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Last year we drove through Treguier and stopped for a short while for Ali to walk into town a see what it was like. She was so taken we promised to vist properly at our next chance, so that's the plan for today.
We leave the Passion around 11:30 and just over an hour later we are parking in the Port du Bois aire among ten or so other vans.
It's a 5 minute walk in 22C sunshine up to the town square where the traders are just packing away the market, but given a shopportunity Ali is in there and buying Roscoff onions for half the price we paid in Roscoff 6 weeks ago.
Treguier is not unlike Roscoff in that it is a working town visited by tourists, rather than an out and out tourist town. It is unlike Roscoff in its styling; full of really old and beautiful timber framed buildings, all well conserved and colourfully painted. The main square is dominated by its 13thC Gohic cathedral, but before we pay it a visit, lunch beckons. We take the last vacant table of a brasserie/creperie which is very busy. After more than 15 minutes we haven't even been acknowledged so we move around the square to another creperie. Here is more welcoming and our orders are taken in good time but the food takes ages. But when our crepes arrive they are top quality and we enjoy them.
Into the cathedral, the bright sun casts the most amazing coloured light from the stained glass windows onto the floors and columns. Typical of Brittany everything is solid and everlasting but understated; there are no gold or silver ornaments, only sparing use of marble for chapel alters, and just a couple of faded frescoes in the vaulted ceilings. €2 each buys us access to the cloisters, said to be some of the best Gothic cloisters in existence. While purists might pick out trefoil and quadrafoil column bases and so on, to the casual eye it is all out of kilter with barely a straight or square run of more than two arches, but somehow its history ovecomes its aesthetic deficiency.
We wander down to the port area where we parked last year. A huge boules [or petanque] tournament is underway with about thirty games in progress and the usual banter and tap-tap-tap of this very French pastime echoing around.
The river is filling fast as we return to the van, and by now there are just a few spaces left. We sit out behind the van beside the river until the wind gets up, then go inside and have lamb cutlets for dinner, served with dried mint we still have from Obidos in February 2015.
Travelled seasoning for seasoned travellers.
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