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This morning dawns cold, but that's a good thing as it signals clear, bright sky. We have a leisurely morning then set off in sunshine along the coast through Piriac sur Mer and Mesquer then through St Molf, Asserac, Camoel leaving the marais behind as we join the main road towards Sarzeau.
It's a pretty run all the way through wooded farmland until we reach the car park at Chateau Suscinio. We have lunch before visiting the chateau.
Suscinio started in the 13C as a hunting lodge and was fortified in the 14C. When Francis II and his daughter Anne of Brittany chose Nantes as their main residence Suscinio was left to decay. In the 1980s funds were allocated to undertake its restoration and much of the work is now completed. A moat fed by the sea surrounds the castle which overlooks a large lake. The stone towers have pointed rooves and arrow slits and they and the curtain walls are topped with machications - battlements with holes through which rocks, oil and other nasties can be dropped on attacking forces. We brought Mum here in 2008 and make a mental note to compare photos taken then with today's, to see the progress in the rebuild, which we look upon with greater understanding from our summer visit to Guedelon.
From Suscinio we have a short drive to Arzon where there is an aire with much needed electricity. After hooking up and putting every appliance we have on to charge, we walk down the road to the beach.
The shore is lined with piles of seaweed which has a purple tinge and we wonder if this is the iodine-rich variety we saw harvested on BBC's Coast programme. A boardwalk leads along part of the beach and then we go past 'Les Ramperts', breton stone appartments which may just look like, or may have been, part of a former fortification. The flat, blue sea slops lazily at the edge of rge seaweed, right on the turn of the tide.
We watch the sun setting slowly and just as it is a mushrom on the horizion a yacht passes in front of it.
By the time we get back to the aire we are quite cold. Grete makes Bovril and we get the heating on and are soon comfortable.
Dinner tonight is a fatboy breakfast using the ostrich sausages we bought on the ostrich farm and then, with plentiful electric, we put on TV and watch the DVD of Love Actually.
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R Fletcher Pure green pea soup in the moat at Suscinio!