Outbound (Cologne to Brest by plane)

Considering the Cologne/Bonn Airport serves Cologne, Bonn, and the surrounding area it is surprisingly quaint and provincial, which is very much to my liking!  I'm sitting in a restaurant and eating a Flammkuchen (this one has salmon and leek on it), which I never had before but believe to be the German version of Pizza. In 1 hour and 10 minutes, Air France will fly me to Paris CDG in an Embraer Jet, from where another Air France flight will take me to Brest.  Total air time 2x 1.25 = 2.5 hours.  Then the real adventure begins.  Which sounds very odd after just having looked at some of my blog posts of the last 10 days ;-)  Cologne/Bonn Airport does not have a smoking aquarium, which is uncivilized, but I like the flags on the outside. Do read them ;-)

Also exemplary is their children's playground inside the gate area:

And here is the rest from the other side of the Maginot line

Paris Charles de Gaulle (Yes, the one of Vive le Quebec Libre!) is a nice airport but there is more getting to and from planes by buses.
 And it has a smoking aquarium!  But the air in those things is so atrocious, after trying to catch my breath in the smoke after entering, I actually start re-considering whether I should light a cigarette or whether I inhaled enough tar already from the air.

Brest airport is tiny; the taxi ride into the centre of Brest costs Euro 19.50.  Be prepared for taxi drivers that don't speak any English, which is perfectly OK, since I barely speak any French ;-)

Chambre a l'Hotel Bellevue

Brest is in the same time zone as Berlin. Look at a map and start wondering how that works! Go, do it!
The result is that the sun rose today at 6:18 am and will set at 10:25 pm. That is wacky! But the price one has to pay to have most of Europe in one time zone. Here is the first glimpse of the promised land still from the plane:

My first trip was to find a smart phone so I can have Google Maps on while on the road.  On my way to a recommended store, I run into one of the E-bike shops, just around the corner. Unfortunately, the bike they advertised and that I wanted is no longer made. Good thing there are 2 other E-bike shops out there.

Next stop is Orange, pour acheter un portable (buy a cell phone).  I get an HTC Desire including one month unlimited data and unlimited calls within France for 200 Euros. Calling abroad seems to be expensive in France, but at least I have my own portable Wifi hotspot now (Germany taught me a lesson) as well as access to e-mail and Google Maps on the road (I wouldn't want to miss a single one of those gorgeous beaches when on the bicycle back to Cologne ;-).

Then it's time to eat down at the harbour (not a nice area; the ocean view is blocked by ship-building yards or whatever these things are) and the food is as it is supposed to be in France: FANTASTIQUE!

Then it's time to walk back to the hotel, write this, and go to sleep!

French Seagulls are the friendliest of all!