Day 7. Hot hills and Salt.

This morning I was feeling more refreshed than I have all week,
obviously because of my rest day. I packet my stuff which is getting
lighter all the time thank god. I set out from Vannes determined not
to hit the highway or N routes as they sat here. I planned my route
carefully and used my intuition to find my way out of the city because
the signs never help. Within a few minutes I was moving aong at a good
pace convinced I was going the right way and I was until I missed the
turn off for Thiex and ended up cycling exactly were I didn't want to,
on the hard shoulder of a 4 lane motorway. I suffered this for about
200m and decided to jump the barrier onto the adjacent road which
turned out to be exactly were I wanted to be. The rest of the day was
spent battling a headwind when I was exposed and powering up small
hills which pale in comparison to the hills of central brittany and
trying not to get too dehydrated in the 30 degree heat. I did not pich
a destination today I just decided to head south until I got tired or
found somewhere plesent to stay. Going through one largish medieval
tourist trap I even toyed with the idea of booking into whst looked
like a very nice and reasonably priced hotel. But being the sadist
that I am I decided to push on as there was no real athmosphere. After
that town (Cant remember the name) I encountered salt farms near the
coast with literally thousands of people in SUV's lining up to buy sea
salt from vendors on the side of the road. Earlier I crossed a very
nice bridge which crossed one of the inlets from the bay of Moribhan.
On the other side was a bird sanctuary with a great resting point
overlooking a marina. While I was there I got to see the bridge raise
up to let some yachts in. Altogether I estimate I covered approximatly
80 Kms today in about 6 hours. In the end I stopped in la Boule as I
was almost out of water and I spotted a sign directing towards a
campground. It is the most depressing site I have seen yet but has
everything I need I suppose. La Boule seems to me from looking at my
map to be a single urban conurbation ending at St. Nazaire. I intend
to tackle this tomorrow with a fresh head and hopefully the other side
of the bay it is situated on will be more relaxed and less built up.
My knees have healed significantly which was the one reason I made it
so far today and my ass isn't so bad either. I wonder how tomorrow
will go I haven't negotiated such an urban maze yet here I'm not
looking foreward to the challenge knowing how bad the signs are in
towns here. And can someone please tell me why only one in twenty
signs here tell you the distance to the next town?