Now that she's back from that soul vacation (Britanny, pt. 3)

[oloriel]

Everybody's probably getting tired of the sudden picspam deluge but now that I started it, I'm gonna finish, muahahah. (And then relapse into my usual radio silence, possibly punctuated by the occasional word count? We will see.)

We're almost done, anyway. The only pics missing are some nature, some evening light (which is also nature, I guess) and quite a bit of Le Mont-St-Michel, which was not only the highlight of the journey back but also a highlight of the whole trip.



But for now, we're still on the Presqu'île de Crozon. To be precise, at the gorgeous Chateau de Dinan, the rock formation we admired every day from where we went to the beach. We went for a little hike there. On the way, I was a bit worried because the path is relatively close to the cliffs - not for a grown-up, but for a preschooler who doesn't always judge distances and/or his braking distance correctly, or a Terrible Twos toddler who'll do forbidden things just to be contrary, which can be a real problem when you're not, in fact, spiting your harmless parents but Gravity Itself. But it turned out that Felix was so cowed by the wind on that day that he stuck to the path and a safe gait by himself, and Julian found the wire railing which they'd used to protect -- no, not the hikers, but the coastal vegetation (this is Britanny: Hikers can be trusted not to walk over cliffs, but they cannot be trusted not to trample the heather!) -- anyway, Julian liked that wire railing so much that he insisted on walking the entire way holding on to the wire with one hand, and to one of our hands with the other, without the slightest interest in straying from the path. Phew!



This year, we were there during lowering tide; for comparison, have a pic from last year when we took our hike while the tide was rising. This is the actual "Chateau", though it doesn't look quite as castle-like from this side as it does from the other. You can walk across the arch and between the rocks of the chateau, but with two small kids and a mother-in-law prone to vertigo, we resisted the temptation...


The chateau from the other side, where you can guess at the castle outline. There are dozens of these tiny bays all over the place, some of which are accessible at low tide and others by sea kayak only.





Felix has now reached an age where he's feeling self-conscious about being photographed and tries to cover it up by goofing around. Julian, on the other hand, loves having his picture taken.



Sometimes Jörg and I went for an evening hike by ourselves. Some Us Time - and, of course, photo opportunities.

(...with 'making of' shot!)


As all of France is using the same time zone although Britanny should geographically be in the same zone as GB, we got lovely long evenings even in September. (On the other hand, the sun didn't rise before 8 in the morning, but on vacation, who cares?)



On the day of the equinox, we went up on the holy and highest singular mountain of the Finistère, Ménez-hom. It's a smashing 333 meters high, which rather made us laugh (the highest point in our home town is at 308 m, so not that much lower), but so close to the sea and with nothing around to block the view, 333 m look quite impressive. We were lucky in that the weather was absolutely perfect, too; we could discern the Tas de Pois and the other familiar rock formations, about 35 km away. Ménez-hom is an extinct volcano, so maybe this is where the volcanic rock on "our" beach originated? IDK. According to the Tourist Information brochure, Ménez-hom features in many Celtic tales, but no examples were given. :( It is also used as a druidic site by modern druids, but not while we were there. (In spite of it being the day of the equinox! I was disappointed!) I should also mention that we didn't actually walk all the way up - there's a tourist parking lot quite close to the summit...





On our last evening, Jörg, I and the kids went to watch the sunset at the Cape of Penn-hir. That is, Jörg and the kids huddled at the Resistance monument and I went ahead to take pics.



And lastly, as mentioned above, Le Mont-St-Michel, la merveille. It was a small detour on the drive home, but definitely worth it. It was a dry Saturday, so loads of people were having the same idea, and the actual former monastery was so full that we didn't bother to queue to get in. So I'm sneakily adding pics from a former visit (when we went on a Wednesday) to cover the parts we didn't see this time. I never made the picspam back then so this is a good opportunity to use them. ;) This was my third visit to the Mont-St-Michel and it was interesting to observe the development of the "renaturation" of the bay, which is now almost complete. Previously, the dam built in the 19th century to simplify access for pilgrims and tourists (who could previously only reach the island at low tide) resulted in more and more silt being held in the bay. Accordingly, it stopped being a bay and became a marsh. Since 2006, the dam has been removed to allow the tides to wash away the silt and recreate the original bay shape, with a bridge connecting the island of Mont-St-Michel to the mainland. During our first visit in 2012, part of the dam and the old parking lot were still in place, but now it's all gone and the change is quite impressive.
Of course, the whole of Mont-St-Michel is impressive, and I went quite wild with the camera. I already sorted a lot of photos out but there's still a shitload left which you will have to wade through like pilgrims have to wade through the sludge to get to the island, MWAHAHAH. Because I never know when I can use some visuals for Minas Tirith, Gondolin or Tirion, right? ;)





I have no clue what the letters and numbers on the tiles of the square before the church actually mean, but I suspect they spell "DEAR DAN BROWN: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION"...



Le Mont-St-Michel has been used as an abbey, fortress and prison; these days, it is mostly a tourist trap, but it is also still a working church.





Ahahah, it's a Fëanorian hamster wheel! -- Actually, this treadmill was used to power the ropeway that brought supplies to the island while it was a proper island. Nowadays, of course, they use lorries that drive across the bridge (and before that, the dam).




In spite of the bridge, some people actually do march through the mud at low tide. I guess it isn't a proper pilgrimage unless you're barefoot and stuck in sludge up to your knees? Amusingly, there's a little ornamental fountain on the lowest level of the Mont-St-Michel right between the gates with a big sign on it asking people NOT to wash their feet there. Guess where everybody washes their feet! -- Mind you, it's not just humans who prefer the mud to the bridge...



Au revoir!




Oof! We've done it! Congratulations!
Now, NaNo is calling, so I don't expect to be able to post any further catch-uppy things before December. (Oh God, is it almost December? Nooooo!)

Comments

[independence1776]

Ooh! Gorgeous pictures! I love the panorama.

That weird little corner room above two entrances: was that a prison cell or something else?

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

There were no signs around, so I can't know for certain. That corner is on the lowest wall and facing the mainland, though, so it wouldn't have made a very safe cell. It's too far from the church to be feasible for an anchoress, either. I'm assuming it would have been used for storage, either of supplies or of weaponry.

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

That's an amazing pic spam! I particularly love the glorious sunset at the cape -- the light is just fantastic.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Thank you! It was glorious indeed - worth braving the wind. (It was quite a windy evening, and once the sun went down, you felt very keenly that it was already autumn...)

[hhimring]

I loved Brittany. So much sea and sky, and those photos bring it back...
Good luck with your NaNo!

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

I can't even put my finger on why that place makes me so happy, but it does. Yes, maybe it is all the sea and sky, all the immensities.

Thank you! Unfortunately, it is not going well at all. Five days in and I have managed to reach the word count typically expected for a single day. Tough going. I've given up (for today) and am instead writing Azruhâr's merry holiday journey to Andúnië. No NaNo material, but maybe it'll help me get around the block in my head. :/ Are you taking part as well?

[hhimring]

Sorry to hear the NaNo novel hasn't been going well! But I'm glad you're taking the chance to re-visit Azruhar.
I've never taken part in NaNo and don't expect to do so any time soon--it's not really compatible with the way I write at present or with RL, either.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

It's normally working pretty well for me - I don't normally write like that, either, but for a single month, I can pull it off - but this time, it's just not going. Mooooope. Still trying to determine whether it's just that particular project, or writing in general that has me stumped. Oh well. It's not ultimately important!

[lindahoyland.livejournal.com]

Lovely photos.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[sermanya.livejournal.com]

Auf unserer Namenssuche mit kompliziertesten Algorithmen (damit's fair bleibt - Wir sind so Nerds :) ) taucht plötzlich Felix ganz oben auf der Liste mit sehr vielen Punkten auf. Und ich find's irgendwie komisch, weil Felix ja "deins" ist. Aber er gefällt mir. Und ihm auch. Ich hab noch einen favoritigeren Favoriten. Aber den mag er nicht. Hm. Mal sehen.

Sry for spamming your Journal with unrelated stuff...
Es beschäftigt mich seit Tagen.
Ich mag die Bilder noch immer. Ich mag deine Erzählungen. Und ich wünsch dir viel Erfolg für NaNoWriMo. Leider bin ich noch nicht in Mutterschutz. Das wär DIE Gelegenheit gewesen, damit anzufangen :)

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

*lach* Na, sie werden sich wohl kaum in der Grundschule begegnen, von daher sei euch der Name herzlich gegönnt, wenn er euch beiden gefällt. Zeigt ja bloß, was wir für einen guten Geschmack hatten, haha. ;)
Wahrscheinlich leidet ihr ja auch unter der Übungsleiterkrankheit, zu vielen Namen bereits jemanden zu kennen (womöglich sogar noch jemanden, den man nun wirklich nicht zum Vorbild für das eigene Kind wählen würde). Mein favoritigster Favorit wär zum Beispiel Simon gewesen, aber da kannte Jörg ein blödes Judokind. Matthias hätt ich auch schön gefunden (fiel aus, weil ihn das an Matjes erinnerte, püh!), und als Zweitnamen hätt ich gern den meines Patenonkels Christoph gewählt, da hatte Jörg gleich drei Negativbeispiele...
Naja, wir haben ja dann zum Glück für Julian (ich hatte eigentlich Julius vorgeschlagen, aber da gab's wieder ein Negativbeispiel - Julian finde ich aber inzwischen eh viel hübscher) trotzdem auch noch einen hübschen Namen gefunden. XD

Wie du siehst, kann ich problemlos zurückspammen. Mich hat das damals auch sehr beschäftigt, ist ja auch eine wichtige Entscheidung!

NaNo läuft bisher nicht gut für mich, ich hab mir in drei Tagen mühsam 500 Worte abgerungen. Wenn's nicht besser wird, such ich mir ein neues Projekt...
Hey, einen Rebel-NaNo könntest du auch jetzt schon machen. Hast doch einen langen Bericht, der geschrieben werden will ;)