Biker Kaz: Brittany

I thought going away in June we would be okay with the weather – wrong! We travelled from Portsmouth to Caen with Brittany Ferries on the Saturday and when we arrived the weather was scorching and I was lulled into thinking it was going to be a great week of weather.

Sunday, the weather was nice to start with but by the evening it was raining. As the week went on the weather got steadily worse each day.

There were 6 of us for this trip and I had found this fantastic place in Burlaouen called Countryside Holidays in France geared especially for bikers. We arrived early evening to a warm welcome from the owners, Roger and Linda, and a hearty home cooked meal washed down with a few beers which was perfect after a long day of travelling.

Roger’s place was very rural and peaceful (except when the bikes were started!) There was a bike shed which was amongst other things, full of very interesting old bikes and a very well stocked bar where we spent many an evening eating and drinking and chatting with the other bikers who were staying there too.

We explored Brittany as much as we could despite the weather and found many a café to stop at and dry out before setting off again. We felt we were becoming quite adept at finding a coffee stop which did cake and felt that we were doing a good service (I’m not sure who to) by comparing who had the best cakes. A tough job but hey, someone has to do it 

By the end of the week, the weather had taken a complete nose dive and Roger took us in his minibus to the Keroman Submarine Base at Lorient. On the way we stopped in a little village for coffee. We arrived at the submarine pens at lunch time so had lunch first before going round the pens. This base was a German U boat base during World War II where three gigantic reinforced structures were built and were capable of sheltering thirty submarines undercover. We had a very interesting tour and a walk around. We spent a few hours here before setting off back to Roger’s via another coffee stop at which was the site of a very old church.

We finished off our week in Burlaouen with a meal in a nearby town on the Friday evening and set off back to Caen to catch our ferry home on Saturday morning.