Table of Contents for this Episode
Annie: This is Join Us in France, episode 617, six cent dix-sept.
Bonjour, I’m Annie Sargent, and Join Us in France is the podcast where we take a conversational journey through the beauty, culture, and flavors of France.
Today on the podcast: Brittany Coastal Camping Guide
Annie: Today, I bring you a conversation with Jennifer Gruenke about camping and hiking Brittany’s GR34 coastal trail from Saint-Brieuc to Saint-Malo.
We talk campground star ratings, the regional bus network, tidal islands, mussel harvesting by tractor boat, and the best galettes along the way, of course.
Everything you need to hike and camp in France without [00:01:00] overplanning.
Podcast supporters
Annie: Before we start, this show runs on listener support.
If you want to work with me directly, I do itinerary consults. I’ve written eight tours of Paris on the VoiceMap app, and I can take you on day trips around Toulouse. Everything is at joinusinfrance.com/boutique.
And if you shop on Amazon anyway, starting at joinusinfrance.com/amazon costs you nothing, but helps the show.
Magazine segment
Annie: For the magazine part of the podcast, after my chat with Jennifer today, I’ll discuss three topics, the Paris Seine swimming season, a very interesting project to track what elevators are working in public transport in Paris, and Rue du Louvre and the joys of walking in Paris.
Welcome Back Jennifer
Annie: Bonjour, [00:02:00] Jennifer Gruenke, and welcome to Join Us in France, or I should say welcome back.
Jennifer: Bonjour, Annie, and thank you very much. It’s good to be back.
Annie: Lovely to have you.
Why Hike Brittany GR34
Annie: We want to talk about your camping experience and your hiking experience in Brittany. You’ve done this a couple of times, right?
Jennifer: Yes. So, the first summer I was in France, I did part of the Grande Randonnée 34 in Finistère. So the Grande Randonnée 34 is a hiking trail around the coast of Brittany, and Finistère is kind of the far west part of Brittany. It’s the most isolated, the most wild, and so I wanted an adventure. And I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to do another one.
The whole Grande Randonnée 34 can be done in, like, two to three months, but I’m only doing it in little sections of, like, five to seven days, because [00:03:00] that’s about the right amount of wilderness for me.
Annie: Yes. You live in Paris normally.
Jennifer: Yes. Yes.
Annie: So it’s a big change. Yes, and I was just in the Finistère, and it is beautiful and wild, indeed. I loved it, loved it, loved it.
Timing Around Heatwaves
Annie: But today we’re going to talk about another section that you did just recently, right? Yes. It was just this summer, 2026.
Jennifer: Yeah, last month in between the second and third ‘canicules’ here in France.
Annie: Yeah, the heat waves. We’ve had five of them this year, this summer.
So, I’m surprised you could go at all because it almost never stopped being 30, between 30 and 40 degrees.
Jennifer: Well, in Brittany it’s cooler.
Annie: Yeah.
Jennifer: So I watched the forecast very carefully and planned my trip around the weather, and I had fantastic weather. It was, you know, high of 65, which is perfect for hiking.
Annie: Yes. Well, sometimes in Brittany, the opposite problem could be [00:04:00] true. Rainy weather is kind of common in Brittany. This summer was the exception, I suppose.
Jennifer: Absolutely.
Annie: Yeah, yeah. And I would expect that the least rainy time of Brittany would be, like, you know, late summer to October, but that…
Jennifer: Yeah, I think that in the fall Brittany could be a really interesting place for people who aren’t tied to the school schedule.
Annie: Right. Right. All right.
So what did you do on this trip? How did things go?
Route Saint Brieuc to Malo
Jennifer: Okay, so I started at a town/city called Saint-Brieuc. It has a C at the end, but you don’t pronounce the C. And I went eastwards towards Saint-Malo and took a train home to Paris from Saint-Malo. So those are the two cities at each end.
This is the northern coast facing towards the English [00:05:00] Channel, or the ‘Sleeve’, as they say in French.
Annie: La Manche.
Jennifer: La Manche. Doesn’t that mean sleeve?
Yes, it does. Okay. Yes.
What Are the GR Trails
Jennifer: So, I want to talk a little bit about the Grande Randonnée network.
And this, I guess I’ve already talked about this specific one around Brittany.
Right. There are a series of long-distance hiking trails all over France. This is the Grande Randonnée network.
Annie: GR. So, we call them the GR. French people will say the GR34 or GR whatever. Yes. Yeah.
Jennifer: Yes. And this was started by a guy named Jean Loiseau, and after World War I, he was really interested in hiking, and there was sort of this cultural shift where in 1936, there were labor reforms where everybody got more vacation and they were, [00:06:00] you know, working fewer hours.
You had the Industrial Revolution prior to this so that people were working more office jobs and were interested in getting out and hiking for their vacations that they now had.
Annie: Mm-hmm.
Jennifer: So he started this system of marked trails, and so there is a white and red blaze that marks these trails. If you’ve ever been around and seen these, once you know what they are, they’re all over the place.
Annie: Yes.
Jennifer: There are now over 200,000 kilometers of these marked trails, and they’re adding new ones all the time. Some of them are more sort of trafficked than others. I’ve done a trail in Normandy, and it was kind of neglected, but all of the ones I’ve done in Brittany have been really well-marked, really well-maintained.
French Campsite Star System
Annie: Particular in Brittany, there are campgrounds along this GR34. [00:07:00] And the campground system in France has a starred system, just like the hotels. It’s the same organization that, like, awards these stars to hotels, also will give them to campgrounds. So you can stay at a one-star to five-star campground.
Jennifer: I stayed at one to four. There were not any five-star ones along the path that I took, but I looked it up to see what those were like, and they have kind of, a lot of them have a water park going on, where there’s, like, water slides or a lazy river and a, you know, multiple swimming pools.
I think that the higher starred levels tend to be good for families with kids who are, you know, old enough that they don’t have to be, like, watched every second, but you can, like, let them run freely around this campground, and there’s all sorts of things for them to do.
Annie: Yeah.
Jennifer: So for a higher, you know, the more points you have and the higher level you get on the star system, [00:08:00] they’re going to have things like playgrounds, swimming pools.
Annie: Yeah, they’re kind of like a resort.
Jennifer: Yes.
Annie: Not a luxurious resort that you’d find in some places, but kind of a, your basic resort with pools and equipment for kids, and some of them even have, like, kids camp.
Yes, I did see some of that …
You know, so they have people to watch the kids, which parents tend to like that.
Jennifer: Yes. And there’s lots of other kids running around, so your kids can play with other kids.
Annie: Yeah.
Jennifer: It seems to be popular with families. And I also saw a lot of retired people who just wanted to, like, park their camper van someplace and chill, and all the places I went were close to the beach.
Annie: And so you could have a place to stay that’s cheaper than a hotel, for sure, and is within walking distance to the beach. A lot of these are in, like, a small town. There’s lots of small towns along the coast. Are they usually fenced?
Jennifer: Yeah, [00:09:00] so one of the things you can get points for in the points system is having a security gate.
So whenever you check in, they’ll give you the code. If you’re out past, like, 10:00 PM or something, you’ll have to use the code to get back into this fenced area. So that’s very common. Which is nice, you know, if you’re out there hiking as a single woman. I felt safe the whole time.
Annie: Yeah, yeah.
Jennifer: The vibe is pretty chill.
Annie: Yeah. Did you look into, like, whether you could camp in nature wherever you wanted to?
Jennifer: I don’t think you’re allowed to camp on the beach.
Annie: No. Never on the beach. Sometimes there’s a parking lot near the beach.
In the Finistère I saw this. Like, they would have a big parking area where campers, vans, you know, the little campervans were pretty common.
And they usually have restrictions on how long you can stay, and you know, that sort of thing. But yeah, there are also [00:10:00] places that have zero development, and they’re essentially free. But there’s restrictions, so you can’t set up for a week. Maybe it’s one night, and that’s it.
Jennifer: Right.
So for me, I like the amenities. French campsites are pretty nice, that you’ll have, you know, not just hot showers and a bathroom, but whenever you check in they ask if you would like a croissant or a pain au chocolat in the morning. So you can, you can pay an extra euro whenever you check in, and then whenever you leave in the morning you can pick up your croissant.
Annie: How nice.
Jennifer: Which is very nice to take with you if you’re going on a long hike.
Annie: Yes, yes. And some of these, some of these places also have a little store, right? Some of these campgrounds. Yeah.
Jennifer: Very civilized. Yes. Most of them did, especially if they were not already in a town. Sometimes they’ll be within a five-minute walking distance of a Carrefour or whatever, and so those are less likely to have a store.
But the ones that are more [00:11:00] isolated will usually have, like, a little mini grocery store inside the reception area.
Annie: Yeah. Which is really handy if you’re hiking. That’s great.
Jennifer: Right, right.
I found that the lower starred ones were actually better for hikers like me because they tended to have a common space for hikers to, you know, they would have a common refrigerator where you could put your stuff.
They would have places to sit and recharge your phone so you didn’t have to give your phone to the reception desk to charge it, that kind of thing, or charge it in the bathroom. You could sit in a chair and scroll while you’re charging your phone, which is kind of nice.
Annie: Yeah.
Costs Booking and Flexibility
Jennifer: The higher up you went on the stars, the more the assumption was that you’re going to be staying in one of their little cabins.
Annie: Yeah.
Jennifer: I did not stay in one of the cabins, but I looked it up, and a two-bedroom cabin cost around 6 to 700 per week high season, and about half that once school starts.
Annie: Yeah.
Jennifer: So it’s cheaper [00:12:00] than a hotel, especially if you’ve got a whole family, because you could put four people in that two-bedroom cabin.
Annie: Yeah. Yeah.
Jennifer: And if you’ve got a camper van, it’s more like 300 a week high season, again, half that once school starts.
Annie: Yes, and they do tend to get booked solid. Like in the high season they are full, so this is something you have to plan on a little bit because there are people who go back to the same campground year after year.
Yes. I actually know people who just book the same one for next summer.
Jennifer: Yes. Now, I didn’t have to book anything as a through-hiker, which was really nice because I didn’t plan exactly where I was going to stay each night.
Only once did I have to, like, pay a little extra to get one of the more expensive pitches that I didn’t really need.
But overall, it was fine just as a through-hiker not planning in advance.
Annie: Yeah, yeah.
Jennifer: Several people have asked me could I do the hiking part and [00:13:00] not stay at a campground and go for a hotel instead, and really I think you could, but you’d have to book all that in advance and plan each day we’re going to stay here.
Because I looked while I was out there on Airbnb, on Booking to see if there were any availabilities, and there was almost nothing.
Annie: Yeah.
Jennifer: So you got to plan if you’re doing this during the summer, because everybody else wants to go to Brittany where it’s beautiful.
Annie: Right. Yeah, yeah. If you go off-season a little bit, it might be a tad easier to wing it. But if you’re hiking, winging it might not be such a good idea. I don’t know. I wouldn’t.
Jennifer: Well, for me it was fine just winging it.
Annie: Well, because you knew that the campgrounds could always add a person.
Jennifer: Yes, and there were actually, most of these towns I was going to had more than one campground. So if one was full, I could go to the other one. So I pay between 8 and 20 euros per night at these [00:14:00] campgrounds, which is a pretty budget vacation.
Annie: Yeah.
Jennifer: And I thought overall they were pretty nice, you know, well worth the money.
Annie: Excellent.
Jennifer: Okay, so my itinerary. Day one was traveling by train from Paris to Saint-Brieuc.
Originally, I had purchased a train ticket like a week in advance that was direct, and that ticket got canceled along with about 10% of the tickets for that day because this was the very end of that very hot week, 10 days, the second canicule.
Annie: Uh-huh.
Jennifer: And apparently the heat damages or causes problems with the tracks, and that last bit of track into Saint-Brieuc was not, it had no trains.
So I had to go to Rennes and take another TER to Saint-Brieuc.
And I booked it last minute and it was more expensive, but I was like, “I’m not going to miss my vacation because of this.”
Annie: What happens with the trains is that they have to slow down considerably [00:15:00] to reduce the friction on the tracks. Dilation is always a problem with tracks.
Jennifer: Right.
Annie: So they have to just manage it really, really well to avoid friction and bending and stuff like that. So yeah.
Jennifer: That makes sense.
Yeah, physics.
So I had originally planned to, you know, arrive in the morning, but I ended up arriving in the afternoon on my new itinerary. Which was fine because this town was not very interesting, and I just needed a place to stay until the next day so I could hike in the morning. So they have a municipal campground.
These are pretty common in places where people like to go on vacation. The municipal campgrounds are usually not starred, and they’re more basic, but, you know, you’ll have a full bathroom and, you know, a place to pitch your tent, and that’s really all I needed.
Annie: Yeah.
Jennifer: And they did have the croissants even though it was basic.
You got to have your croissants.
Annie: We are not savages.
Jennifer: [00:16:00] Absolutely.
Day One Bay and Mussels
Jennifer: So the town of Saint-Brieuc is on the Bay of Saint-Brieuc, and I didn’t know this when I went there, but they are a main site of farming of moules, which are mussels, which are one of my favorite things to eat while I’m on vacation in France.
Annie: Uh-huh.
Jennifer: The next morning, I hiked to Plage Bon Abri, Good Shelter. Yeah. Which is near a little town, very little town called Hilion. Hilion? I don’t know if you pronounce the H or not.
Annie: No, you wouldn’t. Hilion. I would say Hilion.
Jennifer: Okay, good. It feels like you’re in the middle of nowhere right on the bay.
The tides in this area are enormous. So when the tide is out, you can just barely see the water way out there. And I sat on the beach waiting for the campground to open, and there were these vehicles, and I googled it. The vehicles were going to [00:17:00] harvest the moules.
Annie: Ah.
Jennifer: So they’re like boats with wheels, because you need the wheels to, like, get you out to where the water starts when the tide is out.
Annie: Yeah.
Jennifer: There’s a picture that I shared that you can put on the website.
Annie: Yeah.
Jennifer: And they have, like, this big claw device, and they… There are these poles stuck into the water, so when the tide is low, the pole is sticking out of the water, and when the tide comes in, the poles go under the water.
The poles are seeded with baby moules, and then they wait, like, a year, year and a half, and they come harvest them, and this claw just, like, scrapes them all off and puts them into the boat. And then they, like, drive the boat back up, and I just sat there and watched them come in with their moules, and I waved, and they waved back.
So that was a, you know, nice afternoon.
Camping Village Nature dO
Jennifer: That campground there was called Camping Village [00:18:00] Nature d’O.
This was a one-star campground, but I actually really liked it because, like, I could see the bay from the campground.
Annie: Nice.
Jennifer: So beautiful view. It was kind of rustic-feeling, but they had, you know, a camping space, like space for campers.
Annie: How far apart are campers usually in these setups?
Jennifer: It’s not.
Annie: Did you hear your neighbor snoring?
Jennifer: No. No, no, no. I mean, it’s not as big as like a neighborhood lot. I’m not real good with sizes. You have enough space that somebody could park a car and put a big tent next to it.
Annie: Mm-hmm.
Jennifer: And it was like… not so crowded that there were… every pitch was full.
Annie: Okay. Did you have shade sometimes?
Jennifer: That one did not have a lot of shade. I kind of didn’t want shade because it tends to get damp whenever there’s shade, and you pitch your [00:19:00] tent, you wake up the next morning and the damp has gotten into your tent and you’ve got condensation.
So I kind of look for places that are sunny. I pitch my tent in the sun and it dries out really well.
Annie: Okay.
Jennifer: And then in the evening when the sun goes down, it stays a little warm. I found that if I pitch my tent in a place that was shady all day, it’s kind of cold at night.
Annie: Mm-hmm.
Okay. Good to know.
You’re a pro at this.
Jennifer: You live and you learn.
Annie: Yes, you do.
Hard Hike or Take the Bus
Jennifer: So the next day I had a decision to make because the hike along the coast had a lot of ups and downs, and there was no place to stop for about six and a half hours. So my choice was I do the six and a half hour up and down hike, which my hiking app told me was difficult, or I could take the bus around it.
And I decided to do the hard hike, and I was glad I did because it was gorgeous and I got lots of beautiful pictures. But [00:20:00] if somebody was not feeling up to doing the difficult hike, there is a bus.
And I kind of picked this section of the… the whole Grande Randonnée 34 because there’s a bus, and if I got tired I could bail and take the bus.
Annie: Right.
Jennifer: So I want to talk about the bus system a little bit there.
Annie: Yes.
Breizhgo Bus App Tips
Jennifer: Okay, so the transit network in Brittany is called Breizhgo. So Breizh is the Breton word for Breton.
Annie: So it’s B-R-E-I-T-Z.
Jennifer: No T I don’t think. B-R-E-I-Z-H … also, okay.
Annie: Okay, so they don’t put the T in this, but normally it’s got a T.
Jennifer: Oh, okay. Yeah. Well, so it’s B-R-E-I-Z-H-G-O is the website.
Annie: Oh, no, you’re right. There’s no T. It’s Z-H. You’re right. No, sorry. Brain fart.
Jennifer: Okay, good. The network, they have a great website, and I was able to access the website from my phone. They [00:21:00] also have an app where you can, like, load tickets with a credit card, and you can activate a ticket whenever you get on the bus.
I used that. It worked great. So that app is also called Breizhgo. Years ago whenever I did this, there was no way to download the app onto an American cellphone, but now there is. So it’s a lot easier.
Annie: Cool.
Jennifer: So it’s three euros per trip, and you can also, if you don’t want to use the app, you can just give them three euros in cash.
Annie: Yeah.
Always advisable with a bus to have some cash.
Jennifer: Yeah, just in case there’s a problem with that.
Annie: Yeah. Don’t show up with a 50-year-old banknote.
Jennifer: Correct. Have some change in your pocket.
Annie: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jennifer: Okay, so the bus lines in the section that I hiked was the 202 and the 214. So this is the 202, and the bus stops would be Morieux to the city of [00:22:00] Pléneuf-Val-André, which is a pretty big resort town.
Annie: Mm.
Jennifer: So there are multiple stops there. It’s about an hour and a half walk from where I was in the boonies with the harvesting the moules to the bus stop, but it’s flat.
Annie: Mm.
Jennifer: And that’s better than the six and a half hour up and down hike.
Annie: Yeah, yeah.
Jennifer: If you are not able to do lots of hills.
Finding Stops and Schedules
Jennifer: Something that I was confused about and finally figured out is if you want to find a particular bus stop, they’re not on Google Maps. You have to look at the website on Brezgo. You click on Horaires or hours, and then it…
Annie: Yeah, that’s the schedule.
Bus Map and GPS
Annie: Horaires is the schedule.
Jennifer: That’s the schedule. And it’ll show you a map of the network of the buses that are in your area, and you can, like, zoom in and find the bus stop you want, and you can click on it.
And then on that map at [00:23:00] the upper right corner, there’s a little arrow. And that arrow, if you click it, gives the website permission to see your location.
And if you give the permission to see your location, you can see where you are in relation to that bus stop, and you can use it like Google Maps to walk to the bus stop.
Annie: All right.
Jennifer: So once I figured out that, that worked just fine, but it’s good to figure that out probably before you go.
Annie: Yes. Yes.
Who Rides and Bikes
Annie: Was this a busy bus system? Were there just a few people, younger people, hikers, older people? Who was on the bus?
Jennifer: It was almost all hikers. There was a group of young people who had bikes, and that’s probably also something to talk about, is you can, on certain routes, take your bike on the bus.
They load it onto the back.
And so if you want to, like, bike for part of the way [00:24:00] and take the bus stop to the place that you want to bike, you can do that as well.
Annie: Cool.
Jennifer: I would say it’s not super crowded the time I went, because I was… I started in late June, and so I could tell a difference between late June and early July even of how crowded it was.
But August is going to be the most crowded.
The buses are different in the summer, so make sure whenever you’re downloading the schedule, which is good to do because you don’t always have cellphone service, download the bus schedule and save it on your phone.
Make sure you have the bus schedule for the time that you’re going to be there.
Annie: Bus schedules change anywhere in France, they change during school vacation.
So they have more buses during the school year to take kids to school, because there are plenty of… We don’t have, like, the yellow bus system that you have in the US. You know, the school buses.
So kids usually, there are exceptions to this, but usually French kids take the normal public transportation to get to school, and that’s [00:25:00] why there’s more buses during the school year, and they remove a few when kids are on vacation.
Jennifer: Well, here in Brittany, there were actually more buses in the summer because of the tourists.
Annie: Ah, okay. Well, there you go. Where I live, it’s like, in the summer, there’s very few buses.
Jennifer: That makes sense.
Annie: No tourists.
Jennifer: No tourists. No.
(Mid-roll ad spot)
Pleneuf Val Andre Stay
Jennifer: Okay. So the… I did the long six-and-a-half-hour hike to Val… Oh, what is it?
Annie: It was called, hmm…
Jennifer: Pléneuf-Val-André.
Annie: Pléneuf-Val-André, yeah.
Jennifer: I really liked this place. I stayed at Camping du Minihy.
I think if I had to pick one that I was going to stay at for a long time, it would be this one. It was just the people there were very friendly. They lived there, so they had their house, and then they also had the campground that they managed, and that was their family business.
And it was in this cute little resort town, so, you know, you could stay at the campground and [00:26:00] walk into town and, , go to a restaurant or, take pictures, wander around, lots of little shops for tourists, that kind of thing.
Annie: Do they have bike locks at those campgrounds?
Like, if you came on a bike, could you lock your bike at night?
Jennifer: I didn’t see that, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they had it and I just didn’t see it.
Annie: Yeah, or maybe around a tree or something.
Jennifer: Could be.
Annie: Yeah.
Jennifer: Okay. Probably they would have something for you to do if you asked.
Annie: Yeah. Okay.
Moules Frites Favorites
Jennifer: Let’s see. So for dinner that night, also a highlight, they had moules at a place called ‘Le Best Of’. So it’s English, but the ‘Le’ is French.
Annie: If a restaurant has bad English, you know it’s French people running it.
Jennifer: Yes. But this one, it was like, had a view of the pier.
The food was really good. I forgot to say that at the previous place when I was watching the moules, like, come in on the amphibious boats, there’s a [00:27:00] place there, if you walk up to where they’re bringing the moules, it looks really industrial, but at the very back there’s a restaurant that is just fantastic.
Ah. Let’s see. And of course, you buy the moules cooked.
Annie: I used to eat raw moules when I was a kid.
Jennifer: Yeah?
Annie: I can’t do that anymore. I tried.
Jennifer: Probably not good for you.
Annie: Probably, maybe not. I lived.
Jennifer: The place, the first place with the moules was called La Cabane de Mytilus.
Mytilus is the Latin name of the moules.
Annie: Oh, nice.
Jennifer: So they were both excellent moules-frites.
Annie: Mytilus. La Cabane de Mytilus. You wrote excellent notes, so I’m going to have a section, guest notes. So if we fumbled any names, you can see them there.
Jennifer: Yes. Go look at my outline to see the names of all these places.
Annie: On the guest notes.
Erquy Beach and Camping
Jennifer: Okay, so next day I [00:28:00] walked to the next town called Erquy. This was a fairly short hike along the beach. I like walking on the beach because it’s easy. Let’s see, then the camping site was called Camping du Val. The place had kind of a family vibe where they had, you know, a playground with a bouncy house for the kids.
They also had a very nice lounge restaurant area to sit, which I always like. They had an indoor pool, which is kind of a thing in this area because it’s kind of too cold most of the time to be in an outdoor pool, so they have these indoor heated pools.
And Erquy is also a small little resort town that’s nice, but smaller than Pléneuf-Val-André.
Ilot Saint Michel Highlight
Jennifer: The next day was a very short hike, partially because I was tired, but partially because there was something I wanted to see. It’s a tidal island like Mont [00:29:00] Saint-Michel. It’s also named after Saint Michel.
It’s called Îlot Saint-Michel, which is like islet or a mini island.
Annie: Mm-hmm.
Jennifer: So it has the same thing where when the tides are in, it’s an island. When the tides go out, you can walk up there. And there is a lovely little chapel to Saint Michael at the top of this little island. And this was really a highlight of the trip.
I took lots of pictures, and I’m planning on turning one of them into a painting because I was just so inspired by the beauty of this place. And they’ve just really interesting colors. Rocks are red, and they have this bright yellow lichen growing on them, and then also bright green, I guess it’s algae or seaweed or something.
And then there are mussels growing on these rocks that are blue.
Annie: Ah.
Jennifer: It’s a, a different species than the ones that you eat, apparently.
Annie: Okay. [00:30:00]
Jennifer: So it’s just really beautiful. They will open the chapel at certain times when the tide is low, and… I think I forgot to send you the picture of the time… well, I guess it was going to be different every year.
Whenever you hike up there, they have a posting, a schedule of when, like what day it’s going to be open at what time. You definitely want to have at least one hiking pole to, if you want to hike out to this island, because it’s really rocky and you’re going to twist an ankle if you don’t have that.
Annie: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jennifer: So I spent most of the day like sort of hiking around that area and then up to the island and then hiking back.
There is a little restaurant right there on the beach called Le Petit Saint-Michel that I definitely recommend.
Galettes and Breizh Cola
Jennifer: This is getting away from moules territory and into galette territory.
Annie: Nice.
Jennifer: So I have a picture of my lovely galette in the… This is, like, the buckwheat pancake, and they [00:31:00] put, you know, ham and cheese and eggs on top of it. They also have something there called Breizh Cola.
Annie: Breizh Cola, yes.
Jennifer: So it’s like the local cola. I also recommend trying that.
Annie: I often order a Diet Coke at a restaurant.
Jennifer: Yes.
Annie: And most of these restaurants, they don’t have Diet Cokes. They do have sugar-free Breizh Cola, which is delicious. And one of the restaurant told me that people who like regular Coke don’t typically like Breizh Cola, the regular Breizh Cola, but they like the diet one, and people who like Diet Coke prefer Breizh Cola, which is true.
If I could get Breizh Cola in Toulouse, I would get that instead of Diet Coke. It’s delicious. It’s better.
Jennifer: I haven’t seen it in Paris either. I think it’s just something you have to go to Brittany to get.
I would say it tastes kind of like Pepsi, but less sweet.
Annie: Yes. Yes. And I, I [00:32:00] do drink Diet Pepsi if it’s an option, but a lot of places in France, you’ll just…
You know, if you want a diet cola, you know, you take what they have, but the Breizh Cola, the sugar-free Breizh Cola was excellent. And the galettes are excellent, of course.
Jennifer: Yes. So this is definitely, that was kind of a chill day, eating, drinking, and seeing the island.
Wonderful.
Wild Beach No Service
Jennifer: So the next day I hiked to Pléhérel-Plage, and this is an area where there’s really no town. There is a municipal campground there.
Annie: Ah.
Jennifer: This was the most sort of wild, deserted… not deserted, there are people there, but there was no cellphone service.
Annie: Cell service is not good in Brittany.
Jennifer: Yeah. Well, I mean, this was the only place I had trouble. My phone kept connecting to the UK and saying, “Welcome to the UK,” which is really not very close. It must have been the Channel Islands, because if you look at the map, England is really far away. But [00:33:00] the best signal my phone could get was Guernsey, apparently, or Jersey.
Annie: Ah. Overall I found that cell service was not great in Brittany, and the freeways are not great in Brittany either. They’re free, like, as in you don’t pay, but , mm… I’d rather pay and have something a little plusher. You know, as far as the service areas and all that, it’s pretty basic in Brittany.
Anyway.
Jennifer: The transit system though is pretty good. Like, I was really disappointed when I went to Normandy that the transit system was much weaker, whereas in Brittany, it’s fairly easy to get around most places using their public transit system.
Annie: Very good.
Jennifer: So maybe they’ve invested more in public transit.
Annie: Which might be a good thing.
Jennifer: The campground was right on the beach, which is nice because you can go walk on this beautiful beach. And really, this whole time I’m walking on these gorgeous beaches, and there’s hardly anybody there. So it feels like you’ve got a lot of space [00:34:00] to yourself and enjoying the beautiful nature which I really liked.
Dogs Boats and Beach Rules
Annie: Were there people boating?
Jennifer: Yeah. I did see… At one point, there was some kind of, like, historical boat where it had sails and, you know, somebody was doing reenacting of some kind.
Annie: Ah.
Jennifer: I did see, you know, if the light is just right, you can see, like, the ferries.
I saw people doing, like, parasailing. That’s not a boat.
Annie: Right.
I saw a couple where, so the wife walked… so she walked with her little dog following along with her, she walked onto the beach, which was not allowed, dogs were not allowed on the beach. So she picked up the dog, and a guy met her with a boat, and then they put the little dog and the woman in the boat, and they went boating with that.
I thought that was lovely. Little dog was very happy to be on the boat. Clearly, they do this a lot.
Jennifer: I actually saw [00:35:00] quite a lot of dogs on this trip, and I think that they… I saw signs that they were allowed on certain parts of the beach certain times of the year. Yes. But a lot of people do go camping with their dogs.
Annie: Mm, mm, mm.
Jennifer: And sometimes they’ll charge you a couple of euros extra if you have a dog, sometimes not. But most campgrounds allow it, and so if you like going on vacation with your dog, that’s an option.
Annie: Yes. Well, and also, if the dog has been going to campgrounds and is around other dogs a lot like that, they’re going to be used to it.
It’s not going to be, like, they’re not going to be aggressive or, you know, unpleasant. They do this.
Jennifer: Yes. My experience with dogs in France is usually pretty positive. Like, people are pretty good about keeping them trained and contained most of the time.
Annie: Yeah.
Jennifer: So at Pléhérel-Plage, there was no town to go eat at, but there was a cafe, Cafe de la Plage, right there on the beach, and it was kind of a beach hut [00:36:00] vibe.
Again, this was in galette territory. I think the first galette at the other place was better, but it’s, you know, it’s a galette. It’s good. They had a venue there for live music, but nobody was playing while I was there.
Chateau de Guildo Detour
Jennifer: Okay, so next day, we’re up to day seven. Pléhérel-Plage to Saint-Cast-le-Guildo, I looked it up on Wikipedia and nobody’s quite sure who Saint Cast is. But this is the name of the town.
Annie: Okay.
Jennifer: And this is pretty… getting further away from the train station, it gets sort of more and more rural.
Annie: Mm-hmm.
Jennifer: At this point, I kind of took the bus at least part way.
So I specifically wanted to see this ruined chateau that was like halfway, and so I took the bus halfway and stopped at that chateau. That’s the end of the [00:37:00] 202… Oh, let’s see. No, that’s not right. It’s in the 214 bus, I think. Well, look that up if you…
Annie: Yeah, if you’re going to do this …
Jennifer: Look up the bus schedules.
Annie: Yeah, yeah.
Jennifer: So the chateau, what is the chateau called?
Chateau de Guildo. So they have a nice sort of educational signage when you go around the ruins, and it’ll tell you about like what this part used to be, and kind of like half of the chateau is still there, and the top half is gone.
Annie: And there’s also a lighthouse.
Jennifer: Yes, there’s also a lighthouse there.
Annie: Could you visit the lighthouse?
Jennifer: I didn’t go in. I just took pictures of the outside.
Annie: Yeah, yeah.
Jennifer: And so there’s, let’s see, I think I’m getting a little confused in my itinerary. Camping Les Miel was four star. I think that was the highest star that I stayed at. They had like a sauna and like a massage room and that gets, getting a little more resorty.
Annie: Yeah.
Jennifer: And there’s, you know, a swimming pool.
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Jennifer:
Saint Jacut Tidal Flats
Jennifer: [00:38:00] After that, the next day is to Saint-Jacut-de-la-Mer. Jacut, but it has a T at the end that you don’t pronounce.
Annie: Mm-hmm.
Jennifer: This was the one where I took the bus partway. This is like, there’s a peninsula, a small peninsula, and this town is at the end of the peninsula.
There’s another set of tidal islands at the very end of that peninsula, so that when the tide goes out, the people in the town go down, and I think they’re digging for oysters. Lots of people had little shovels, and they were trying to find something in the sand.
But you can go out there and just walk and walk and walk, and be careful to come back before the tides come in.
I found that if you just ask Google the tides for your area, it will just pop up a thing that says, you know, high tide and low tide, so you can be careful not to get stuck out there.
Annie: Right.
Jennifer: But, that was, you know, fun beach time. I thought there was kind of a weird [00:39:00] vibe in this town, Saint-Jacut-de-la-Mer, because every small town I’ve been in in France, if you see, like, a local walking their dog, they will say bonjour to you.
In this town, nobody said bonjour. And whenever I said it first, they would say it back, so they know that it exists, but- … that just kind of took me off guard. It was more like people in Paris. Maybe that’s… They were on vacation from Paris and were not thinking about.
Annie: They might have been Parisians on vacation.
Lots of Parisians go on vacation, yeah.
Jennifer: I wouldn’t be surprised.
But I still thought that this was a nice little town. It was pretty isolated. There was one tiny little grocery store that was closed while I was there. So, you know, think about that more than I did.
Heatwave Skip to Saint Malo
Jennifer: And at this point, the next heatwave was coming, and so I decided to take the bus to Saint-Malo.
I skipped over a little section that I would like to go back to at some point But I [00:40:00] didn’t want to hike in the heat. So I just took the bus from Saint-Jacut to Saint-Malo. And I took the morning bus so that I had the whole day in Saint-Malo, and then in the afternoon I took the train back to Paris.
Annie: Mm-hmm.
Jennifer: I think Saint-Malo is a great place to walk around for half a day. I’ve done that before and enjoyed doing it again.
Annie: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
It’s a beautiful town.
Jennifer: It’s a beautiful little town.
Annie: Yeah.
Jennifer: So overall, highly recommend this part of the Grande Randonnée 34, GR 34.
Annie: Mm-hmm.
Jennifer: I plan to do more of it in the future It’s beautiful, it’s not very crowded, the food is excellent, especially the moules.
I think that if I stayed in one little town for a week I might get bored, but, you know, maybe when I’m old I’ll want to just sit in one town and look at the waves.
Annie: Yeah, I mean, if you do boating and some walking around, but day [00:41:00] after day after day, I would not be satisfied. I love to go and go visit the local abbey or the…
Did you run into any, like, biscuiterie or, like, some of these more touristy towns, they have, at the entrance of the town, they have a biscuiterie or a cidrerie or something like that.
Jennifer: They may have, but I didn’t see anything like that.
Annie: Okay.
Jennifer: But I was only in each town for one day, and I had hiked all day to get there, so I was not maybe exploring each town as much as I could’ve.
Annie: Well, but that’s the beauty of hiking is… you just go from one thing to another and you’re not really trying to see all the sights. Whereas when I go by car, the whole point is to see the sights.
Jennifer: Right, and you could, I think, do this by car as well.
Or I saw a lot of people on bikes. Yeah. You could go from town to town on bikes. So definitely an area of France worth exploring.
Regional Bus System Advice
Annie: Well, and it’s great that you told us about [00:42:00] camping and using the buses and stuff because that’s something that I think lots of people would like to do, they just don’t know how to go about it in France.
So you’ve given them a good primer, and I think a lot of the tips you shared would work in other areas as well, because this…
Jennifer: probably, yeah …
Annie: You know, France is generally organized that way with a regional bus system, well, sometimes it’s just a department. And they all have a different name, so that’s the trick, start with the name of the local buses, the regional buses, and then explore the options there.
Where I live, it’s Lio. Why do they call it like that? I don’t know. They just call it like that. And so, yeah. Fantastic.
Farewell and Thanks
Annie: Well, we have been talking a good long time, as always.
Thank you so much for explaining all of this, Jennifer.
Jennifer: You’re welcome.
Annie: And happy trails, literally. Yes.
Thank you. [00:43:00] See you in Paris soon, I hope.
Jennifer: Au revoir.
Annie: Merci, au revoir.
Patreon Support Thanks
Annie: Again, I want to thank my patrons for giving back and supporting the show. Patrons get several exclusive rewards for doing that. You can see them at patreon.com/joinus.
And a special shout-out this week to my new Join Us in France champions, KJ and Frances Napa.
Patreon is my most reliable source of income. That’s why it means so much to me when you join Patreon. Everything else on this show, the ads, the tours, the consults, goes up and down from month to month, sometimes quite significantly, but Patreon doesn’t. It’s the one thing that lets me plan ahead and keep this episode landing in your feed [00:44:00] every single Sunday, and take a day off now and then without the whole thing falling apart.
So if you’ve been on the fence, consider this me asking directly, join me on Patreon. You get real perks for it, and you’re the reason this show still exists 10 years in.
And another reason is Elyse, of course. To support her, go to patreon.com/elysart.
Seine Swimming Season Recap
Annie: Let’s talk about the Paris Seine swimming season as it wraps up. Of course, this is for anyone hoping to jump in on a future trip. The Seine swimming season is now over, but Paris just released its 2026 outdoor swimming numbers, and it’s a mixed picture. Over eight weeks, the city counted 216,000 visits across the Seine, the canals, and some temporary pools in sports [00:45:00] centers. A third of those days fell during heat waves, so attendance was clearly weather driven.
The Seine did the best, 120,000 swimmers, up 20% from last year, split across three spots, Bras Marie, Quai de Bercy, and Grenelle. But it closed a day early on Saturday, August 29th, because heavy rain washed runoff into the river and drove up bacterial level.
The canals added 63,000 visits, and the sports center pools, another 33,000.
So swimming in the Seine and around Paris is definitely the thing to do, especially when it gets hot in Paris.
Elevator Outage Map App
Annie: A 19-year-old named Sebastien Dominguez just built what people are calling the Waze of elevators for the Paris region. Here’s the backstory.
His older brother [00:46:00] uses a wheelchair, and after years of getting around Paris with him, Sebastien saw firsthand how often a broken public elevator turns into a dead end. You don’t find out it’s out of service until you’re already standing at the bottom of the stairs. So this spring, while also studying full-time in a prep program for France’s top engineering and business school, he built a website called Balance Ton Ascenseur, roughly, “Report Your Elevator.”
It’s a map, and it now tracks close to 2,300 public elevators across the Île-de-France, pulling data from the SNCF, Île-de-France Mobilités, and the City of Paris. The twist is that the official numbers don’t match reality. He says the data shows around 80 elevators out of service at any given time, but the real number is higher because the official feeds do not [00:47:00] update fast enough.
So he added a crowdsourced reporting. If users flag the same elevator as broken three times, he manually updates its status on the map. He taught himself to build this app using AI tools since he didn’t have time to learn to code properly on top of his coursework.
It’s web only for now, it’s not a full app, because he says, and I think he’s correct, that an app needs a much more polished product. He’s still making constant tweaks.
What’s worth noting is that it’s not just useful for wheelchair users. Parents with strollers, older travelers, anyone hauling heavy suitcases through the Metro, they all have the same problem.
At the beginning, the site only got about 10 users a day, but by now it’s September, it’s gotten many more people using it. So if you’re navigating Paris with mobility needs or heavy luggage, the site is [00:48:00] BalanceTonAscenseur.fr, and I’ll put a link in the show notes.
Strolling Rue du Louvre
Annie: One of the things I tell people all the time is that you don’t have to spend every minute in Paris checking famous sites off a list. Some of my favorite memories are simply from wandering a neighborhood and seeing what I stumble across, and of course, when I write VoiceMap tours of Paris, I do plenty of that.
Here’s a great example, and I haven’t written a VoiceMap of the Louvre yet. I might someday. There’s a street called Rue du Louvre that’s only about 700 meters long. It runs from Rue de Rivoli toward the Sentier district through the first and second arrondissement. You could walk it in 10 minutes if you were in a hurry, but why would you?
Along the way, you’ll pass the beautifully renovated Poste du Louvre, the historic central post office that’s been transformed into a modern mixed-use building while preserving its remarkable architecture. Just around the corner [00:49:00] is the Bourse de Commerce, now home to the Pinault Collection, and even if you don’t go inside, it’s worth stopping to admire how Japanese architect Tadao Ando transformed this old circular commodities exchange into one of Paris’ most interesting contemporary art museum.
You’ll also walk past the Haute École de la Joaillerie, the oldest jewelry school in the world, founded in 1867. You probably won’t be taking classes there, but it’s fun to know that generations of France’s master jewelers have trained in that very building. If you’re looking for something a little unexpected, there’s an immersive medieval-themed bar called Potions & Co.
It’s one of those quirky Paris discoveries that you would probably never plan an entire trip around, but if you happen to be walking by, and it’s still open because, eh, new things like that, you never know, [00:50:00] stop in for a drink, and let me know how that went.
If it’s lunchtime, you could try Liquide, the restaurant run by Chef Jarvis Scott, who many French listeners know from Top Chefs, and that’s the beauty of Paris.
One interesting building leads to another. One museum leads to a cafe. One cafe leads to a quiet little square where you end up sitting for half an hour watching the world go by. So don’t feel like every day has to be packed with major attractions. Leave yourself time for a stroll. Sometimes those unplanned walks end up being just the highlight of the trip.
One more thing before I let you go. If you like the podcast, the newsletter is worth your inbox. It’s short, it comes out around each episode, and it’s the place where I actually talk about what’s going on behind the scenes, not just the show notes.
You can sign up at joinusinfrance.com/newsletter. That’s it. That’s the [00:51:00] pitch.
Next week on the podcast
Annie: Next week on the podcast, an episode with Elyse about Baccarat and the magical world of crystals in the Grand Est of France.
Thank you so much for listening, and I hope you join me next time so we can look around France together.
Au revoir.
Annie Sargent: The join us in France Travel Podcast is written, hosted, and produced by Annie Sargent and copyright 2026 by Addicted to France. It is released under a Creative Comments, attribution, non-commercial, no derivatives license.[00:52:00] [00:53:00]