We loaded up the panniers on our two touring bikes with enough gear for a week and meandered down the tow path along the Nantes β Brest Canal, to the Hotel Bon Repos. This is in a restored wing of the ruined 12th C Abbey de Bon Repos. What a great spot for four nights. The pretty gardens full of pink and blue hydrangeas β they were everywhere.
For our first picnic lunch of baguette, cheese, ham, tiny tomatoes, cherries, washed down with local cider, we sat on a bench at the side of the canal. So peaceful. This part of the canal is rarely used for boating now, due to a large hydro-electric dam nearby. Back at Bon Repos, we wandered through the abbey, so historic, magnificent. A portion has been partly restored, but most is left as ruins. Dating from c, there are cloisters, towers, ruined windows and arches, what a delight.
The road we wanted was closed to traffic but after an abortive detour, we found a muddy track suitable for walkers and cyclists across where a four-lane highway bypass is being built.
Cycling through rolling farmland, lovely little villages, the sides of the road were full of wildflowers, dominated by the glorious purple of fox-gloves. Dairy and beef cattle, sheep, and crops β wheat, barley, maize, oats, potatoes, peas, you name it, it grows in central Brittany. Lunch was another picnic sitting in the sun on a stone wall at the side of the road.
Forest and fields, signs to beware of deer and wild boar β but they were wary of us. After passing through a couple of tiny hamlets, we reached Rostrenen, quite a large town and centre of the region. The market was fascinating, tempting food of all kinds, clothes, flowers, cookware. The cherries and strawberries! Lunch was a beer and a croque-monsieur, sitting in the sun outside a bar, people watching - and marvelling at the cars and vans negotiating impossibly narrow spaces at the back of the market stalls.
