BRITTANY

I'm spending all these last weeks in France wandering here and there around Brittany.  I've already been to St. Malo, Dinard, Dinan etc and am now in the lovely town of Joselin which resounds with many tales of Merlin, Vivian, Knights etc.  Today I'm planning to go to that magic forrest and explore it and it's folklore.  The villages are just charming.  All those wonderful, half timbered houses leaning crookedly along winding streets in different colours.  They look just as if one has stepped in to a film set or an opera and a Mario Lanza will stick his head out of a top window to serenade a lovely girl.
Creperies and Galettes are for sale everywhere along with the boulees full of cider.

Dordogne, La Rochelle, St. Emilion and Ile de Re

I've been twisting my way along hopping over to the Dardogne area and lovely Sarlat and Domme although I would rather go there when it isn't full season.  St. Emilion was just lovely.  All the wine Chateau's and cobblestone ways.
The port city of La Rochelle is just beautiful.  A very lively place with hundreds of restaurants and all of them buzzing.  France has so many recreation areas, green spaces, large parks, playground, bike paths and lovely ports all along this Atlantic coast.  The island of Ile de Re is just across a bridge from La Rochelle.  An expensive bridge as the toll is 16 euros while the Ile d'Oleron is free to enter but Ile de Re is so special.  All white washed houses with hollyhocks growing up in front of them and shutters of green or grey usually.  The whole island has all those hundreds of criss crossed bike paths so one just parks the car and goes everywhere on bikes to all the main littles towns on the island.  I'm based in the capital St Martin at the moment and there's a jazz festival on so there's free concerts nightly.  Skies are blue, there's oyster shacks along the bike paths, the sun is shining so I'm off to hop on the bike again.

Long lovely beaches

St Martin's Port

Lunch

BUZET SUR BAISE

I've found that the most peaceful, lovely places to camp and take a pause are close to a harbour on the river ways here.  So many people travel by boat here and many live on their boats or at least spend summers on them.  It is all very well arranged with a young man opening and closing the locks and there's lot's of facilities in port.  Many of them have a camping area for free or low cost so I came here for one night and have stayed for five.
Today I'll move a bit to the east to Sarlat and Bergerac before I go to Bordeaux and La Rochelle.

 

BASQUE COUNTRY

As I get closer to Spain I began to see all the people going off to festivals each weekend and all of them dressed up in white with red or green kerchiefs, belts, shoes etc and in the camp sites the didn't get back until around 5 am very unusual for France and I realised I was approaching the Basque areas.  They look just like all those pictures of the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona and incidentally there's lots of bull fights and bulls celebrated around here.
The little village of Bastide St Clarence is over 700 years old and just lovely.  Their houses are in the national colours of white/red or white/green.  It's rare to see other colours like blue on a house.  The roofs are all red tiles.  I am in St Jean de Luz and was yesterday in Biarritz.  What felicitous cities with the long, clean beaches and the ocean right in town.  No wonder that it is so much livelier than other French regions I have visited.  People dance and look happy and have those great tans that I couldn't get if I was in the sun for a year.

Bastide St Clarence

St Jean de Luz

Biarritz

La Rhune mountain

PAU

The city of Pau is home to many students so it is lively and has many very historic buildings, wide streets and plazas plus wonderful views of the Pyrenees when the sky is clear.  This whole region seems much friendlier and open than those areas in more touristy places.  I'm sticking to villages as much as possible.  The camping site is free and right beside the city which is small so it was easy to stroll around.  Unfortunately the peaks did not show themselves while I was there.

The peaks are behind those lower clouds

MIRAFOIX MEDIEVAL FESTIVAL

I happened upon this great village by chance and it was their annual medieval festival.  It is a lovely place full of half timbered buildings and the old hotel has all these wonderful carved heads.  There was so much going on - sword fights, wrenches running after men, great make up on "the lepers", all sorts of games for the children, villagers lolling around on hay, magicians and musicians and wonderful costumes.

CARCASSONE

The first view of Carcassone is awe at the wonderful, enormous La Cite.  The huge fortress with a city inside it's walls.  Of course during July it is crowded with visitors, restaurants are full and touristy shops are full of the usual kitsch.  Still one can walk all around the huge edifice and around the old moat area virtually alone.