The Bars

Lots of bars throughout Brittany are looking forward to having you sample their wares. The amount of international brands of beers will amaze you in the many bars throughout Brittany and all the other regions of France.

The local attraction of our town of Callac for example consists of several bars both English and French run which are all quite different and offer diverse things for different tastes. Our local bar The Rendevous is has a real gem of a bar collection and Gary and Nicola the proprietors are always putting things on for the locals from Quiz nights to good old karaoke evenings which are tempting bait for many large crowds of local ex-pats as well as the local French residents. Nicola is fond of putting on curry nights which is usually a complete sell out well in advance. On Sunday afternoons many a "jamming sessions" is held on a regular basis.

In France some bars have their drinking up conclusions at various different times of the day or week. The reasons can be absolutely different and often explicable once explained. As an example the bar that runs the PMU (the local betting office in England) is usually the busiest bar in the town in the mornings as the local people all go there to place their bets on the horse or dog racing for the day, the same happens with the bars that offer the lottery tickets, they are usually very busy on a Friday evening from 17.00 to 19.00 as people rush in to get their weekly lottery ticket. Obviously, the cherishing of hopes for some of winning a Euro lottery of course force them to stop for a beer or two.

The flexibility of some bars in France allows visitors to stay very late even until 12 or 1 o`clock unless the bar decides to close early which some of them do as they can and do open in some cases from 07.00 in the morning for coffee and in some cases people will even have a Pernod (locally called Pastis) at this early time of the day.

You can get draught British and German beers as well as draught ciders. Many alcoholic beverages in France are a mixture of local and imported. This can give you such a nice feeling as if you are sitting in your local pub back home drinking your local tipple.

The Restaurants

The restaurants available in Brittany are numerous and every town no matter how large or small will usually have a fair choice of restaurants for you to visit. As we live in a small market town called Callac we have at least 7 restaurants to boast about. They offer everything from a full English breakfast to a Basque menu; go further afield to towns such as Carahiax or Guingamp and the choice is increased considerably. You can find many kinds of restaurants offering their inimitable cuisine. There are Chinese restaurants, pizzerias, traditional French restaurants and specialist restaurants offering both lunchtime menus and a full a la carte menu in the evening.

You will generally find that almost every restaurant offers the fixed lunch-time menu which is a fixed price and is anything from a 2 course up to a 4 or 5 course menu which is normally varied but limited compared to the a la carte menu but there again the price usually ranges from 11 Euros up to 16 Euros and includes a bottle of drinking water and a bottle of wine.

We all have our favourites but we have found that a small restaurant hidden away in a quiet corner of Carahiax called The Retond is superb and the secret of the success lies in the fact that all food is prepared over a very old wood burning fire. See the French Classified website to find more France Restaurants