I recently had the joy of spending two weeks camping on the coast of the Bretagne. We started in the north, by Le Mont Saint Michel, and then continued on the coast to Saint Malo and then made our way to the southern side at Concarneau and other small towns on the coast.
This was not a solo trip. In fact there were five of us and a RV was rented for it, four of us slept in the RV and one in a tent outside. This was my first RV experience and I’m not quite sure what I feel about it. On one hand it brings such a handy way to bring a home around, and see many different camping sites at once. On the other hand the logistics of its housing upkeep makes it a bit tedious and is antithetical to the whole minimalist concept of camping anyways.
It was good for this trip, but I think if I RV’d again, I’d need to be persuaded as to why it is the best means of travel, because I think I would much prefer simply road tripping with a tent in the back. But for 5 people I’d say it was great.
The Bretagne is really beautiful, and rather affordable in comparison to my trip in Norway! I like that it was much more laid back of an area, and that often finding dimes required some personal adventuring. I had many amazing hikes around the coast, and enjoyed riding my bike and just observing the marvel that is our world. The only complaint I have is with Le Mont St. Michel, it was PACKED with tourists. But perhaps if we had gone to the castle a bit earlier in the day we would have missed the crowd.
My favorite part was the Sculpture park in Saint Malo . It was really quite a site with sculptures carved into the stone dating back to about a 100 years. Another highlight came from visiting Les marais salants, which is a vast salt garden on the coast. Here water is gathered and lead through a series of smaller ponds until salt can begin to crystallize and be harvested, all done with an innovative use of gravity. It is quite an amazing work, and I learned a lot about salt harvesting in the process. I think we are often very desensitized to how the luxuries we enjoy (even in regards to something as simple as salt!) gets to us. I enjoyed learning about this process and to learn more yourself you can watch this video here. It is in french, but before you google the process I think it means a lot to see the work itself, and how the residents preserve the land, so watch the video first!
I had a great time with my friends, and I think I would do this trip again. but maybe a bit more minimalistically…
Pictures as followed:
Le Mont Saint Michel and coastal front
Saint Malo and coast line
Concarneau and neighboring cities/ coast
Que c’est beau!!