Friday, June 19, was my fourth day in France. I didn’t realize it was Juneteenth until I turned on my computer and the google background was the Museum of African American History.
When you go on vacation, you have to make choices. I really really like to make those choices ahead of time.
Today my plan was to go to Pointe du Grouin.
I read about it in a guidebook and looked it up on Google. It was almost an hour drive from my hotel, and it wasn’t real clear how far I’d have to walk. Another friend said I really should see St. Malo. That it’s amazing. And the guidebooks concur. But it’s even further past Pointe du Grouin. So my plan had been to go to Pointe du Grouin first, then St. Malo, then back.
But – I still had blisters on the bottoms of my feet. And I couldn’t get a straight answer from google how close to Pointe du Grouin I could even park. Also, my adventures the day before had made me less excited about driving on small roads through towns. An hour drive one-way sounded like a lot.
So – I grabbed a brochure at my hotel for Parc Botanique de Haut Bretagne. I think I’d briefly looked at it before my trip when I was looking for gardens – and then had decided I’d focus on the coast. Well, when I looked it up on Google yesterday, it was less than 30 minutes away, and mostly on the Autoroute.
It’s always hard for me to change plans. But even with sore feet, walking around gardens sounded like a more relaxing way to spend the day than hiking a nebulous length hike and then trying to figure out where in a city I could park and walk around.
Now, I do think it took me longer than 30 minutes to get there, and that my GPS was up to more nebulous redirects without telling me. Because I got to thinking about roundabouts on the way to the Parc – and then there were absolutely none on the way back. And quite a few times the British lady GPS voice said “Please,” which I think is what she does when I have been getting directions wrong, instead of saying, “I’m begging you! Take the third exit!”
The Botanic Park was just gorgeous. Various gardens, artfully arranged. I went kind of haphazardly at first, looking for the Tea Room, which I eventually found – but it was closed. So I went back to the restaurant at the entrance and had a small salad and water. (Later on, the Tea Room was open, but I wasn’t hungry.)
And it turned out to be a Castle! Castle #178 on my personal Castle Count.
During lunch, I read over the park brochure they’d given me in English. It turned out they had a marked route they recommend as a circuit of the park, so I followed that afterward and only got lost a couple times. But it was a lovely place to get lost in. I don’t think most of the blooms were exactly in season, but there was enough blooming all at once to be wonderful.
This warning in the bamboo grove of 7 years bad luck made me laugh when I saw someone had ignored it.
It was all so peaceful.
I especially loved the Japanese gardens with bridges and statues and winding paths.
Oh, and I discovered reading the brochure that there was a Minotaur statue at the heart of the maze I’d briefly explored – so of course I had to try again.
I spent a couple more hours after lunch, took less time getting back to the hotel (why I strongly suspect I’d missed a turn and gotten a scenic tour on the way there), and got back around 4 pm.
So today’s pictures are mainly of flowers. Lots and lots of flowers.
At 6 pm, I did a little walking on the path across from the hotel, to see if I could make it to the bay. (It’s very close.) But the first path dead ended, and the second path had a gate. It said be sure to re-close the gate because of sheep. And even though I’d seen other people on this path, by that time I admitted I’d walked enough today, and I went back to the hotel.
Looking back at the hotel:
There’s a part of me that doesn’t like changing plans. This means I will most likely never see Pointe du Grouin or St Malo. When you’re on vacation, you have to make choices, and making choices – with permanent consequences – is tough.
But you know what I’m telling myself? It’s totally okay to change plans. It’s okay to not see some wonderful things in this area. And if I’m not disappointed, nobody will be. I had an incredibly beautiful day, walking among flowers.