Vannes

Tuesday was an exciting day, we had to make our way to Vannes and that meant another early start. You can take the boat right up to Vannes with Spring tides and we have to get there within an hour of high tide. The route is very shallow for us and the marina at Vannes has a lock and two swing bridges which they open for about an hour each side of high tide. This means we were able to go all the way up the channel and straight in.

We were so lucky, when I made the booking we were told that we would be moored underneath the Capitanarie and so we had the fenders on the port side so that we could turn around and have the boat with the bows to the wind, but when we arrived we were expected and the lady dock master met us in her tender and directed us to the only finger berth big enough for us. So I was able to simply swing the boat to starboard and reverse into the berth and Linda stepped off and tied the boat up without any fuss.

What a place, Vannes is stunning, I had no idea and sadly the camera was not put to good use so I only have a few photo's. We spent the day cleaning and polishing the boat and laundering. Ian and Gwyn were travelling all the way from Lichfield to Vannes by train! They are doing Lichfield to London, London to Paris (Eurostar) and Paris to Vannes (TGV) and they texted us to say that they had caught an earlier train and would be arriving an hour or so earlier - panic! As it happened they got the earlier Eurostar but when they got to Paris they were unable to transfer to an earlier train. We worked really hard to get the boat ready and we were absolutely exhausted.

I showered and changed and walked to the station to meet them, it was about a twenty minute walk and I arrived with about five minutes to spare. The train arrived and I stood on the platform by the exit and masses of people disembarked and there was no sign of them… there was another exit and they had rushed out of the side exit and grabbed one of the three taxis waiting; I walked back to the boat.

The next day we went to a walk around the historic town. The city is a walled city and it is almost totally in tact (Unlike Southampton) and we happed to be there 7th August and it turns out that the 7th August 1532 Vannes surrendered it's independence and joined France. I think we could have seen more than we did but we were still recovering from the day before and so were Ian and Gwyn. We had a crepe / galette for lunch and returned to the boat.