Our last couple of days of our trip were spent in a remote part of rural Brittany, on the beautifully kept grounds of a Manor House. We had made a reservation as we are getting into peak holiday season and wanted to sure of a place to stay before boarding our ferry from Cherbourg on Tuesday afternoon. 

We drove up the long immaculately tended driveway to a beautiful old stone manor, the place was deserted, a small sign ‘Accueil’ (reception) indicated some stone steps up to the front door of the Manor House door. I climbed hesitantly and rang the bell, not a sound. As I stood there I couldn’t help but be reminded of a scene in one of my favourite movies “The Way” with Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez, where Tom played by Martin Sheen and his fellow pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago check in to an Albergue run by this rather eccentric man called Ramon, the oddness that played out in this strange little guest house had them running for the hills before nightfall. I was about to turn and walk away when I heard foot steps and a woman opened the door. 

Thankfully my fears were unfounded. I apologised for disturbing her and explained in my limited French that we had a reservation, she didn’t seem to understand and went to get her husband. The man of the house was a smiling older man with a moustache and we established that we were in fact in the right place, they were expecting us and we could park in the nice grassy area near the pond. We set up and got out to explore the grounds, careful to avoid their resident geese, ducks and swans. It was an idyllic location and which we were looking forward to enjoy over our 3 night stay. Unfortunately the weather had other ideas and we spent the following day and a half being buffeted by high winds as we sat in Tigín looking out at the torrential rain. 

We emerged on the afternoon of the second day and biked into the beautiful neighbouring town of Coutances, the skyline of which was dominated by the Cathedral Notre Dame, but in my opinion the jewel in the crown of this town was the nearby Jardins des Plantes (Botanical Gardens) beautifully colourful and immaculately kept, it was being enjoyed by lots of people, happy to be out in the sunshine after all the rain, we spent an hour or so watching the world go by and soaking up the sun’s rays.

We are back in Ireland now and will be taking a break from travelling for the next couple of months, regular blogs posts will resume when we are travelling again. In the meantime thank you for your support and encouragement and I will be back posting before you know it.