Brittany does have hedges

I've been staying just outside a small town called Rosporden about an hour west of Vannes while we've been sorting out final apartment bits and pieces. The house here is plonked right next to a beetroot field. Today I spent a lot of time arranging utilities, I have even spoken to the water company on the phone! But apparently it isn't possible to sort out the water on the phone...

Anyway, after this I was going to go for a stroll as the sun was still out, but a bike happened to be available for me to use! So I took off down the lanes, surrounded by HEDGES (some places in France just don't believe in hedges) and trees all lovely and autumnal. There were also cornfields and a farm with a big water-castle. I think it's dangerous for me to be on a bike with a speedometer. I was going at 30kmph on an incline heading towards 40kmph when I was nearing flat! I didn't really dare go at full pelt as this bike was a lot more powerful than my own (though the breaks worked well). I now really would like a speedometer, but am slightly worried it would distract me from important things like pedestrians in my way.

It was very nice to be out in the autumnal countryside anyway. Vannes has some parks but hopefully I will get out and explore - flatmate and I have plans to go out on Western horses. It's surprisingly a lot warmer than south of England even though we aren't that far away. Though 6.30am was quite fresh the other day it has been so pleasantly warm, save one windy windy day down at the port where I had my coat on.

Today I was recommended a whole host of places in Western Brittany to go to so I plan to make that a weekend job to visit. It is strangely parallel to England in many places - I was shown a river that looks just like the Dart with all its boulders, and I am going to hunt down the Land's end equivalent and its rocky cliffs when I can get there by car. This will either be stormy and dramatic in winter, or just a bit soggy. We'll see.

Vannes

I've had four days to look around the town and have done so to such an extent that my shoes are feeling a little worn down by cobbles and I could perhaps draw you a rough map of the place on a napkin leftover from various crêpe places. I say perhaps, because in reality despite having got to grips with Oxford's higgledy-piggledy layout and all its shortcuts and alleyways, Vannes seems to be a different kettle of fish (more to come on fish). In Oxford (and Edinburgh for that matter) small alleyways are logically shortcuts, like St Helen's Passage to The Turf, or cutting down right from the castle-terrace to Grassmarket. Here the arrangement of the old town has somehow meant that the smaller streets are still important ones with lots of shops on that you have to try and squeeze through. In places it's like diagon-alley, but a bit too kitsch. 

Meaning that my brain hasn't quite worked out how things join up. It's all very loopy. But the buildings jumble together so that you find something new every now and again by surprise. Just now I walked down the other side of the cathedral, the side without shops, and found that side to be far more jumbled than the other, it sort of looks like people had been adding bits year after year when new things came into fashion, but even more than happened to Winchester cathedral for example. 

There's a newer part of Vannes-centre as well, when I went to Monoprix after the pouring rain today I subsequently found somewhere to have a cup of Verveine tea that was more like Café Nero on the 'working whilst you have coffee' front, and less like the little tea-shops that are probably more like Madam Puddifoots and might've shoo'd me out for being soggy.

They nicely join up too. After I couldn't find a crêpe that wasn't Nutella by the port, I ended up walking quite a way in the opposite direction to the hostel and back to the newer part of town where I had seen other 'à emporter' signs. This had two bonuses, firstly because I found a crêpe Poirier/Belle Hélène (chocolate, pear and chantilly) but also that I walked back a route I hadn't done before, crossing underneath the city walls and walking the whole length of the Jardin des Remparts on the opposite side of the old town and thus being able to see it all from a distance. The fact there is a sort of terraced park, full of enormous chestnut trees over this side of the stream meant that the view was also from a bit of a hight, making all the layers of the jumbly buildings visible right up to the cathedral. The rain had turned into slight evening sunshine and nice fresh park, but alas did not have my camera. Neither did I earlier when there was a bright-yellow market stall of sunflowers this morning, oops.  

Anyway, digression! I like this about towns on hills. Oxford does not have this. Being ridiculously flat makes it quite claustrophobic and not quite as interesting as it could be. You can only ever see more than a few towers at once if you are miles away in Port Meadow. This is where Edinburgh gets a lot of points, because it couldn't have more hills if it tried. You can see other parts of town as you are walking around. You know where you are going and you don't feel squashed, because sometimes you see a hill or  snow capped mountain (if you are lucky enough to have wandered off the street into the botanic garden). Suddenly you are walking along a road and you realise that it is after all a bridge. Or you look out the back of a café to find you are actually quite a few floors up and almost level with the castle. But in a way that doesn't make your brain melt. Vannes currently feels a bit like an Escher picture when your inside, but pleasant when you can see it from a distance,like when I went for a bike-ride yesterday out towards the Gulf, or in Place Valencia because it leaves a little bubble of space. 

Edit: I managed go back today which was a lot more grey, but have the same view.

Roads

I like this guy, I've seen him in the old town and right down by the port. He gets around!

Here he is demonstrating use of the zebra crossing, which I haven't got the hang of, because whether people stop for you or not is entirely random.

La Carotte

As a bit of recompense for the slightly damning account of last nights dinner, here’s a little about a very friendly little place I had lunch today. 

La Carotte on Place de Valencia had caught my eye before because of its orange-rabbit sign general plastic-colourfulness, but a small enough place to fit cosily among the old buildings). Today I wandered past and noticed there was a deal on to have vegetable crumble and soup together for 8€ so went back around lunchtime. Its name does quite well to explain what La Carotte is like. My food was fresh and a little bit cute, and still quite French and recommended to me by a sweet waitress pointing out things on a giant board. I was once again one of the earlier customers, aside from a young English couple and their high-chaired infant so she was not yet in the rush of full tables - about 10 outside altogether.

I normally wouldn’t order mushroom soup as I don’t know if I’ve ever had a good experience, but I wanted to be full up and get good value for money. And this turned out not to be mushroomy water, but quite flavoursome. And served in a mug! The crumble sounded like a good idea, with mostly onions and aubergine tapenade but I think I had too high expectations for fresh veg, because it turned out so salty that I drank my whole carafe of water. I think the English must be thought to undercook their veg, because I’ve really got used to things that you actually have to bite through when you eat them. In my experience on the continent vegetables are cooked to buggery. (Is that a term any one else even uses?) 

Just to add to that, my pudding was really, really lovely. I even saw the waitress run across the square to ask something to a man sitting outside the crêperie, who must’ve been some fruit provider, because she came back with apples or nectarines, which then seemed to be hand chopped into tiny pieces and served in one of those glass jars that seal with metal. That was as fresh and hand made as you’d get! 

Altogether really sweet, the crumble came with salad and a cucumber bit arranged sort of like a face. I think I would go back and try their bagel and fruit smoothies :-)  

http://lacarotte.kazeo.com/

Acropolis

By the end of my third day living off of bread and crêpes and other bits picked up around town (due to being in a hostel without the slightest sign of cooking equipment) I decided it was time for some nutrients. Dining out alone is an experience travel writing likes to have a song and dance about sometimes. It is probably talked about in Eat Pray Love and has equally been claimed to get your mind used to being Alone if you are going for a long, long trip where you will be Alone.

I don’t mind buying and eating food alone, say on a park bench. I do this a lot when I have to read for an essay or I am in a hurry and eat on various steps like those on Broad St. I like watching people pass by. Here in Vannes this has the added bonus of people being so into food that quite like to comment on what you’ve got. I have already had about three people wish me ‘bon appetit’ as they walk past and I am struggling with the complexities of a rather-big-galette. Which is kind.

Going out for a meal just seems more a more communal event, where you don’t just pay money for the food (more to come), but for the atmosphere and experience of eating out. It’s not that this experience is impossible alone - it was still a pleasant evening and I sat outside - but having a meal is something I quite like to share if I am shelling out. 

So stuck in a bit of a conundrum compromised on Good Food (lack of wanting to spend money but a need for some vegetables, coupled with not being to savvy about eating alone) I had bit of an unfruitful wander on my second night and got chips. Last night  I walked around the whole old town about twice looking for somewhere I could slink into quietly and hide in a corner. I found Acropolis just off Rue Thiers on the way up the hill to the Hotel de Ville. No one else was there yet, but by the second time I passed it I had to go in. I very nearly wussed out and got a take-away portion to eat by the port, but got over myself and, after they didn’t have any vegetable moussaka left, I ordered stuffed aubergine and decided that being alone meant it was food critic time and that I would be somewhere in a Guardian supplement in no time.

Altogether I paid 13,00€, and what arrived was a brimful-basket of Greek bread (I did not fill up on this due to my bread quota being completely surfeited this week) and a decently sized main plate of aubergine, salad and bulgar wheat. The salad was fine enough: normal onions cucumber and tomatoes with a bit of lettuce, all made a bit better by a dollop of yogurt on the side. The bulgar wheat, well, I have had really nice bulgar wheat before. This was a bit sticky, mostly adhered with something tomato-y.  The aubergine itself was well cooked and stuffed with a mystery stuffing that was blended to indistinction, but had in it peppers and onions for sure and tasted good enough with some roasty peppers on top. 

While I enjoy most food put in front of me and especially enjoyed this because of its high percentage of veg, I have two minds when it comes to eating out: usually falling into impressed, or not, but more specifically the first is in the line of Lasagne in The Queens in New Quay, impressively home made from scratch during the time we were there. The latter category is a bit underwhelmed and soggy, sitting around waiting for someone to reheat it. I judge the latter perhaps unfairly, because I feel the point of eating out is to have something you could not make more satisfactorily, easily, or freshly, at home. Unfortunately Acropolis’ augergine fell into the latter because of one deciding factor: sitting a bit sadly in the counter before I ate it.

I know food being cooked to order is not the best way of doing things, especially with an erratic clientele, but there’s something about hearing a couple of microwave beeps whilst you’re sitting outside for your 13,00€ meal that doesn’t seem quite right. Reheating things for convenience is all very well, but if you’re paying? Perhaps we shouldn’t have comparative expectations for what we’d make at home when we eat out, or maybe we should all go for 2 for £10 main courses back in New Quay and stop complaining.

The waitress there was by contrast a bit more lively and seemed happy to serve me and recommend me food, as I was the first customer. In some ways it pays to eat early (I went around 7.20)  if you are alone, so that you are not an inconvenience to hoards of families gathering. Then you can hop up and leave before the main crowds arrive. Altogether it seems more acceptable to eat out on your own at lunch time where things are  a more casual affaire instead of familiy celebrations over hours of food, the convivialité of which just doesn’t work alone. My resolution was yesterday was to find somewhere at lunch time to have a big plate of something filling, but time did not allow. So that’s for next time thank you hindsight.

Cats

Between Rennes Gare and Vannes, I saw at least three people carrying cats in baskets. Maybe there was a cat convention, or maybe it's just that cats like to travel more in France?

In other news, the Telegraph has resorted to giving itself away free when you buy water in WH Smiths.