Île-Grande

After a rainy night it's been a much better day today. Once I'd had some breakfast (and done a pile of washing up) I set off down the coast path without much idea of where I was going. The wind was quite strong but the sun was lovely once I got a bit of shelter. The first peninsula I came to had some ruined stone cottages but there was no indication of what they had been so close to the sea shore. Further on there's a bird observatory and what must be a rehabilitation area with (mostly) young gulls sitting inside the netting with more fish than they can eat, while outside more gulls are clamouring to get in. There are old quarry workings there too so it looks like quarrying of the pink granite was an industry here in the past.

By lunchtime I had reached this beautiful little bay looking out to a prominent rock on an island. The bay was nicely sheltered from the wind and it had a granite bench set against the bank which seemed ideal for me to sit and eat the bread and cheese that I'd brought with me. I wished I'd brought some red wine too! It seems surprising to me that there were less than a dozen people on the beach. My blip is a 3-shot panorama merged in Lightroom.

I carried on a bit longer and came to some more quarry workings and a sculpture of a quarry worker looking out to sea as he works. The sign (in french) dedicates the sculpture to the 'tailleurs de pierre' of the 19th century who cut the stone to go to Pau, Paris and Lourdes.

There are some extra shots on Flickr