Part Two
After eating breakfast early to beat out the crowd of students who slept in, I walked down to the beach and up to the lookout point that jutted out over the water and rocks left bare by the low tide. It was so incredibly peaceful; quiet and misty with only the sound of the seagulls and the waves lapping on the sand.
After sitting on the beach and writing for a while I had to sprint back to make the bus. Note to self; check time occasionally. But I made it, did a quick run to my room to get my backpack, and we headed off to the city of Kemper (also written as Quimper), a city of about 63,000 inhabitants, all the way in the western part of Bretagne.
We visited Musée des Beaux-Arts de Quimper, with a wide variety of works, from Italy in the 1500s to Impressionism in Bretagne itself. The tour guide knew so much and after we concluded our tour and had eaten, (best sandwich with ham ever), myself and another girl visited the regional museum with had all the traditional costumes of Bretagne, as each section and really each town had their own distinct patterns and colors, along with their own form of white bonnet. The costumes there had been worn by real people in the 1800 and 1900s, so they were so interesting to study.
The next stop and probably my favorite part of the whole trip, besides sitting on the beach, was La Pointe du Raz. A large rock hillside and cliffs that jut out into the ocean, the pointe is the closet point to North America in France. There we were at the same latitude as Montreal. It is dangerous, as there are no fences of marked paths and you kind of rock climb over large boulders to get to a small flat part where you can sit as the waves smash against the rocks a hundred feet beneath you. Perfect place for a field trip.
In all seriousness, and before anyone starts to worry about SYA's safety regulations, there were at least eight chaperones and we were not allowed to go past a certain point. They were constantly watching us and keeping kids off the very dangerous dirt paths that dipped down towards the water. And nautrally, the photo opportunities were abundant.
The gate picture to the left is just marking where some of the ground slid into the ocean a while back. It's not supposed to be permanent, I think. So upon returning to the hotel and after having dinner that night, I went into town, walked on the now dark beach with E.C. and drank some really good hot chocolate in a café with her and S.D. Definitely a good way to end the day. |