Vannes

Sunrise is after 8:00am - today a busy start to the day. I have never heard a plane since I have been here so it's kind of surprising there's so much action going on up there up there.

So just a few photos of the medieval town centre in Vannes. It's a pleasure to get around the pedestrianised streets. 

This is Vannes and His Wife, keeping an eye on 

what's going on. 

I keep being attracted to walled towns.
My walk into Vannes is down through a park, across the stone bridge and through a gate in the walls.

The original town hall, no longer used as such, replaced by an eye-sore of a more modern building up the road. There's a brass monkey on the lion's plinth. It's a gift from a twinned town and has real character. 

This is a primary school opposite the town hall. 

And this home is right over the road from my studio apartment which is in a 70s style block. I really love the way the stone gatehouse has been renovated.
Major house envy.

Around Vannes - Elven

Fifteen km from Vannes, the trip by local bus is great value. Remains have been found here of settlement dating back to the Bronze Age. For some reason I loved it from the moment I got off the bus.

The market stalls in the main place were being packed up. Everything closes up over the lunch period, so I joined the workmen at a cheery Lebanese place and ordered a mixed mezze plate. Modern blocks of flats are being built around thevillage centre so the days of this being a quiet village of 2000 inhabitants are changing.

The village centrepiece is the Chapelle Sainte Anne.

The stained glass windows are beautiful, very modern-looking. They tell the story of Sainte Anne's life. 

 My photos of stained glass never capture the glow and sumptuousness of the colours. The chapel has been restored over the years but parts of it are twelfth century.

 A project just waiting to happen. 

Imagine! So me. 

Christmas Day, 2019. Brittany

Sunrise in Brittany at the time of the solstice is not until after 8.00am. I have been in Vannes a week now and this is the first day of sunshine. I go for a long walk with Thomas Cromwell. Sort of. I'm listening to the audiobook of Wolf Hall. I have already read it, and although I usually never reread books, I'm really enjoying this, maybe because it was a little difficult first time around. I have very little knowledge of English history and after finishing Hilary Mantel's followup book, Bring Up the Bodies, I'm better prepared to appreciate the detail, her lightness of touch relative to the import of the historical trajectory.

The Santa even has a little sack on his back, filled with tiny knitted presents.

Vannes is at the tip of the largest harbour in France, the Gulf of Morhiban. My walk starts at the port of Vannes and follows a canal along to the harbour. The tides here are quite huge.


Past the town I follow a waterside path down a peninsula.

At the small bay where I stop for bread and cheese I amuse myself by picking up all the bits of plastic I can find. Bottle tops, plastic corks, straws, sea-worn packets, those stringy bags that I buy onions in.

Shadows are long even at midday.

On the other side of the peninsula there's a wide estuary and church bells are ringing out from the settlement on the other side. Parts of the path are under water, so I cut across though farmland and then follow a quiet road back towards town.

A bit up the road there's a cemetery, the tidiest cemetery and the best-tended graves I have ever seen. What does this say about the people of Vannes?

What it says about me is that I'm a heartless lowlife thief, because I steal some leucodenron flowers from the grave of a beloved departed.

Ah well.

Back at the Port of Vannes and the sun is still shining and the good people of Vannes are out at the only two places open this Christmas afteroon.

I'm trying to read this French thriller about an ageing translator who becomes a drug mule, but there's so much colloquial language I'm struggling with it.

Liberty of London - homage, part 2

Let's go to Liberty

Liberty of London is a place of homage to be visited every time I am in London.

I just wish I'd worn a swishy frock. My cycling shoes and cargo pants let me down for a few hours here.

The summer sale was on. And I managed to not leave entirely empty-handed.

I came  across a trunk of decorator velvet sample swatches though. And I was allowed to take some - enough to make a laptop sleeve if I can manage that by hand.

The  vision for founding the store was for it to be an emporium laden with luxuries and fabrics from distant lands. It was built in the 1920s, at the height of the fashion for all things Tudor. You can see the influence of the Arts and Crafts movement sitting beautifully with the mock-Tudor. 

Not a lot more to say, just more of my photos.