Last June, I turned 30 and I wanted to celebrate. After my not-so-fun 29th birthday, I was looking to celebrate the big 3-0 with a quick trip away that was easy to get to. We started in Mont-Saint-Michel which I wrote about last week here. After exploring Mont St Michel, we drove to Combrit-Sainte-Marine in the South of Brittany. We had found a stunning B&B guesthouse online called La Ferme Saint-Vennec in the middle of the French countryside. It was run by a sweet woman, Julie, and her family. It has a few rooms & gites with pretty terraces and ours was the one off the reception area, which I was concerned about at first, but it actually made no difference at all. It was very quiet. I enjoyed the peaceful location, the pretty views & being able to casually speak French without pressure. I did French at university, but my Spanish has always been stronger, so the relaxed pace of Brittany allowed me to chat with Julie and ask for things without the frenzy and panic I feel when I am in Paris, for example.
To eat, we mainly headed down to the local port in Sainte-Marine (the guest house was in Combrit, but the area is a combination of the two). Here are a few of the places that we ate at:
- Cafe du Port – Stunning seafood place on seafront. We sat on the terrace and shared a bottle of wine on our first night. It was wonderful.
- Bistrot Du Bac – A great little set menu for lunch on our second day when we were exploring on bike. We sat in the sunshine and enjoyed salads, steak & chips with a glass of rose. Bliss.
- La Misaine – We popped out for a crepe and local cider in the evening. That Brittany salted butter caramel sauce is insane. I wanted to bring it home.
On one evening, we had had a big lunch at Bistrot du Bac and we decided that the best thing to do would be to grab some bread and cheese from a local deli that we had ridden past on our bikes. We popped into the local boulangerie and grabbed some cheeses, meats and olives from the deli across the road. It was a really pretty little place and I even chatted to a guy in the shop (in French!) for a while whilst the lovely owner behind the counter pulled together our order. Getting it home was an issue but I worked it out in the end (what else is a vintage LV satchel bag for?!) We set ourselves up for the evening on the little terrace outside of our room, we had some local cider, some wine. However, the salted caramel sauce called and we got back on the bikes in the evening to satisfy our sweet tooth.
We had such a lovely relaxing weekend – so much so that we are planning to book again for a quiet weekend again this year. It was the perfect little getaway. We really loved the area and the restaurants and can’t wait to go back for a chilled weekend.
Have you ever been to Brittany? Tell me below!
P.S. My phone was broken that week, so this is all I could find photo-wise on Rob’s phone. I guess I’ll just have to definitely go back again for better pics!
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