Walking: Pont ar Daf to Dyffryn Cellwen

It had been quite a long week and I really felt like I needed to stretch my legs and give my mind a chance to just wander aimlessly, preferably in a location where there weren't other people.  So I decided to go on a long walk in the mountains.  For ease, I wanted to start somewhere where Ed could drop me off on his way to work, but I also wanted some parts of it to be in an area I hadn't been to before with some off-path sections so I planned on heading up Fan Fawr and then just going west.

I knew the weather wasn't going to be good and a little bit chilly, but it was meant to clear up a little as the day went by (though that didn't really happen).  I made sure I wore a number of layers and had more in my bag, along with a thermos of hot tea to make sure I was able to stay at the right temperature throughout the day and in case anything bad happened so I could protect myself from the elements.  I also took both my walking poles to give myself a bit more stability when crossing any rivers and when going through the boggier areas.  As an additional safety assurance, and because my route wasn't 100% fixed, I set my WhatsApp so that my husband could see where I was at any time.

So, from Pont ar Daf I headed to Storey Arms and up onto Fan Fawr, straight into the clouds.  It wasn't actually as cold as I was expecting, but it was as wet as predicted and I knew that my feet weren't going to stay dry for very long (I had also packed my trainers, some dry socks, and a miniature towel for when I finished - a luxury for sure, but definitely a good one).  However, I find as long as I can keep my body warm my feet do just fine in these conditions.

From the top of Fan Fawr I headed towards the trig point and then north with the plan of cutting across west a little bit later to look at some old, unused sheepfolds on Nant (brook) y Gaseg.  Unfortunately, at that point I couldn't see far enough in the front to be able to navigate properly so I decided to follow a path I already knew which would lead me to Nant Mawr, a tributary I could follow down to Nant y Gaseg.  From there it would be easy enough to find the sheepfolds.  As I was following this I finally came out of the clouds and could see them ahead of me and this allowed me to then take a more direct route.  

After a little nosey around it was time to cross over the brook.  It took a little while to find a safe spot as the water had risen quite a bit in the rain and the main issue was not trying to not get my feet wet (this had already happened) but more that you could see the rocks were a little bit too slippery to use safely.  However, I did finally find somewhere and I was very glad I had my walking poles with me.  Then it was straight up the very steep east side of Fan Llia back into the clouds.  If I'm honest, I actually quite enjoy walking in cloud cover and mist.  You may not get the views, but there's something very magical about it and I love how easy it is to mis-interrupt things you see in the distance and the changed noises that reach you.  

The plan was to then find a route down the west side of Fan Llia, cross the road, and look for a route around the side of Fan Nedd that would take me to the actual path leading to the top.  However, visibility had gotten even worse by this point and I knew this wasn't going to be a safe option at all.  So I changed my plans and decided to just follow the Beacons Way off Fan Llia and onto the Roman road I was planning on following later, leaving Fan Nedd for another day.  I have walked this path before so I took the slightly lower route this time, not that I could really see anything to make this really feel any different.  It was, of course, raining pretty heavily once I'd reached the bottom and it was time to have my lunch.  Nothing that a good, hot cup of tea couldn't fix though.

Then it was onto the Roman road for 2.5 hours.  I'd already walked just under half of this before when I had walked this section of the Beacons Way, and I have to grudgingly admit the other half wasn't any more fascinating than the first.  Up until this point, I hadn't bothered listening to anything on my headphones as I was enjoying the more natural noises of brooks, rain, and wind.  This time of year also meant that there weren't even livestock noises out on the hills, but now I needed a little bit of extra distraction so I put on some podcasts I'd been saving.  It was also quite a straightforward walk from here on so I could afford to concentrate less on where I was going.

As expected, it did get a little bit more complicated when I was walking through farmland and I ended up not being able to finish the very last part how or where I wanted.  Instead, I ended up walking along a B road which allowed me to look into the fields where the Roman fort and camp were meant to be.  It turns out there wasn't actually too much to see so I didn't feel like I'd missed out too much.  Then it was onto Dyffryn Cellwen to meet up with a friend who kindly drove me to get a pint or three.  Though things didn't exactly go to plan this walk was still exactly what I needed and, though physically tired, I felt much better afterward.  I also ended up with a lot more energy again, managing to get quite a lot done in the days following that walk.  It's definitely something I need to remember to fit into my days a lot more often.

Visiting St Fagans National Museum of History

St Fagans is an open-air museum containing buildings (mostly homes) either relocated or reconstructed from around Wales and from different time periods in our history.   They also hold some of the artifacts that people from those times would have used when living in those spaces.  These are actually the types of museums that interest me the most as you get to have an idea of how everyone got to live, rather than just the rich few.  

Unfortunately, we didn't have time to look at all the buildings properly as there is so much to see and some were not open to the public this time around.  There were a couple that I really wanted to see, but that just means that we'll need to return sometime soon.  And, now that I know what there is there I can go back with more specific questions in mind and maybe even get some ideas about what to have in our home when we finally get around to getting it.

I did end up taking a lot of photos of buildings and interiors, more specifically of structural things like up close-ups of stone walls and the weaving inside the thatched rooves.  There are also quite a few of the gardens where they were using their greenspaces to grow vegetables and keep livestock rather than just for growing flowers.

It's interesting to see what people used to use in their everyday lives, especially at a time when they would also make their own clothes and textiles or have to make all their food right from scratch, as well as the objects that persisted for centuries, such as the cawl spoon.  For some reason, I'm always interested in fireplaces.  I think because for many years they were used for more than just heating and because you can get an idea about what types of things people were eating based on what hardware was around the fires.  Unlike what I've seen in many other places a lot of the cottages and farmhouses fires only had space to put a kettle on or just one pot in which they probably cooked cawl.  However, I do know there was often a communal bread-baking oven in the villages so they wouldn't need this in their homes at least.

We'll definitely be back to have another look around, especially of the buildings we didn't get to see time around.  The only things that we didn't quite enjoy were the blacksmith and the weaving demonstrations that were happening, which were both underwhelming.  However, we might have just turned up at the wrong times.  It's always interesting to me that the number of skills that I would like to learn were in fact completely commonplace not so long ago.  So, having a look at these homes and seeing how these skills were woven into their everyday lives is always of interest.

Travelling: Saint Brieuc

We finally got around to properly booking some time away and, because of the ease of getting there, we decided to go to Brittany.  Ed did some research on the area and, based on what we wanted to get out of this holiday which was mostly taking it easy, decided that Saint Brieuc would be a good place for us to stay.  It was somewhere where there were a few things to see but not too many that we would feel like we would need to rush around and see them all, and all of them were reachable either by walking or public transport as we weren't planning on taking the car with us.

As we went with Brittany Ferries we landed in Roscoff, then it was a pretty quick and easy bus and train trip to Saint Brieuc.  It was a Sunday so not too many places were actually open once we'd gotten there, but we still had a while before we could get into our Airbnb so we pottered around getting to know the centre a little bit.  We had decided not to take our rucksacks this time, but instead put everything in one big bag on wheels.  Whilst it prevented our backs from getting all sticky it was a bit of a pain to pull around and we definitely packed much more than we actually needed, so maybe we'll need to re-think that next time we go anywhere.  We did get a few groceries though and then got settled into the apartment we had rented.  The place had everything we needed, but the shower wasn't as good as I had been hoping.

The plan was to have Monday as a slow day where we didn't really do anything so it was probably just as well that that ended up being the day that I got my usual holiday sickness.  I'm not entirely sure what it is about travelling, but I always end up with a cold of some form for a least one day.  Maybe it's just all the new people and viruses that I come across, but I'm glad it happened that day as it normally happens nearer the end of the holiday.  It also meant that Ed had to go out and do all the sorting and food buying that I would normally have done.  In fact, this holiday he actually got to experience what our holidays look like from my side rather than his.

Tuesday was the one day where the weather was meant to be pretty good throughout, so that was the day that we decided to go visit the La Baie de Saint-Brieuc Nature Reserve.  We got a bus to Hillion and then walked the very short distance to where there was a hide.  We ended up being the only people there and the views of the bay and salt marshes were really good.  Unfortunately, we were a bit off with the tide which meant that the waders were too far away from us, even when using my binoculars.  There was still a good selection of waterfowl though and it was nice realising that I did still recognise most of them.  We also realised that we would be able to walk back to Saint Brieuc on a route that mostly stayed by the coast.  It ended up being three hours long and my legs and feet definitely felt it by the end, probably not helped by me still being a little bit ill, but it was still a really good way to get back home and it helped give my body an airing after being couped up whilst travelling and being ill indoors.

Wednesday was our city day where we had a look at the local market, looked around the museum (small but with quite a lot of information mostly on old local trades and crafts), a quick look in the tourist information centre, and then walked the city tour they have that shows you the significant historical buildings of the city.  The tour was actually my favourite bit, though we hadn't originally planned on doing it, and we got to see some amazing 17th-century and 18th-century buildings.  I'm not sure if they would have been originally painted in the colours they now are but it definitely made the interesting carvings stand out.  I haven't been to too many places in the UK where we have these types of buildings still standing, so it was interesting to see so many of them here.  We also found a very tasty, vegan restaurant (La Vegetalerie) to have lunch in and get in some much-needed vegetables.

We had already decided that Thursday was going to be the more relaxed day with some more walking and headed off to the port through La Vallee de Gouedic Park which runs right through the centre of Saint Brieuc.  It's within quite a steep valley with lots of trees and is actually a very nice and relatively quiet walk despite being right in the centre of the city.  The port wasn't all that exciting to see, though it did look like it had some nice cafes and bars, and we did our usual boat looking.  However, we did head back pretty quickly after arriving and used that time to start packing everything up ready for travelling back to the UK.

The next two days were basically travelling days with some time in Roscoff.  We headed to Roscoff on Friday morning and pottered around for a bit looking for some presents for family and friends, as well as some stuff for us we really didn't need but wanted until we could book into our hotel.  We were actually able to book in pretty early on in the day, which was just as well as I was feeling particularly tired that day and was more than happy to just get into bed as soon as we got into the room.

Before we caught the ferry on Saturday we did manage to visit the little church that we had seen from afar the last time we were there but didn't get to go to.  You can't actually get into the building and it would be much too small to hold services in, but its location meant that fishermen are able to see it when they're heading out to sea.  We had decided to get a cabin on the trip back, even though this one wasn't an overnight trip, and I'm glad we did as it meant we were able to get some extra sleep in especially during the stormiest sections.  The trip had already been delayed a little due to the stormy weather, but there is something quite nice about being rocked around whilst lying in bed.

So, this wasn't a packed trip but we did get what we were hoping for, which was to see more of Brittany without rushing around and to get the downtime we both needed.  Where we were did mean that I ended up eating much more gluten and dairy than I would normally, even with us cooking our own food at night, but it was worth it to have those lovely warm croissants every morning which Ed very kindly went out and got every time.  We also spent a lot more money than we should have done, especially on food and despite cooking for ourselves at night, but I did think that was probably going to happen based on how we are about food.  Brittany is definitely an area we would return to, but I think we'll try a different location with a little more to do next time. 

Walking: Failing at a local walk

I was a little ill a while ago and one of the things I like to do when I'm recovering is to go for a bit of a walk to help stretch my body out after being stuck indoors for a few days and to get some fresh air into my sinuses and lungs.  I had previously thought about taking a walk in the mountain, but then the sensible part of my brain realised that probably be a bit too much to start with and I decided to go on a local walk instead.

I did think that a local walk would be easy enough to plan and do, especially after having a good look at my OS map (and a quick check on the app to make sure it was up to date).  However, it didn't exactly go to plan.  In fact, it didn't go to plan at all.  Firstly, the path I had originally planned to take was closed, which I had kind of expected as there has been a lot of infrastructure done to the area due to the large road works taking place and they have been doing some work on changing the way the water drains off the hills onto the road (or not onto the road).  But then the second route I tried to take was also blocked by a lot of fencing and, I'm guessing, the same work that had shut off the first.  However, the weird thing about this path block is that there was a new footpath sign there pointing in the direction you can no longer, not just on one place but two.  This is a little bit confusing.

After skirting around the fencing I got onto a bike way, which I followed in the same direction I had originally planned on going in the hope it would get me to the path I had mapped out earlier.  There was a stile at this part so I thought that this path at least was still accessible.  However, this also turned out to not be the case.  The route was relatively easy to find, but there were a number of places were there had obviously been stiles at one point, but they weren't there anymore.  I did double check to make sure I was one one of the public footpaths as I never like walking on someone's private land when there is no established path there, but it all matched up and I also wasn't the only person walking that route that day as there was also a couple also trying following a map.  We got through the section but did, unfortunately, end up right outside someone's house.  This is never where you want to end up, but we were able to get back onto the road and out of their way pretty quickly.

I had planned on having a relatively long walk that day, but after the complications of the morning I decided to just call it for that day and try again at some other time.  When I got home I did double check the route again and do some searches to see if there was any information on the changes being made to the area, but couldn't find any.  It was a little bit frustrating, not due to the possible changes in route and access, but because the information about these possible changes were not readily available.  I'm not sure if it's worth contacting the local authority to find out what is happening as I don't want to make the same mistake again in the future and I'm obviously not the only one making this mistake.  Hopefully the next time I attempt to go for a local walk I'll have a bit of a better outcome.

Being a Tourist 2023

Now that we are properly settled in here in Wales it's a good time to really start exploring what there is for us to see and do.  We've always felt that we didn't really explore Devon properly when we had the chance and we really don't want to make the same mistakes whilst we're here.  Especially as there is so much for us to see and explore around here.  Obviously, we are still trying to keep our spending low to help with our long-term goals, but we don't want this to be at the complete expense of enjoying ourselves now.  Thankfully, most of what we like doing is free /cheap and we have also been given a Cadw membership as a gift which has opened up even more things we can explore for free.

After doing a little bit of looking around we now have an initial list of places we want to see, walk, and swim around that are close to us, along with a couple of helpful books that will be useful as we're still getting to know the area.  This should make it easier for us to quickly make a decision about what we're going to do when we have time off.  Once we have more of a clue we can start working out our own walks to explore even more of the areas we've gotten to know.   One thing I definitely want to make sure that I do is explore the walks that are right outside our doorstep as it's all too easy to only think about walking in the Beacons, but then I'd be missing out.

As we've just started out we haven't crossed off too many things yet.  There is also the slight issue of our mismatching work shifts which means that we don't get as many days off together as we would like.  Though we would like to visit as many of these places together as we can, there have been some walks that we've done on our own just so we can still get out and see things.  We also want to fit these around learning to surf, but this just means that we have to be a little bit more organised to fit all these in.

Most of the places we've been about to cross off on our 'tourist board' I've already written about, but the most recent one was the Blaenavon Ironworks.  This turned out to be a very enjoyable day and also involved us having a little exploration around Blaenavon itself.  It's actually very close to where we live so I'm not entirely sure why we haven't visited it already.  It's very interesting to see how we use to make iron, but I personally really liked the workers' cottages that were on site and which they had decorated in the different styles of the decades that the cottages were lived in.  They seemed the perfect size for what we would like now, but maybe with a bathroom added on rather than just an outhouse down a lane.  There are a couple more industrial sites we would like to explore near us, especially as these played such an important role to those who lived here in southern Wales.

One thing we want to concentrate a little more on is wild swimming as we haven't done too much of that yet.  The warmer weather that is meant to be coming our way would make this the perfect time to really give this a go.  At least now we have all the equipment that we need to do this comfortably and we can just head out to a spot and enjoy it.  In fact, it would probably fit perfectly with surfing practice.

Walking: Sugar Loaf

This was a very quick walk that we did in May, so this will be a very quick post about it.  Sugar Loaf was on our list of walks we would like to do and as we were needing to go to Abergavenny any way we decided to fit this in as well.  There are a number of different routes that can take you different amounts of time, but we decided to do one that would take us around 1.5 hours.

We parked in the car park just below the National Trust car park and headed up the hill turning left onto the main path that takes you to the top.  We decided to take the path that curves as it goes up the hill as this seemed to be the gentlest and my legs were a little soar after all the walking I had done that week at work.

The views you get from the top are beautiful, at least on a clear day, and you get a great view across the Usk valley towards the Brecon Beacons.  However, we didn't stay too long as there were quite a few people there already.  The route we took back down was much more direct, taking us down into the valley just where the woodland started and back up to the path we started on.

We always seem to be pretty luck when it comes to the weather and that day was no exception.  It was very sunny, but thankfully there was just enough breeze to make it pleasant.  This walk is pretty easy to access so I'm glad we went relatively early that day as there was already quite a few people.  There is a longer circular walk you can do that is around 3 hours long and we might do that in the future, though maybe more in the winter time when there will be less people.  I can imagine it's going to get quite busy up there over the next few months.

We Moved

So I've been away from this blog for a while now, but I do have my reasons.....we moved.  And by that I don't mean just to a different flat but from Plymouth to the Brecon Beacons.  I had planned to do some posts about packing up our things and moving but I have to admit that I did get a little bit overwhelmed by it, even though we were just moving within Britain and I've never really gotten overwhelmed about moving before.  I think part of the reason was that we had really set roots in Plymouth with a whole load of plans of places we wanted to go to and things we wanted to do, something I hadn't really done before.  It was also our first home after getting married.

However, we were still excited by the prospect of exploring a new location and of my husband starting a job more in keeping with what he wants to do.  Trying to focus mostly on that we packed up our flat, shoved it all into the back of a van, and headed north.  Before it came to our move date we had been spending all of our free time researching what type of properties we could rent, what areas we would like to/ would be able to move into, and what types of jobs I'd be able to get.  It was looking like we would have to rent an unfurnished property, which would have led to quite a big additional expense and I was also researching where we could buy secondhand furniture, but in the end we were able to find the furnished house (yes you read that right, we've been able to rent a house up here) to move into.

Due to the fact that we'd been a little bit sad about leaving our previous home I wanted to spend the first week or so getting this new house into feeling like our home.  It's amazing how just putting up our books around the place made it feel like our space.  Now that our nick nacks and pictures are everywhere it definitely feeling more cosy.  I also spent that time sorting out our council tax, insurances, changes of addresses (why are there so many), and, of course, joining our local library.

And then there's all the new locations to find and explore, and I've already started putting together a list of possible places for us to go.  It'll be especially good to get back into the mountains again as we're now right beside them and we also want to get back into wild swimming as well.  From the basis research I've done so far, there seems to be quite a few opinions around us.  The one thing we will miss though is the sea and it does feel a little strange to not be able to see it straight from our window anymore.  However, it's not too far from us and there are lots of walks we can do there as well.  I think we'll probably end up spending a lot of time there just to make sure we get our seaside fix.  We should hopefully be able to get back to learning to surf again as well.  

Another thing that was high on our list was to find out where we could get refills for our dry groceries and cleaning products, which we've been successful with thanks to the husband, and that search has meant we've also found some towns and villages with good looking pubs which could work well at the end of a walk to explore.

Now that we're all settled in I should hopefully be able to get back to blogging regularly again, this time with a Welsh flavour.  I'm hoping to document all the exploring we get to do in this new area, though there is a possibility that when I finally get work our shifts might not match up again so I might have to do some of that exploring on my own.  One thing we did feel bad about when it came to leaving Devon was that we didn't explore the area as much as we had intended to (a common issue I know), so we plan on making a real effort to not do that again here.  There is a lot to see and, you never know, we might get to see some of it on a rain free day............not holding our breath though.

A Trip to Brittany

One of the perks we get from my husband's job is good deals on ferry trips to the continent and, when coupled with the fact that we got two nights at a hotel as a wedding gift and which included hotels in Europe, that meant that we were able to take an relatively affordable trip to Brittany.  We knew this was going to cost a bit more money than we should really be spending at the moment, but we wanted to enjoy ourselves one more time on a long weekend before things became a bit more tight financially speaking.

The ferry we took was a return to Roscoff, going over on Friday night and returning on the Monday afternoon.  We would be staying two nights at Morlaix at a place called B&B Hotel (which turned out to be more like a motel) and, as we didn't want to bring the car, we just got a bus from Roscoff to Morlaix and back again.

The first thing we did once we were off the ferry was to go straight to a cafe, the Cafe Ty Pierre, and have breakfast, which included a lot of bread and large mugs of hot chocolate.  I had already realised that it was probably going to be almost impossible to miss out gluten and dairy, or at the very least butter, on this trip and I'd accepted what affect that was going to have.  It was worth it though and you can't go to France without having the bread.

We were catching the bus to Morlaix at lunch time so we had a wonder around Roscoff to get an idea of the place and see what things we wanted to have a better look at when we were back on the Monday.  We also brought some postcards because it's always good to get them done early.   Roscoff is a really beautiful little place and I'd happily spend a whole day here doing not much except for eating.  

Once we got to Morlaix we went straight to the Tourist Information place, unfortunately missing the market we were hoping to have a look at, to find out what was open over the next couple of days and where everything was.  They confirmed what we had already suspected when it came to what would be closed on the Sunday, though it turned out more would be closed than we had originally thought.  However, we were given a map which had a couple of recommended walks around the town which would take us by a number of historic sites there.

As we still had time on the Saturday we went to see two famous houses in Morlaix, La Mason a pondalez and Mason de La Duchesse Anne.  Both are lantern houses, so called because the central space goes all the way up to the roof which has windows in it.  This allows light to fall onto all areas of the building as the side rooms also have windows.  Neither of the houses had much in them and there weren't any rooms set up 'as it would have been', but they were amazing to look at and the craftsmanship of the items that were there were really beautiful.  We also had a look at some of the shops as we tried to find gifts for people (and maybe a few things for ourselves as well).  Morlaix is another beautiful location, but we decided to save looking around it too much on the Saturday so we could have a proper nosy about on the Sunday.

Once these had been looked at and we may or may not have brought some cakes from a patisserie we headed to the hotel.  We had brought some noodles with us to have for our dinners to try and help save some money on this trip, but we did take a quick trip to a supermarket to get some more food as we weren't sure where we would be able to eat on the Sunday based on the information we had been given.  That trip to the supermarket did involve a quick nosy around a craft shop that just happened to be on the way.  Then it was back to the room to relax and knit.

The next morning we had a little lie-in followed by breakfast at the hotel before heading back into Morlaix to explore.  We came across a market on the way in, with mostly just food, which we had a quick nosy around and brought some local cheese.  Even though there wasn't really anything we could take home with us I still love looking at what's available at these types of markets and what type of things people eat in different areas.

There were two different walking routes recommended around Morlaix and we decided to do a mixture of the two going by whatever we thought we'd be interested in seeing.  The first port of call (ha ha) was the little port where we had a nosy at all the boats, our latest obsession, and had a look around the outside of the Quay of Leon the Manufacture which use to be a tobacco factory but has now been converted into multiple public spaces.  We then headed back to the centre via Fontaine des Anglais (a spring that was said to run with the blood of the English after the local people attacked some invading English) and up to the viaduct which you can walk across.  Obviously I'm a little funny when it comes to heights but it was still a really amazing way of seeing the town and great to be able to get so close to such a structure.  

On the other side we headed to the Eglise St Melanie (Church of St-Melaine).  I wasn't sure if this was going to be open as it was a Sunday, but it was and I'm glad as I think this is now one of my favourite churches based on the architecture and mostly the decorations on the inside - specifically the painted ceilings.

Then it was back to the centre, pass the closed museum and up the Rue des Vignes which we wondered up purely because it looked pretty.  Unfortunately the route we planned to take after was closed, so back down the rood we went and then took a route that took us pass the Eglise St-Mathieu (closed), up to the Chateau Square with another good view of Morlaix, back down to the Theatre du Paysde Morlaix, a mini up and down to the Lavoir Collobert (an open wash-house from the 18th century), and then up a very steep walk up to the Eglise St-Martin (also closed).

By this time it was definitely time to have afternoon tea, but as it was quite late and the cafes seemed to be closing we ended up going to a bar, the Bar le Taylor, to have a couple of very tasty European beers.  Then it was back to the hotel, after buying some macaroons and more cake from a place called Stephanie Giraud (and I can confirm that it's a place that's definitely worth visiting) to have more noodles and pack for a travels back to the UK.

Monday saw us walking to a very early bus back to Roscoff, thankfully via a bakery that was also open early and did some yummy croissants and baguette.  We were worried that as Tuesday was meant to be a Bank Holiday that there wouldn't be as much open in Roscoff as we had hoped, but thankfully we were wrong.  So, after a lovely hot chocolate at the cafe again, we wondered along a part of the water front we hadn't explored yet by the Biological Station of Roscoff and sat for a little while enjoying the views.  

By this point the church was open and we got to have a look inside.  This church was also beautiful and had a similar type of painted interior as Eglise St Melanie.  I remember seeing somewhere that British churches use to be painted in a similar way, but that this was changed after the reformation so it's been really interesting to see how they might have looked in the past.  After that we had a quick look through the shops for more gifts (and we might have also brought some things for ourselves) before having lunch at one of the creperies, which produced nice food but they put us in some dark corner to eat - maybe we weren't the type of people they wanted to advertise eating in their creperie.  

There was still a bit of time before we had to get on the ferry so we decided to visit the Mason des Johnnies & de l'Oignon de Roscoff, which was basically a museum on the Johnnies who use to travel to the UK to sell onions from the region and, though small, is more interesting than you might think.

Finally we headed back to the ferry port and back to Plymouth and what turned out to be quite wet weather.  It was a very short trip, but we still managed to fit a lot in whilst still having quite a relaxed time.  The only thing I would probably change was our bags.  We didn't really bring anything we didn't need (apart from a couple of tops for me) bit they still weighted enough to make walking around with them on our backs for an extended period of time uncomfortable.  I'm not sure how I'd change that, but I'll think of something before we travel again.  And we definitely want to do this again in the future.  We will need to save up for it though.  It probably helped that, as usual, we lucked out on the weather.