Guingamp - 10 September 2021
Just a short drive to Guingamp as it looked an interesting town. Market day again, a look at the sights and a walk along the river.
Don’t laugh, or judge us - but after rum and coke last night - this is what we had to eat. Mille Feuilles! We had some last visit to France from SuperU, so thought we’d try again. So worth all the calories! Proper vanilla taste, lovely custard and crispy but light buttery pastry - delicious 😋
Another quiet night, some rain on and off.
Today I drove (about 40 minutes in the end) and was just saying that driving around Brittany has been remarkably stress free. I spoke too soon, we were approaching Guingamp and the road was blocked - yes another market! Couldn’t get past a van on the diversion road, but luckily the woman was in the van and moved out of the way. We stayed calm! and Tintin navigated us around the town to approach the parking area from a different road! We may have had to ignore signs saying you couldn’t use the roads if you were over 3.5t!
We walked into the town, crossing over the river.
Information from my guide “At the top (south) end of the square you can see an impressive fountain, called the Fontaine de la Plomée (the word Plomée is derived from the Breton word for water-source). This ancient fountain was constructed in the 15th century and transferred to its current location in the 16th century. More than simply decorative, this fountain was the pricipal water source for the centre of Guingamp from the 16th century until early in the 20th century.
The fountain consists of three large water basins, then on the top of the fountain there is a statue of a woman, although it is not certain who this represents: suggestions include a celtic god called Anne or the Virgin.
The most important historic monument in Guingamp is the basilica Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours, with a history that dates from the 11th century, the church has been often renovated and modified over the centuries.
Another monument that you can see on the edge of the historic centre of Guingamp is the castle, called the Chateau de Pierre II. This ancient fortress was built in the 12th century, although it was largely demolished and rebuilt in the 14th century by Pierre II, Duke of Brittany, which explains the name of the castle. The chateau still retains a large amount of the ramparts and parts of several of the original towers.
There is a modern sculpture called the Sculpteur de l'Arpenteur, which looks like a character from a superhero movie with a large cloud on his head.”
We went into the basilica, I was happy to take pictures of the stained glass windows, as I have a new phone which is so much better at photos like these!
Out of curiosity, we went into a pharmacy and asked about getting a pass sanitaire - we were just fobbed off with a - non!
Again, masks compulsory. Did have a quick wander around the market - wasn’t nearly as busy as the other two, maybe because they have the market here twice a week?
Had another baguette for lunch. Tintin has thrown out his stinky garlic sausage, as he really didn’t like it much!
Later this afternoon, we went for a walk alongside the river. Again, hopeful of spotting different birds. Managed a robin, great tit, ducks, chaffinch and a tree creeper! Some of the walk was very smelly, think we were near a sewage treatment plant?
Was also really sad, saw a few disheveled looking men, fags hanging out their mouths, tinnies in hand (quite apt - Desparados?) just sitting around on the benches.
There is a little photo display near the school - very sad I know, but I like taking photos of photos - but won’t try to pass them off as my own! What is nice, is that the youths over here all seem to mumble bon jour when passing, not sure that the equivalent happens in Guernsey?
I mentioned having issues with data, well the bigger problem today is that we’ve ‘lost’ 10GB overnight. I think it’s to do with Tintin’s videos on his drone. Can’t quite get my head around the fact that we pay for extra iCloud storage, but seems to be just a sharing feature. We can’t not upload to the cloud whilst away and do it at home once we’re on broadband and don’t care about data usage. Gives us scary messages asking if we’re sure we want to erase all our photos… Anyone with thousands of photos who has sorted out data problems when roaming - please feel free to contact us!
Think our weather here must be similar to Guernsey. It’s been a mixture of a little sun, mostly cloudy, breezy and feeling cooler today.
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