Food and Brittany...

If anyone was asked "what makes France special?" then pretty high on the list would be the cuisine - or to be more specific - the food! It's become fashionable to say that in such-and-such country you can eat better than France, or that London is better than Paris, but that ignors the fundamental truth that the French eat out an aweful lot, both habitually in their lunchbreak and in the evening. That means that there are a huge number of restaurants and that the general standard is very, very high and with such competition prices are extremely low.

Brittany is no exception, and like the rest of France the way restaurants like to use local produce and have regional specialities makes Brittany different to other areas. Brittany is the 'Market Garden' of France and so no-where will you find better or fresher vegetables, and local fruit in season. The seafood is the best in France and some of the best in the world - wheras in the rest of France selling 'dead' shellfish such as crab and Langustines is common as it is in the rest of Europe, in Brittany those will be alive, and caught off the local coast the day before. To go, for example, on our 'Bay of Morlaix' route and eat seafood at the restaurant that was all caught in the Bay itself is something rather special.

The other local specality is recipies using 'ble noir' or Buckwheat flour - grown in the fields you cycle past. Most commonly used to make the savory crepes Brittany is famous for (and rightly) it also gets used in various puddings like 'Kig ar Farz' a bag pudding with lamb stew - real filling stuff...

But as I've already mentioned, the real distinctive thing about Breton cooking is the quality of ingredients used.

As for value, I've just picked two random samples from the hotels on our routes.