Autumn 2021

Pontrieux - 9 September 2021

Parked up by the river Trieux, all on our own again. Completed a guided walk through Pontrieux before rain stop play.

Incredibly silent - and dark - last night. Finished reading another book about 12.30, then slept on and off until morning. With sunrise being an hour later, and not a really sunny morning, it was quite dark even 8am ish.

We had a ‘doing’ morning. Tintin drove to Super U, where we emptied grey and black water and filled up with clean water for €1. Wasn’t bad, 8 showers and all the water used for cups of tea/coffee, doing dishes and multiple washing of hands on one tank of water!

Filled up with diesel - €1.40 per litre, and bought some more water and bread for lunch.

Short, easy and pleasant drive of about 15 minutes, and we’re parked up over looking the river again - this time near Pontrieux. And again, Billy no mates! No complaints from us. A Mobilvetta 89 stopped over lunchtime in the adjacent carpark. We are seeing more of them, but still not that many.

As it was still morning, decided to walk into town. Once there, collected a map from the tourist office and did part of the recommended walk - certainly a pretty little town.

My guide says “Pontrieux stretches along the banks of the River Trieux and owed its prosperity from medieval times onwards to its position at the head of the estuary.

The success of the port led to the building of many fine bourgeois houses here, each bourgeois house has its own lavoir - a special wash area on the edge of the river where the maid could do the family’s washing without having to go to a communal washhouse. There are 50 of these private lavoirs along the river, each of which has been restored and beautifully planted up with attractive flower displays.

In between the houses and lavoirs the river banks are a mass of hydrangeas and gunneras making the river banks very attractive indeed. Pontrieux has been awarded 4 flowers in the ‘Ville Fleurie’ competition - the top award.

The Place Mme Le Trocquer, has a 15th century medieval wood and timber building called the Maison de la Tour: this is known locally as the Eiffel Tower” (not sure why!).

Had to sped up walking back, as it was starting to drizzle!

After lunch, we read for a while - I managed to get my cat fix with an obliging black cat 🐈‍⬛ 😊

Again, we’re having issues with data - our Huawei MiFi unit has got a JT phone sim in it and it doesn’t deliver data all the time. Tintin emailed for assistance, and the response was along the lines of maybe companies like Orange are trying to limit the use of mobile phone SIMs when used in a Mifi as per EU law. Anyway, it’s most annoying. Also, again, we’re eating through data without even watching any YouTube, or downloading programs from iPlayer etc - just general emails, a bit of mindless social media scrolling, research for places to stay etc…

It’s been trying to drizzle on and off, but late afternoon, we went for another walk in the opposite direction alongside the river, and up into woods. Didn’t see any birds of note. My thought process is that there are too many trees in France, so we don’t see as many birds as we do at home! I’m sure there should be the same proportion of birds, but never mind!

Saw at least 10 beehives along the path - sort of relevant as we’ve both just read The Sunday Times Bestseller and Richard and Judy Book Club Pick - The Beekeeper of Aleppo!