Crozon (or Thailand)

When preparing for the holiday, Crozon caught my eye. And since we have slowly explored everything in the area, the tours for something new will also be a bit longer. So the alarm clock went off at 7 a.m. this morning. The teawurst was keen. Looked next to the waiting area...

At 8:30 a.m., everyone was sitting (lying) fresh in the car. There was a 2.5-hour drive to tackle.

Last night, in a sugar coma, I quickly planned the route. With two viewpoints as stopovers and a 12 km hike from the parking lot to the cape.

I had mentally canceled the first stop even before we started (departure was planned for 8 a.m. and I had only estimated 2 hours instead of 2.5 hours, so we had 60 minutes of delay to catch up!)

So the first destination was 'Pointe de Dinan'. The little detour here was definitely worth it. Similar to Cap Fréhel, there was a truly magnificent view of the cliffs:

From there, we headed for the chosen parking lot. Well signposted and in the middle of nowhere (good thing you can mark everything with Google Maps) There was only one additional car there... from Frankfurt... the world is truly a small village. The planned route looked like this:

It should be about 1.5 km to the coast from the parking lot. Fortunately, we quickly found a path that did not run along the highway (although I felt like I was walking in circles, but that's relative for me...).

When we arrived at the coast, we were immediately rewarded with an incredible view of turquoise water and an amazing panorama.

So we took a little longer for the first stretch because we couldn't stop taking pictures. The path was also relatively narrow and quite busy, so we always had to somehow avoid other people without falling off the cliffs.

Typical for the GR34, the trail often led over roots or stones (sometimes steep uphill or downhill) and so I was quite surprised when a couple came towards us in flip-flops (respect from my side... I sometimes had concerns even with my chucks... only briefly, of course!). Here are some pictures that show how different the sections are:

That this stretch of coast is very popular was evidenced by boat tours that accompanied us throughout the hike (with megaphones) and by the helicopters that constantly flew along the coast.

But it really has to be said that the water here looked like in Thailand or the Caribbean, and with the purple heath landscape and the fern-covered paths, it was a beautiful play of colors.

As usual, the markings of the GR34 appeared in various places...

However, the retirees were a bit 'overmotivated' today... true to the motto 'dying can wait', they didn't budge an inch when our paths crossed on the very narrow trail. Either you balanced along the abyss or you were just out of luck (I would like to mention at this point that this behavior doesn't really play into the GDP's hands... but let's leave that aside).

At a rest stop, it became clear once again that not every translator is suitable:

Shortly after that break, we encountered a man who asked us (he spoke English... unbelievable!) if we had seen a white dog. Unfortunately, we had to say no. He then explained to us that his wife was also attached to the white dog... and that he had lost both of them. Strange priorities... asking about the dog first... but unfortunately, we couldn't help him with that either.

On the rest of the way, the teawurst became temporarily indisposed again... because it had found a pausing hiker with food (the food was on the ground, the teawurst passed it and it was gone... French food is always a hit!) Unfortunately, the hiker was sitting right behind a very steep passage, so when I reached the top, I didn't have enough breath to scold the teawurst and it barely reached for a wheezed apology... we were forgiven... so let's continue:

Gradually, we were running out of steam, and when we arrived at the cape (half of the planned route), we had already walked 15 km (just a reminder - we were supposed to be back at the car after 12 km)... and we still had to get back to the car... another 5 km from here... so we decided to leave the GR34 from here. (Unfortunately, you can't plan a route via GR34 on Google Maps, so you can only plan roughly using pedestrian routes... well... this time it was a bit too positively calculated...).

So off to the car. According to the other food provider's location, it was even 8 km to the car. I prayed that my marker was correct because the path was really challenging at times today, and my legs didn't want to cooperate anymore.

Fortunately, the food provider had also set the wrong marker, so after another 5 kilometers, we arrived at the car at the same time as the people from Frankfurt. From here, we wanted to make a short detour in the city. On the way to the city, I realized that I had already been here before (see blog post 'End Boss' from 2018). Fortunately, we had chosen a different route... a 2.5-hour drive to a place I already knew would have been annoying... but this way, we didn't have to explore the city extensively because it consisted (as I remembered) of 2-3 small streets, so we sat down in the first café we saw (in the blazing sun).

After a quick cold drink, we agreed that we both wanted to go home and relax on the couch. We would have dinner at home. No more moving. During the ride back, I somehow got hot and cold at the same time, and when we arrived home, it was clear that we had completely underestimated the sun today (I had occasionally checked if I was getting sunburned...). Without clothes, it was too cold, with clothes, the skin burned... so the only option was to apply a 2 cm thick layer of sunscreen and stay still as much as possible... that's why we had 'healthy' food at home...

Good thing we don't have anything planned tomorrow!

Until then!