Normally a trip to the laundry would not provide a highlight but after the housekeeping we walked to the old castle at the harbour entrance and ate lunch.This large town has the largest fish market in France and the harbour is full of small and large fishing boats. It was no surprise that the seafood at the restaurant was good. My poisson pot was full of fish, mussels, cockles and other shellfish with potatoes, zucchini, cabbage, carrot and asparagus cooked in a fish stock and cream. Magnifique! I didn’t eat dinner that night.
Port Manech
As the hotel in Pont Aven was booked out, we drove 10 minutes to the coast to Port Manech, which is a quiet town with houses built in narrow streets leading down to the water. The bay is lovely, full of pleasure craft and one orange fishing boat which pulled up at the wharf as we arrived. It unloaded its catch to the anxious looks of 40 or so onlookers who proceeded to line up in an orderly fashion to purchase it all from a large lady with a small set of scales she used to weigh it all out One small, old woman filled a large shopping bag with small crustaceans, to the ever increasing worried looks of those behind who were hoping for their share. I sat and drew the port and boats as the weather closed in.
Pont Aven
Sharon leapt from the car in traffic into the doorway of a hotel and luckily there was a vacancy in the hotel which was a house when Paul Gauguin and other artists of his anti-impressionist school stayed there. I can well understand how he and others got their inspiration from this area. The town is busy but its beauty deserves it to be. The walled stream runs through the town, under and around buildings where water wheels once provided power. They now provide a lure to tourists like us to spend money in shops, restaurants and bars which abound. The hotel room was on the third floor and overlooked the main square where the statue to Gauguin is. As it was Bastille Day, there was a fete on the port just near our hotel. Music, food and bars were providing entertainment for hundreds who were waiting for the fireworks at 11:30. We ate, moules (mussels) for me and crepes for Sharon. They were a good entrée for the main show of fireworks which was accompanied by “Land of Hope and Glory”. The French, playing British music to the grand finale to Bastille Day, was an amusing irony.