What a lovely night’s stop. The wind and rain outside, nice and toasty indoors, all with the constant lapping of the waves outside the bedroom window. One neighbour last night, a white van.

Our usual late start was followed by coffee and croissants, plus a little blogging. Sophie thought it might be an idea to visit Cancale today. We’ve never had any success stopping there in a motorhome and have always found ourselves there on a weekend, when it tends to be mobbed. Admittedly, today is a Saturday, but it’s early December, so we thought it was worth a try.

Within 25 minutes we were there. If you’re a motorhomer and familiar with Cancale, then you’ll know that at the port area, ie the seaside part with all the restaurants, you are greeted with a clear sign saying no parking at all for motorhomes. There is an aire further out, but we don’t want to stay for the night, we just want to visit the town.

As we headed up the hill out of the port, pursuing a possible Park4night, we saw the sign saying that the motorhome parking ban ended there. Interesting. Immediately in the road which turned to the left, there was a roadside space at the end which was made for us. So we managed to park for free, at the closest point a motorhome can legitimately park. Result.

After a short stroll down the hill, we were at the front. Brilliant. My objective was lunch, with my criteria being a set menu that offered oysters as a starter, followed by moules and frites for main, and if we were lucky, a dessert too. Fortunately, Sophie also had another stipulation, which was that we had to eat in the enclosed outside section of the restaurant, so that we could tell we were actually in Cancale.

It was gone 1pm, but I’d noticed one packed restaurant offering all day service, a rarity in France, so this gave Sophie the time she needed for more photos, and a walk along the front, plus a mooch up the back roads.

We found our ideal restaurant, L’Aviron, which met all our requirements. However, there was still no space at 1:30pm. They said they stopped service at 2:30, and we could see that some were definitely getting to the end of their meals. So rather than just standing outside with our noses pressed against the restaurant window, we headed across the road to the sea wall, whilst watching the restaurant door like hawks. It opened and out came a couple, I shot over to check there was a free table, then signalled to Sophie to get over here pronto.

We had a great table, with us both looking out to the sea, and had an enjoyable meal with great service from a very cheerful couple.