Obvs, if you are so minded, you can read on; you may even pause to marvel at the lack of graphic inconsistency illustrated in the two routes planted here below (there would have been stern words and raised eyebrows if some quivering undergrad had dared to demonstrate such lack of attention in their work, back in the day when I enlightened tiny tots on the vagaries of information envisionment). It was only after Mme Melling did a cursory check on one or two hotels and such like, that we discovered we had better be getting things sorted. What is going on? Obviously it is half term in France as usual but coming back has proved to be a little nip and tuck, nip and tuck I can tell you: Hotels on holiday FGS! However, all seems to be well (Mme Melling usually prevails) and if our hotelier colleagues are true to their word, we should avoid being bed-less-of-a-night in either direction, outward as well as return.
As our preferred port of departure is not offering anything by way of sailings until April (port improvements or some such cop-out) and we want to be relocating in mid March, we are once again unfortunately required to be shipping out from distant Portsmouth, rather than our local quayside, Plymouth. This means, south bound, instead of favouring our original first choice Amboise shelter (as anticipated at stage one of this projection) we shall instead overnight in Saumur. That's OK, but a pity about Amboise. At least we will still have reached the Loire (where France begins properly I often feel).
In short, a diversion to eyeball Ver-sur-Mer, tick it off, and briefly visit the recently completed British Normandy Memorial thereat.
After that we shall motor on to our first hotel in:
thereafter we set course to our second hotel (and supper at Fred's) in:
Note that the third hotel is at St Félix-de-Lauragais (p318): a Logis-de-France but apparently with a Michelin starred restaurant. Thankfully for our skeletal resources there seems to be a transport café down the road apiece so we may not be over embarrassed: we know our place. With the truckers, and we won't have to dress for dinner even if we could.
But enough detail: peruse the itineraries herewith, if that is what vibrates your coracle. I just point out that several hotels and the routes to and from them have changed once or twice – to accommodate our maturing aspirations, particularly on the return, when the son-&-heir will be travelling with us. He gets a bit sniffy if we simply trundle back on over-familiar roads to oft frequented taverns. Why, we've even slotted in an extra jolly, only hours away from Sablet just so the lad can fill his lungs with some good sea air on the Sète seafront.
then it is generally northwards, up to
And he'll be doing that again (sucking in some more sea air, not romping in the Rochefort play area) before we fetch up, lodge, and embark at Roscoff where we will have our last overnighter and fish supper, because our barque does not slip its moorings until the morning tide is running.
The contrast between the Med and the Manche may be sobering on past form: it doesn't always rain overnight in Roscoff, or so we have been assured, by gnarled and rheumy-eyed fisherfolk cowering under s'westers quayside, with long years of recall and extensive memories to impart to any fair-game that passes by…
I was making that last bit up of course, embroidering if you like, local colour – I'm just trying to spice things up to keep your interest: no one would reminisce free of charge these days – I certainly wouldn't be caught putting my hand in m'pocket for such blindingly obvious baloney.
Mind you, I do this blog for free. Up to now that is …
