Flers to Vannes (27 July):

Here right away things start getting interesting – and remember the ‘something strange’ earlier I mentioned – it happened on this day.  The first town I go through from Flers is Domfront. 

I traveled through the city wall and stopped to take a few pictures as I had not done this before even though I had visited the town before. 

Further on down the road, not sure of exact location I zipped past a small châteaux that was near the side of the road (don’t know what road I was on) and the chateaux was not remarkable except that there was a beautiful clearing across the road that had what looked like Roman statues in the garden.  I had gone about a mile and said to myself, sh*t, am I going to zip past everything or am I going to stop and take pictures which is one of the reasons I am taking this trip.  You know how when you get moving down the road that you just want to keep going.  Anyway, I stopped and went back and parked in front of the garden area and got my camera out. It felt good to get off the bike seat for a few minutes and I needed the rest stop. 

I was in the process of taking pictures when the châteaux owner and his wife came out and asked what I was doing.  He asked me ‘Why was I taking pictures?”.  I told him that I was doing it because the statues were unusual and beautiful.  He warmed up to me at that point and invited me back to the châteaux for a drink.  We chatted and he showed me more Roman ruins on his property as well as his restoration projects.



The family dog bounded up and dutifully dropped a yellow golf ball at my feet and we play ‘chase the ball’ for a few minutes while we walked the grounds.  I did not take a picture of it.

Athena, this Roman statue was over 2000 years old.

A stone dog guarded the gate.

This lovely statuette was in a hidden garden.

The statues were indeed Roman.  One of Bacchus, one of Athena and another which lay in ruins which he said was hit by lightening.  I took several pictures and he provided me with his email address for me to send copies back to him.  All-in-all a nice rest stop and further warning to me to not just zip past things but stop and enjoy the sights that are presented on the road.

A strange incident…

Now comes the ‘really strange’ thing that I told you about earlier.  I don’t expect many of you to believe this but I swear it is the absolute truth.  This was the result of the GPS taking me on a twisted route through a small village (don’t remember the name).  The GPS took me off the main route through town and I came across a small picturesque bridge at an intersection with an old house and small garden located along the stream.  I pulled up the road and stopped.  I got the camera out and walked back to the bridge and started looking for the best angles for pictures when I saw this flower box on top of the Wall with two birds sitting next to it.  Perfect, I thought.  I raised the camera to my eye and framed the shot, however, the birds must have flown away as they were missing when I looked through the view finder.  I took the camera from my eye and looked at the flower box again and saw that the birds were still there in the same exact location next to the flowers.  Strange.  I put the camera to my eye again and to my amazement the birds were missing in the view finder.  I switched from eye to camera and back again a dozen times and it was clear that I could see the birds with my own eyes but when I looked through the camera they were clearly missing.  Next I tried to look through the view finder with the right eye and kept the left one open.  I could see the birds with my open left eye and not through the right eye and the view finder.

I have no explanation for this and I present the exact picture I took where I clearly saw the birds – except you can’t see them.

This was turning out to be the start of a pretty interesting trip and I was only in to my second day.

I continued by traveling south through Mayenne and Laval and then headed west as I reached Château-Gontier.   Somewhere along the way I passed a field of sunflowers.  I rested my butt and took a few pics.

I felt like I was finally on my way as I got closer to the coast.  I stopped at Châteaubriant near the châteaux for another brief rest and took a few pictures.

I did not buy a steak here at the restaurant.

At this stop, I reviewed the map and the time and made a slight alteration to my travel route.  I had intended to head west into the peninsula to Port Navalo south of Vannes but I saw that the ETAP hotel was north of Vannes so I decided to head into the northern peninsula to Locmariaquer.  

As I said the weather was great on the trip and I took some pictures of the beautiful sandy beach.