19th June – 21st June – Camaret Sur Mer
Well – the wind continued to come from the NE, blowing around 16-20kts. Other than that the weather was reasonably good. This part of the coastline is on one of the great French walks – the GR 34 path along the coast of Brittany from Camaret-sur-Mer to Audierne a glorious walk around rugged cliffs, wide headlands and gentle sandy beaches. There were tens of groups of walkers coming through in the days that I was there – quite large groups of 15-20 people.
Coincidently the walk started and finished at my two stops – Camaret and Audierne – but more the later later.
The town was orignally a fishing port – sardines and then the first lobster port in France. But no doubt EU policy and fishing quotas plus reducing fishing stocks had done for Camaret as a port. It is now a tourist location.
The town itself is centred around the quayside with many restuarants tempting you to moules and frittes or sardines – I did succumb. I tended to have lunch out with a beer and a cafe au lait plus fish of some description. Once you get behind the quaysaide you are into quiet bakstreets which were no doubt once fisherman’s cottages but now are probably AirBnB or second homes.
Even though it was the middle of June it still had an air of low seawson about it. I suspect this was partly due to the weather – everyone was growing weary of the incessant wind.
Importantly Camaret had a laundrette! I was on the verge of recycling until I got here. What is more it took credit cards and automatically dispensed soap. Whilst it was spinning around the machines I took advantage and had lunch two doors down!
Purrfect Tale 