Quimper

Today (7/15) we decided to visit Quimper, which has a stunning Gothic cathedral surrounded by a lovely old town that is well preserved, and is the home of the traditional Breton Quimper-style faience aka pottery (which is lovely but not really my style, so the wallet is safe for today lol).

We got a late start because we tried to stop at the airport in Lorient to try to change my ticket home (my original return trip began in Marseilles going to Paris, so I need to change to a start somewhere in Brittany to Paris). Sadly the tiny airport was closed for the day after the holiday. Also their parking system was on the blink so we and a few other people finally were able to find a security person to help us exit the airport – kind of comical actually. So we will address my flight change tomorrow, hopefully.

We arrived in Quimper around 1:00, so went directly to a restaurant for lunch since service ends at 2:00 usually. The restaurant was okay, service was a bit slow, but food was pretty good. I had large scallops with leek sauce, Jim had the pork special with all kinds of sausage etc. and Nancy had crab cakes as well as soup de poisson, which is a local specialty. I had never had it – was very good, sort of like crab and lobster bisque combined.

Unfortunately we were only able to glimpse the cathedral interior, which has a huge number of gorgeous stained glass windows, briefly because it was closing for a few hours for an early afternoon wedding. The exterior is pretty stunning – one can imagine how overwhelming this cathedral was to people many centuries ago who had never seen a building this tall and ornate.

So we decided to walk around the old section of town and circle back to the cathedral. The buildings in the old section as very charming, many of them leaning at sort of troubling angles but hopefully they are structurally sound! There are lots of shops as well, so we had a good time ducking into some of them – there was a candy and macaroon shop that was incredible – probably 150 small bins of different handmade cookies, candies, etc. Nancy found a really nice fabric store and bought some beautiful reddish kid leather. I found a cute clothes shop that was having a blowout sale, got a cute turquoise linen dress that was about 70% off. Jim found an adorable brocante shop which was great fun to explore and the lady who owned it was very friendly, but I didn’t find anything other than several pieces of furniture that I would have loved to buy if I owned a boat that I could transport them home in, as well as the funds lol.

As we circled back to the cathedral, it started to rain. Unfortunately by the time we got back the cathedral was set to close in 15 minutes for rehearsal for an evening concert. (Are you sensing a theme for this day?) So we saw what we could with the limited amount of time. The stained glass is beautiful and really unique.

By this point the rain was getting more persistent, so we decided to head home and have a late dinner at one of the creperies in our town. The savory crepes are made with buckwheat flour and are called galettes. We all had some variation on gallette with egg/mushroom/bacon/ham, as well as the local hard cider which isn’t terribly alcoholic but tastes really good with the gallete. For dessert I had a traditional crepe (made with white flour) – with caramel, which was delicious (Brittany is known for its salt caramel and its butter). The creperie had a really nice cozy feel. A family with two young boys (age 10 and 7) were seated next to us. They were from Versailles just outside Paris, and presumably on vacation. Nancy struck up a conversation with the 10-year-old who was a bit shy but really wanted to have a conversation (in English!) with an adult from some faraway place called New Mexico. His parents were very friendly and helped him with translations.

Side note: I've never seen more windmills for electricity anywhere in Europe compared to here -- they've made a huge investment in wind power here and the evidence is everywhere. It makes sense though; the winds coming in off the Atlantic in Brittany are quite something!

After dinner I walked over to the park to listen to a bit of traditional Breton music by a local band with folks dancing. They were actually pretty good (see photo link below for a short video which hopefully works). There was also a boat festival of some kind wrapping up in the harbor; took a picture of an especially pretty wooden boat as it sailed out of port.

The rain is getting more and more persistent, so we got out the wool blankets and settled in for the evening.

Photos and a video here.