Saturday, August 14, 2010

The sea, the sea!

It’s been a wonderful summer at ‘Le Petit Lapin’: guests have visited from all over Europe and America during sunny weeks of warm days and cool nights-- a holiday atmosphere for everyone (even for me, and I wasn’t even on holiday!) 

Here in Brittany, where the tides are the highest in all of Europe, this time of year brings dramatic vistas at the beaches between Cancale and Saint Malo, so this first blog entry will be about the day I recently spent with friends at my favourite beach in the whole world: Les Dunes de Roz Ven.  Here, on a hill overlooking the sea half an hour’s drive from ‘Le Petit Lapin’, is a large private mansion, 'Roz Ven', that once belonged to the famous French writer Colette (1873-1954).  After a delicious lunch at the brasserie at Pointe du Grouin near Cancale-- moules à la crème and frites (mussels simmered in cream and a platter of crispy chips) as well as a special bottle of Sancerre (I was, after all, with  good friends)-- we parked near the road to the village of Saint-Coulomb and walked down to the beach past the mansion’s gate house and under a bower of tall umbrella pines. 

The view as one slowly descends never ceases to amaze me: turquoise blue water in a small bay bordered on each side by dramatic granite cliffs.  The tide was out and we walked down the beach to the small waves lapping the shore, collected smooth stones and little shells and occasional pieces of worn sea glass.  Then we walked up onto the eastern cliff to the path that runs for over a thousand kilometres all along the Breton coast.  We sat there quietly for a while, looking back at the scallop of sand, the sunbathers, the swimmers, the children playing ball and building sand castles far below.  How lucky I am, I felt, to live in this part of the world all year long. 

I hope everyone who comes to ‘Le Petit Lapin’ will spend at least a few minutes-- if not an entire day--  at the sea.  The cottage was renovated for that-- to welcome visitors to this beautiful part of the world and to allow them the leisure to explore and discover for themselves all that Brittany offers. 

The renovation of ‘Le Petit Lapin’?  Well, that’s another story for another post....

1 comment:

  1. Lugar muito aprazível e pitoresco no noroeste da França, onde pode-se deliciar a maravilhosa culinária francesa das regiões locais.
    Chalé muito bem cuidado e de bom gosto nesta aconchegante casa, excelente para desfrutar com a família e amigos uns dias nesta localidade, tendo várias atrações turísticas, uma delas é o famoso Mosteiro de São Michel (patrimônio mundial da UNESCO).
    Voltarei em breve para esse maravilhoso e acolhedor recanto no noroeste francês.

    Alexandre S. Pinto, Rio de Janeiro-Brasil

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