{"id":168,"date":"2018-09-13T16:33:28","date_gmt":"2018-09-13T16:33:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=168"},"modified":"2026-08-17T05:59:49","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T05:59:49","slug":"france-2018-09","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=168","title":{"rendered":"FRANCE 2018. 09"},"content":{"rendered":"

We crossed the causeway to the \u00cele Tascon about five minutes after the water stopped ebbing across the roadway. \u00a0Actually, I think it was still just flowing because we got our feet wet!<\/p>\n

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Once the road dries the tide continues to ebb via a number of underground ducts. This creates whirlpools…<\/p>\n

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Fortunately they aren’t big enough to suck a fully grown adult underwater, but they might catch the odd baby – or an unwary duck!<\/p>\n

One of our last walks on the peninsula took us around one of the gulf-side promontaries to Le Moulin de Pen Castel – a tidal mill.\u00a0 Strictly speaking, a tidal ex-mill.\u00a0 Now a tourist attraction describing the old mill’s activities, with a cafe and an art exhibition.\u00a0 Except it was closed when we were there – so I’m making the exhibition bit up slightly.\u00a0 We stopped for a picnic…<\/p>\n

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… with a distant view of the mill..<\/p>\n

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Close up, it was clear that the mill had been well gentrified:<\/p>\n

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The coastal path turned out to be a great source of sloes.\u00a0 Sloe gin, here we come!\u00a0 \u2665<\/p>\n

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I guess we picked about a kilo and a half.\u00a0 Too much for our supply of gin (2 litres).\u00a0 So now we need some more alcohol and if we aren’t careful, we could end up short of the berries.\u00a0 This could go on a bit and we might fnish with 15 litres of the purple liqueur!<\/p>\n

One of the coastal oyster vendors was seen flying an interesting flag:<\/p>\n

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There must be some connection here!\u00a0 Brittany, Wales, Isle of Man, Cornwall, Scotland and Ireland.\u00a0 I can’t imagine what the common ground would be with that lot!!!<\/p>\n

We’ve managed to get this far without comment on “road furniture”.\u00a0 Road narrowing, chicanes, raised central sections of roadway – the French have the lot.\u00a0 In spades!\u00a0 It’s so dangerous.\u00a0 They put them in all the places where one should be concentrating on not knocking over young children or dogs (or even old fogies).\u00a0 Instead you have to reserve all your attention and evasive manoeuvres for the raised and wobbly kerbs which threaten to dismember tyres and other running gear.\u00a0 The amount of tyre rubber adorning the raised bits is a clear indication of how difficult it is navigating some of the villages.<\/p>\n

And speed bumps!\u00a0 Some of them – a few – are sensible and adequate to reduce speed to the local limit. \u00a0Most, however, are constructions of a similar magnitude to Stonehenge. \u00a0 Massive raised platforms with approach slopes of about 45 degrees. Some of them extend 20 or 30 metres in length.\u00a0 These monsters are big enough to slow cars to less than 20 kph. \u00a0With a caravan in tow, 10 kph is really the safe limit. \u00a0It must do untold damage to cars’ suspensions. \u00a0I’m amazed that the French put up with them – and, it’s true to say, that we have seen places where these offending obstacles have been removed leaving massive scars on the original road surface. \u00a0The most effective calming measures are the unrepaired roads in towns and cities where unfilled potholes and generally a rough surface maintains a steady pace.\u00a0 That or cobbles!<\/p>\n

Our wedding anniversary was celebrated one day early – or two years and a day early depending on which one we are talking about! \u00a0(The awning had to come down on our anniversary so we could be ready to leave the next day.)<\/p>\n

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Nine of us, lots of candles, wine, cider and raspberry tart (thanks for that guys!). \u00a0A great evening.\u00a0 Oh, and one card! \u00a0Opened very carefully aware of the senders’ penchant for dosing their envelopes with tiny silver stars and other similar crap which takes weeks to eliminate from the caravan’s carpets! \u00a0I think I’ve mentioned this before. \u00a0However, on this occasion, the glitter was safely contained behind a cellophane window! \u00a0Thanks B & S.<\/p>\n

Shame we have to leave. \u00a0We didn’t quite complete the full coastal walk – AND it’s the women’s volleyball final this weekend! \u00a0I needed To get a better photograph!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We crossed the causeway to the \u00cele Tascon about five minutes after the water stopped ebbing across the roadway. \u00a0Actually, I think it was still just flowing because we got our feet wet! Once the road dries the tide continues… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-france-2018"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=168"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8091,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168\/revisions\/8091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}