I’m now installed in the super-cute little house I’m renting for the next month.

Front door leads into the living room, with the bedroom on the left. It’s basically a U. In the photo below the kitchen is on the right, bathroom on the left, living room next to the kitchen, bedroom where I stood to take this photo–wrapped around this perfect, private little space, with doors leading out from all of them. Love it!

So now I have a few minutes to tell you about our adventures in Brittany, or as it’s called here in France, Bretagne (the end rhymes with lasagne). We were headed to the Gulf of Morbihan, where Pascale had planned various excursions to see ALL of it, including islands in the middle. Thanks, Pascale! All of it was well worth seeing. Way too much for one post, so here’s Part 1.

We packed up and headed out from La Rochelle around 9:30 a.m. Wednesday the 22nd and made it to Vannes in time for lunch at our first of many traditional Breton crêperies. We walked through the base of the tower out to a stone-walled terrace.

La Tour Trompette, Crêperie, Vannes

Pascale at lunch La Tour Trompette, Vannes

Jacky’s flambéed dessert

The most impressive part, though, was les toilettes — the tiniest, wedge-shaped, stone-walled, low-ceilinged, claustrophobia-inducing WC, too tiny even to take a photo, except of this sign by the tiny sink:

So, yeah, note to self: It could be worse.

I sure wish I had been participating in FitBit challenges, because I would have rocked it. I logged roughly 17,000 steps a day Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Wednesday and Sunday we were driving there and back, and I still managed 12,500 on Wednesday and 8,000 on Sunday. Wednesday was high because the lunch stop in Vannes included a walk around the town . . .

Translation: Vannes and his wife

Vannes, France

Vannes, France

Then Wednesday evening we also walked to dinner, twenty minutes from the hotel down to the port in Auray. And back, of course . . UP.

But in the company of friends, even that wasn’t too bad! My lesson for the day: life can be hard, but it can also be beautiful. Pascale and Jacky’s next door neighbor apparently agrees: