With the sun still shining and with a desire for more than another day at the beach, we decided to drive up the River Aven to visit the town on a market day, Tuesday, and have a look at the art museum as well, having been deprived of a visit to the Gauguin museum in La Pouldu, whilst it was being renovated. With international interest in the late 1860s in the landscape and traditions of Brittany, sufficient to draw a mixed bag of mainly Americans, English and some French to Pont Aven, by the 1880s Gauguin was one of 40-50 artists in residence who established the town as a haven for artists seeking new ways of ‘seeing’ the world.
We could see on the local map that there was parking at an Aire just outside the town, and as we eased our way through the busy traffic and throngs of visitors, we were grateful that the municipality had made the effort to make it so easy to visit. The Aire was essentially a large car park and whilst it had no facilities, neither did it have any restrictions if you fancied staying overnight.
As usual, Evie seemed to be dwarfed by the other nearby campervans…
...but whatever their size, it always feels better to be leaving her in the company of other vans and their owners when we are out for a day trip!
The walk into town was short, the streets were busy with other tourists and we were glad of the Aire and the sense of being away from that madding crowd. There are many picturesque views along the riverside…
...and there was a steady throng of people heading to and from the market. We are suckers for French markets, and although many have much the same tat in parts, there is usually an interesting stall here and there that takes our fancy.
With lunch time in full swing and many of the restaurants already packed, we clocked one we fancied coming back to after we had wandered around the market. Unluckily for us, the market, whilst covering a fair distance, didn’t have much of interest, apart from a couple of ‘artisan’ galette vans, but as we fancied one of the restaurants or cafes, we headed back up the river to get a table with a view. But we weren’t the only people to have fancied this particular lunch stop, and having been told that there was a wait of at least 45 minutes, we decided to head back to sample a galette.
Suffice to say that this wasn’t one of our better culinary choices and with the galettes tasting pretty bland, and Mr B’s bottle of artisan beer heading down the drain after a slight mis-step with his opening technique, we chalked it down to experience...
Still, having refuelled, we were happy to head off to the art museum. On arrival we were pleased to see that there was also an exhibition of art around the subject of sorcery (a top topic for Mrs B) which was so absorbing that we ended up spending most of our time there, with only a cursory visit to the section devoted to Gaugin and co. at the end.
We also had time to view one of Pont Aven’s famous biscuiteries, (we are currently enjoying their Breton palet as our afternoon tea treat!) complete with very old public convenience (conveniently sited over the river)…
...as well as a town version of the thatched cottages we had seen on our bike ride…
...before wandering our way back to Evie via the Bois d’Amour, one of the haunts of the Gaugin crowd…
The Bois is apparently famous for being the location of where Gaugin gave fellow artist Paul Sérusier a ‘live lesson’ in ‘feeling rather than seeing’ the landscape, as well as using the scenery himself for inspiration…
...and if Mrs B had easy access to art materials, she too would have drawn inspiration from the colourful and tranquil surroundings…
Luckily for Mr B, there were information boards a-plenty regarding the various wildlife to be seen along the river, including some beautiful vibrant blue damsel flies, that would remain still until just the point he tried to take a photo!
By the time we returned to Evie the Aire had become much busier, with a number of campers clearly in for the night and tables and chairs discretely tucked in alongside their vans. For us, we were glad to be returning to our pitch at Raguénez, with the comfort of a large grassy area to lounge about on and no traffic noise!
It’s interesting to reflect on just how much we have become fans of campsites, given that in our early travelling years we didn’t use them at all! Surely this can’t have anything to do with getting older!?
S&J 28.06.25
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