BREST

Foggy, drizzly day when we arrived but turned out fine by the time we left the ship at 11am. Brest is an old walled city that was all but destroyed by the allies in WW2 because it was a vital Nazi submarine port. About the only bit that remains is Rue St Malo a narrow street of old houses. We were in a commercial port so only allowed to exit by Shuttle bus. We took the lovely cable car over the river to the Atelier des Capuchins, originally Franciscan friars, then a major factory, now turned over to a large open display, with local shops, cafes, old manufacturing tools and Napoleon's barge. Cheap cable car, 4.4€ return for the 2 of us that gave a great view of the 2 tier lifting bridge.

We next went to the fort/maritime museum which was very good except that it was nightmare of spiral staircases that you had to go up & down repeatedly. Mrs S - exhausted. While up in the fort battlements we saw several French warships steaming out, Brest is second only to Toulon as a naval port. Later on we saw as we overtook them as we departed that they were escorting a French nuclear Ballistic missile submarine out to sea. One of the ships, Amiral Ronarc'h is a brand new  FDI frigate (Future Defence Intervention) Apparently it has hack proof cyber system, anti air, anti ship & anti submarine missiles and an advanced air defence system along with helicopter and 25 commandos.