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.
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