Madhouse diaries : Dawdling around Daoulas in Brittany

You could hardly say that we live in a bustling metropolis but, even so, heading to Daoulas in Brittany, where the in laws live, is always a chance to find some total tranquility.

I always like to go for a stroll along the river, called La Mignonne (which makes me smile because it means The Cute One !), looking at the reflections of the sky and clouds in the perfectly calm water.

At low tide, the boats are stranded in the reeds.

Sophie even opted for some floral prints and hair accessories to fit in with the bucolic setting !

A little further along the riverbank is an ivy clad cottage that houses an "éco-musée" - an environmentally-themed museum, which we have yet to visit.

It has a hidden gem - a water wheel tucked around the corner. On the end of this walkway is a geocache which is a nice little bonus.

It's the quintessential village complete with duckpond.

I've been coming to Daoulas for about 20 years but thanks to geocaching, our wanderings took us to a little local landmark that I'd never seen before.

For one of the multicaches (it's like a treasure hunt - you have to find a few clues which will give you the coordinates of the final cache), we needed to discover the name of the village fountain.

And tucked up a little alleyway, we found him.

There is a big apple tree in the garden opposite and it looks like the village kids have fun lobbing apples in the water, even tucking one behind his ear !

From here, we could have headed up the twisty road to the abbey at the top of the hill, but we needed to get back.

So we took the low road instead and wandered past the "calvaire" - one of the stone crosses that are dotted all over Brittany.