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oloriel"Not everybody is permitted to go to Brest", as the learned old pirate in the Asterix comics sagely observes. As it happened, we actually made it to Brest - whereas other places of interest, such as Quimper, Concarneau, Pont-Aven or the previously mentioned Douarnenez, dropped off the agenda. On the whole, it felt to me as if we weren't doing anything culturally relevant at all. This is not wholly true (as this picspam will show), but compared to the high amount of educational sight-seeing that I normally enjoy on my holidays, this year the most I seemed to get was a Japanese-style photo stop (rather than the extensive study of ruins, let alone leisurable strolls through museums). I now feel with my father, who began to chafe when my brother and I insisted on a beach day during family holidays back in the day! Now I, too, have become that sort of restless traveller! No wonder I resorted to repetitive photographing and competitive sandcastle-building!
It needs to be said that it wasn't only the kids who sabotaged my educational ambitions; it was also extremely hard to get the mother-in-law and Marc to express interest (let alone delight) in any sort of activity beyond the daily grocery shoping. But they didn't say "No walks or excurses for us, please", either. So Jörg and I made suggestions, they agreed without much enthusiasm, we went, and sometimes they seemed to like our excurses well enough, but it was like pulling teeth. Having to push both the kidlets and half of the grown-ups, all the time? Are you not interested or are you just insecure? Aaargh. No thanks.
Nonetheless, we managed to see a few interesting things. And now you will, too.
So, Brest. This in particular felt like a Japanese photo stop kind of thing: We came, saw, and left. The kids were ill-tempered, the grown-ups weren't motivated enough to visit the maritime museum or the Tour Tanguy. We ended up taking a short walk from the Chateau to the Garden of Discovery, and back again. Jörg later said that we'd in fact seen half of Brest's famous sights. Yeah. From outside...
What we saw of Brest - except for the very impressive outside walls of the Chateau and the busy and interesting mouth of the river Penfeld - looked a bit past its prime, which perhaps added to my discontent. Julian, on the other hand, was highly fascinated by all the buses and trams. He loves everything on wheels.
Another unsuccesful and very short trip took us to Telgruc-sur-Mer, where we wanted to go the market. One of the many things we really enjoyed on previous vacations in Britanny were the lovely markets that took place in different locations on different days of the weeks. We honestly wanted to buy local produce directly from the farmers (or maraichers - market gardening is still a thing in France) but at the end of the season, most markets were tiny and a bit disappointing. In Telgruc, we wanted to buy bread and a birthday cake for the mother-in-law, but the guy behind the market stall refused to interrupt his cellphone call for customers (any customers, not just us), so after I had studied everything he had on offer and he still hadn't put down his phone, I left. I wouldn't even be mentioning Telgruc if its tiny church hadn't been dedicated to St. Magloire, whose Breton name is Sant Maglor. So here, have a photo of the church of Saint Maglor. (Maglor was apparently bishop of Dol de Bretagne in the 6th century. In case you were wondering.)
Typically, the church was closed.
The reason why "not everybody is permitted to go to Brest" is that it's quite cleverly located in a long-stretched and narrow bay, the inlet of which offers many opportunities to guard the bay and the sea and keep out unwanted intruders. This has presumably been done since time immemorial, certainly since the time of the Romans, and continues unto this very day - some of the old fortifications are still in use, and new ones have been added whenever it was deemed necessary.
The squat little tower is the "1811 model" designed by Napoleon Himself (TM). It exists all over the place. There's also a reduced 1846 version:
A more elaborate fort at the Pointe de Cornouaille (yes, this is the French version of Cornwall, congratulations) was especially fascinating because at home, it would have been locked and full of signs saying MORTAL DANGER STAY OUT. Here, it was just sitting there waiting to be explored, assuming that if you went looking at an ancient rotting fort, you would know to be careful. Mind you, it wasn't exactly pointed out as a tourist attraction (we found it because of Geocaching), but it wasn't walled off, either. Surprisingly enough, even mopey rebellious kids understand when their parents are serious about "You have to be really careful!".
Finally, a more modern piece of coastal fortification. How pretty the 1811 model looks compared to this. >_>
Mind you, nature is helping by making many stretches of coast easy to defend.
The above are all located on the promontory north of Camaret-sur-mer (if you want to take a look at the map), called Roscanvel. (I LOVE BRETON PLACE NAMES, DID I MENTION THAT.) Camaret is actually the French version of Breton Cameled, which we predictably nicknamed Camelot. It's a quaint little fishing town.
Aside from fortifications, "Camelot" features a ship cemetary at the entrance to its pretty little harbour. It even comes with a tiny church. The clever Cameledians built their church on the end of the dyke because they presumed that God wouldn't want to drown the church, so the town would be safe from flooding...
Lots of pretty sailing boats in the harbour. Fishing is still a staple of the economy, especially sardines and langoustines, but today, that is mostly done in modern motor boats. Some of the traditional sailing boats are now used for tourism purposes, especially the iconic Belle Etoile, which is sort of like the Bluenose of the Crozon Peninsula but with a prettier name? I would have loved to go on a day or weekend trip, e.g. to the Île de Sein, but it just wasn't feasible. (This is not the Belle Etoile but some other pretty boat.)
The kids can be so cute when they want to be.
The Tour Vauban. Actually, there are a lot of Tours Vauban, because Vauban was the chief builder of fortifications under Louis XIX. But this is the Tour Vauban at Cameled.
BTW, when I said that the coast was fortified since time immemorial, I really meant that.
From 3000 B.C. to the 20th century. This used to be the manor of Saint-Pol-Roux, a famous poet I have to admit I never heard of before. He was a symbolist and an icon of La Resistance, apparently, which resulted in the destruction of the manor when the Germans took the peninsula. Oh look, let's take another guilt trip. Originally, it was just a small fisherman's cottage and the poet had it castle-i-fied after he bought it. Because of Saint-Pol-Roux, Cameled declares that it "encourages all works of art", and if you feel inspired to create some art while you're there, you're welcome to drop it off at the town hall or Office de Tourisme.
Further ugly leftovers from the Atlantic Battle.
A memorial for the role Britanny played in the liberation.
In friendlier news, pretty rocks.
This one is called La Baleine, the whale. Guess why.
It all looks so nice, but at times, conditions must be really harsh around here.
Down on the beach, we found an interesting stone circle that looked like a make-shift altar. As there were traces of beeswax between the rocks, I expect that it actually was one. After all, it was the autumnal equinox, and there's a lot of druidic revitalisation in Britanny. (Of course, it might also be art that was too cumbersome to take to the Office de Tourisme.)
The stones on that beach were so incredibly colourful! Grey, green, red, orange, ochre, purple, white. You can only guess at it in the pic so you'll have to take my word for it.
Britanny is also hugely popular with (neo-)Hippies.
Another day. The bridge of Terennez across the river Aulne. It's the only bridge of its kind in France and the longest in the world. The finer details on what makes it so special were lost due to my bad school French.
There's a micro-brewery and a honey museum nearby, but we visited neither.
A more succesful (half-)day trip took us to Landévennec to see the Ancienne Abbaye, which means Ancient Abbey (SOMETIMES FRENCH IS SO EASY). The actual Ancient Abbey from the 5th century was destroyed during the French Revolution and is now an archaeologic site. In 1950, a new abbey was established close to the old one. It appears to be quite popular, at least on Sundays (judging by the traffic on the parking site).
But this is what's left (or reconstructed) of the old.
Two show gardens, and one that's in "regular" use beyond the ruins.
This was possibly the most shallow well I have ever seen. There were tadpoles living inside but they don't show on the pic, boo.
It's not a good picture, but it nicely gets across the sense of vertigo on the extremely steep path through the surprisingly dark forest.
Not sure whether this is still part of the river Aulne or already the bay of Brest. Either way, it's pretty.
Another ship cemetary, this time of the military kind.
A sculpture of King Gradlon escaping the drowning of Ys in Argol (another failed market attempt).
The pretty little city of Chateaulin. With a proper market!
I loved the purple broccoli and the heritage tomatoes. As I said, market gardening is still very common in France, and apparently people are more curious about different-looking vegetables than they are around here, too.
Mind you, the best market during our stay was right "at home" in Crozon. Unfortunately, we didn't realise that it only took place every other week, off-season. So on our first visit, we mostly only looked around instead of buying veg and beads and ribbons and whatnot, because we thought we could do all that next week. Nope.
Crozon had a pretty city hall, too.
Like many places in France, Crozon-Morgat is a hyphenated town because different communes have been packed together for reasons of administration. The other "half" (aside from various villages like Kerret, where we stayed) is, surprise, Morgat, another pretty little fishing town. Morgat is famous for its caves and offers boat trips into some that are only accessible by sea, but we didn't do one. Maybe some other year.
Morgat at night, from the other side of the bay.
Oof, that's again enough for one post! Some hiking, the Holy Mountain of Menez-hom and our journey back (incl. Le Mont-St-Michel!) will follow some other day. Hope you enjoyed!
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Date: 2016-10-24 02:35 pm (UTC)