More Napoleonic Forts

We had a lazy start today because it was raining when we woke up. Fortunately, by the time we’d had breakfast, showers etc the rain had stopped.

Continuing our clockwise circumnavigation of Brittany, we’re heading off the Crozon peninsula and round the coast via Brest.

First stop is the Terenez suspension bridge which we were unable to stop at yesterday. The small parking area I spotted on Google maps was ideal and even had an observation platform to enable you to see the bridge properly. This rather unique structure has two huge pillars which are cantilevered to support both sides of the roadway. The bridge itself follows a gentle curve, turning through perhaps 45 degrees in total. Quite an impressive feat of engineering which must have been interesting to model.

We had coffee before moving on to our first fort of the day. We stopped en-route to top up our diesel as the prices around Brest we quite good. Having circumnavigated the city we soon arrived at the parking area for the Fort du Dellec. Unfortunately there was a 2m height barrier which meant we had to find a place alongside the quiet road. We had lunch with a great view through the trees down to the estuary where there were lots of small boats on swinging moorings.

After lunch we followed the coast path the short distance to this 17th Century fort. The fortifications were well preserved as they had been rebuilt several times, notably in the 19th Century when a barracks and ammunition store were added. There was also a small WW2 blockhouse which had a staircase up onto its roof. The view from here across the estuary towards the Crozon peninsula was superb.

Next stop on Emma’s “famous tour of the forts” was the Fort de Toulbroc’h which, although only a few km further on was quite difficult to get to as we had to wind our way down some narrow roads with tight turns. At one point we had to make a three point turn to get out of a junction! Fortunately the roads are really quiet.

We arrived at the fort to find that it’s apparently still in use by the military. Faced with locked gates and razor wire we decided to give this one a miss....

We had more luck with the next fort - we found a large parking area with no height restrictions. Fort de Bertheaume is unique in that it’s built on a tiny island which is connected to the mainland by a bridge - it looked a bit like Tintagel. The fort sits on steep cliffs high above the water which made it easily defended for centuries. There was a modern zip line across to an ugly tripod on the top of the fort which we thought detracted somewhat from the otherwise romantic appearance of the place.

We wandered down to the cove next to the island where there were quite a few people enjoying the beach.

Returning to Kiki we decided that we’re all “forted out” so we headed inland slightly to Ploumoguer where there’s a free Aire de Camping Car. It was empty when we arrived but over the course of the evening several other MH’s turned up.

We had a walk around the town which is a ville de fleur and had lots of wild flowers growing along the edges of the pavements. When we got back to Kiki we were surprised to find that it was time for our evening meal. We ate and then settled down for the night.