Mont Saint Michel

 Brittany, France
Jul 282025
 

July 26, 2025

It is hard to believe, but I had never been to Mont Saint-Michel.  Sadly, we arrived late in the evening, and the monastery was not open; however, there was still plenty of time to explore the island.

Mont Saint Michel from my hotel room

The island was originally called Mont-Tombe but became known as Mont-Saint-Michel in the 8th century, when St. Aubert, bishop of Avranches, built an oratory there after having a vision of the archangel St. Michael. It rapidly became a pilgrimage center, and in 966 a Benedictine abbey was built there. In 1203, it was partly burned when King Philip II of France tried to capture the mount.

The drawbridge into the city

The island, which was fortified in 1256, resisted sieges during the Hundred Years’ War between England and France (1337–1453) and the French Wars of Religion (1562–98). The monastery declined in the 18th century, and only seven monks were living there when it was dissolved during the French Revolution (1787–99). It became a state prison under Napoleon I (reigned 1804–14/15) and remained a prison until 1863. In 1874, it was designated a historic monument and subsequently restored.

The commercial part of the city

Mont-Saint-Michel is almost circular (about 3,000 feet in circumference) and consists of a granite outcrop rising sharply (to 256 feet out of Mont-Saint-Michel Bay (between Brittany and Normandy). Most of the time, it is surrounded by vast sandbanks and becomes an island only when the tides are very high.

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You can see the granite of the mountain that all of this sits upon

One of the smaller chapels on the island

St Michael in the Small Chapel

A 3,000-foot causeway was eventually built, connecting the island to the mainland. Before that, it was particularly difficult to reach because of quicksand and very fast-rising tides.

The causeway, however, had become a barrier to the removal of material by the tides, resulting in higher sandbanks between the islet and the coast.

So this dam was built to alleviate the problem. The sluice gates are closed 1.5 hours before high tide.  The first flow hits the obstacle, and the sediment is deposited downstream from the dam. Eventually, the sluice gates are opened gradually six hours after high tide, creating a progressive water release without waves of breakers lasting from thirty minutes to three and a half hours.  The longer the water release, the more effective the transporting of the sediment back out to sea.

There are many historical references on the bridge. The shells from the bay are symbols of the pilgrimages which led to the mont.

Mont Saint Michel from the town of Avranches across the bay

 

Driving The Brittany Coast

 Brittany, France
Jul 282025
 

July 26, 2025

Temple of Lenleff

Lanleff’s temple is a pink sandstone ruin in Brittany. It is a round church said to be reminiscent of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

The exact age and the exact usage of this building are unknown. The earliest known references to the building date back to 1148, when the Lord of Châtelaudrien donated it to the Benedictine monastery of Saint-Magloire de Léhon. Although not confirmed, it is likely to date back to the early 11th century.

Only a few parts of the church remain. Two out of three chapels and parts of the exterior wall. The structure was built in a primitive Romanesque style and consists of two concentric walls separated by a corridor. Twelve ornamented pillars support a series of arches.

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More than 140 decorative elements can be seen in the ornamentation of the capitals and the bases of the columns. These include geometric motifs, animals, and people. One of the better-known pieces at the temple is known as “modest Adam.”

A reproduction of Modest Adam

A reproduction of a column capital called Courtship

A reproduction of a column capital with Adam and Eve

A reproduction of the column capital titled The Projection?

Hydrangeas are everywhere at this time of year

Driving to Mont Saint Michel

The town of Cancale as the tide goes out

Oyster beds off the tip of Cancale with Mont Saint-Michel in the background on a cloudy day

Oysters are everywhere in this part of France. Normandy is the largest oyster and mussel farming region in France and a huge part of their economy.  It is easy to pull off to the side of the row and find a myriad of places offering oysters and other seafood.  Should you arrive after closing, there are still options.

Thank you Susan for grabbing this show while I was inside drooling over the fresh oysters anticipating lunch.

In case you have no taste for oysters, there is always an instant pizza machine somewhere.

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Moulin de Moidrey, a Norman windmill

The Pink Granite Coast – Brittany

 Brittany, France
Jul 282025
 

July 25, 2025

This stop was probably more about relaxing than visiting and sightseeing. We are staying at the Grand Hotel Perros-Guirec with rooms right on the sea.

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The Pink Granite Coast spans approximately 18 miles and is aptly named due to the immense pinkish-gold granite boulders.

The Men Ruz Lighthouse sits on a promenade in Ploumanac’h (monk’s pool in Breton)  and is a fabulous example of the stone.

I stole this off of Wikipedia – my photo just didn’t do the lighthouse justice.

The first Ploumanac’h Lighthouse dates from 1860. It was destroyed by German troops and replaced by the current lighthouse in 1946. The present-day version was designed by architect Henry Auffret.

Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-la-Clarté 

Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-la-Clarté de Perros-Guirec

Another spectacular pink building is the Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-la-Clarté de Perros-Guirec. Sadly, it is under restoration and closed for safety reasons. 

Notre-Dame-de-la-Clarté is a Chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Built in the 15th Century, the story goes that a certain lord of Barac’h, in Louannec, was at sea with his squadron near the Sept-Îles. The mist was so thick that the sailors felt death was inevitable. They made a vow to Notre-Dame: The commander would build her a chapel if she created a saving hole in the fog. Of course, the fog broke, and thus the chapel.

The mist changes history again. In August 1944, American troops threatened to bomb the city to dispose of the 600 Nazis who were pointing their guns at Perros. Mist covered Perros-Guirec, preventing the bombing, and thus the destruction of the church.. On August 10th, the Nazis surrendered without resistance.

The architecture of the church is in the flamboyant Breton style.

The lintel of the porch is stunning, with a representation of the Annunciation facing a Pietà.

I must admit that I had no idea what Flamboyant Breton style architecture is. Flamboyant style is a phase of late Gothic architecture in 15th-century France and Spain. Its most conspicuous feature is the dominance of stone window tracery of a flamelike S-shaped curve.

A grave stone I found in the cemetery of the church that was very unique. The beret is very French, the seashell an insignia of the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela

Moulin de la Lande du Crac’h

It is believed that this windmill dates back to the 1700s.  It is an egg cup type windmill, made of rubble with lively joints. Its tower is representative of a rather rare category of old mills in this part of Brittany.  It was just a funky thing to go search for on a lazy afternoon.

 

Garden of Sculpture

Also in Perros-Guirec is a sweet park dedicated to the art of sculptors Christian Gad and Daniel Chhé.

This was my absolute favorite. The detail was stunning

The sculptures show off the pink granite of the area.

Kerguntuil megalithic site

And then, we found more megalithic burial sites.

The Dolmen on the site

From the Neolithic period, Kerguntuil became a source of interest in the early 1930s, when the Dutch acquired a vase found there. In 1939, the tourist office decided to excavate and rehabilitate the passage grave before the foreign archaeologists returned. They did so with the help of local volunteers and local granite quarry workers or simple volunteers; the slabs were raised and replaced in what is assumed to be their proper location.

On the same site is this passage grave – a site that contains more than one burial chamber

Inside the passage grave

The Tides of the Area are immense.  While searching for a spot for lunch, we stopped at this inlet, where you can truly see the difference between high and low tides. You can not even see the sea from here.

The one thing that just pops up everywhere in Brittany are hydrangeas.  They are in every color but these purple almost red are just stunning.

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Coke from Brittany

The Valley of Saints

 Brittany, France
Jul 242025
 

July 23, 2024

I read about this site without conducting enough research.  When we arrived, I was surprised to find it was a modern site of sculptures of Saints.  After just a short time, I went from being disappointed at being lured into what felt like a tourist trap to having a fascinating and fun visit.

This vast project consists of 200  (and growing) statues of Breton Saints. They overlook the Monts d’Aree and Central Brittany. Some are whimsical, some are stunning interpretations in modernist angles, some sappy, and some childish.  I couldn’t stop snapping pictures.  However, I did not see them all, and I did not photograph all that I saw. So…..here goes.

Eodez and Gurguy live with their father in the 6th century. When he comes of age, Gurguy leaves home, but Eodez has to stay with her wicked stepmother, who is wildly jealous of Eodez’s many suitors and banishes her to the countryside.

Saint Tangi (formerly Gurguy) decapitated his sister after falling for a trick by their stepmother. He has been told his sister was sent away due to immodest behaviour. A 40-day fast was imposed upon him as a form of penance, and after he was named Tangi. He went on to become an abbot.

The amount of statuary is overwhelming.

This was my favorite.

And this was the description of the above “Saint.” (It is blank.)

Saint Goneri lands with his mother Eiboubane in the 5th Century. One day, lost in prayer, he fails to hear the local landowner greet him. The landlord orders his servants to beat him, but god punishes them instead. Then a prayer from Goneri brings everything to order. Tradition tells that he saved a wedding party from being crushed beneath rocks split by the devil by holding them aloft with a simple wave of the hand

Saint Ke was born in the 5th century in Great Britain. He was a priest, then a bishop, and then a hermit. Ki is called upon to cure toothaches, to protect cattle, and for fair weather to ensure a good harvest. The Saint-Ke fountain in Cleder is said to offer help to pregnant women.

Saint Aziliz (Cecilia) was a Roman martyr from the 2nd and 3rd centuries. She took a vow of chastity despite being forced to marry. During a period of Christian persectution she turned her home into a place of worship. Condemned to death by her husband Valerian, she survived an attempt to drown her before being beheaded. She is depicted playing the harp and accordion as a tribute to the centenary of the Festival de Cornouaille.

 

Saint Jean-Marioe de la Mennais was born in the 18th century into a family of shipowners. He dedicated his life to the development of schools in Brittany. The statue represents a gannet, capable of traveling long distances, just like his ideas. He is represented as a child with his arms around the bird.

Sainte Riwanon was born in the fifth century and was raised by her two older brothers. God ordered her to marry the bard-Hoarvian. An angel told her that their son would become a great servant of God. Saint Riwanon prayed that her child would never see the lies and deceits of the world. Thus Saint Herve was born blind. Riwanon raised her son alone until he was seven, then she left seeking isolation. She died on the 19th of June in 535.

According to a sign at the statue, the Fountain of the People in Breton is a grandiose sculpture of Saint Michael the Archangel slaying the dragon.

Saint Marie Martin, named St. Pataude, was murdered in 1795 because of her republican commitment. Raped and tortured, she was tied up to, or hanged from, a tree. Numerous miracles are attributed to her, in particular the cure of paralysis in children.

Saint Uzec was born in the 7th Century. His cult spread to Brittany. He set up his hermitage on the banks of the Canche river. He is the patron saint of pilgrims. He carries a bag and wears a pilgrim’s hat adorned with scallop shells, a reference to the pilgrims of Santiago de Compostela. Here he is giving milk to a child for strength.

Known as the Nantes Children or the Nantes Martyrs. Saint Donasian and Rogasian are regarded as the first Breton martyrs and patron saints of Nantes. They were arrested, refused to recant their faith, and were imprisoned. They were beheaded and their bodies are buried in a tomb beneath the basilica of Saint-Donaties in Nantes.

Twina ar Mor was unable to marry her beloved. She prayed to god, and during her sleep, an angel revealed a potion to her. Unfortunately, the drink turned her loved one to ice. As compensation, she was granted three wishes. That her lover would be freed, that all true lovers would find joy, and that she would never marry. She is the patron saint of lovers.

Saint Andrev was born between 5 and 10 CE in Bethsaida. Both he and his brother Simon Peter were fishermen called by Jesus to spread the gospel, making them “fishers of men”. He deemed himself unworthy of crucifixion in the same way as Jesus, so he was crucified bound with ropes to an X-shaped cross. He is the patron saint of fishermen and rope makers.

The views are stunning.

Saint Klervi was born into a holy family. A goose tore Klervi’s eye out; her father, forewarned by an angel, came to her rescue. He disemblowed the animal to retrieve the eye and placed it back, and her sight was restored.

Budoc’s mother, Princess Azenor, was falsely accused of infidelity by her jealous stepmother, which enraged her husband, the King, who ordered that the pregnant Azenor be thrown into the sea in a cask. The cask washed ashore on the coast of Ireland. A villager who found the mother and newborn child summoned the abbot, and the child was christened the next day. Azenor became the washerwoman of the monastery, and Budoc was raised there

Saint Goustan was born in 974. At the age of 18, she was captured by pirates and then abandoned on an island. Every day she ate a slice from a fish, which miraculously reappeared whole each morning.

Saint Odile. As the patroness of ocular afflictions and ear diseases, St. Odile is often depicted with a pair of eyes on a book

The back of Saint Odile

There were many statues I could find no explanation of.

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The Cairns of Petit Mont and Gavrinis

 Brittany, France
Jul 242025
 

July 22, 2025

The day was spent wandering between Le Petit Mont and Gavrinis and visiting sites in between.  Gavrinis requires a reservation, and the last we could capture was 6:30 at night.  The sun does not set until nearly 10:00 pm at this time of year, so it wasn’t as late as it seemed.

A few vocabulary words:

Cairn: The dry-stone architectural structure covering a burial chamber.

Dolmen: Refers to the burial chamber structure, which is composed of vertical stone slabs (orthostates) supporting one or more covering stone slabs. During the Neolithic Age, this structure was not visible. It was covered by a tumulus.

Tumulus: An artificial mound made of stones or earth.

Neolithic Age: Prehistoric period during which farming and sedentary lifestyle began.

The Kernours Tombs

The angled dolmen, which you enter, is rare for this area. The architecture of this type appeared towards the end of the fourth millennium BCE. It is not known how many bodies were laid to rest in the area due to the acidic nature of the soil.  The tombs are circular and composed of 36 stones that support 14 tables.

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Almost 2,500 years later, Iron Age communities located several graves near the Kernour tombs. These too were circular. The receptacle containing the human remains was placed in the center of a dry set stone circle, and then the entire arrangement was covered with a mound of earth.

Petit Mont

The stepped cairn of le Petit Mont is thought to be one of the most significant chambered tombs in Brittany. The cairn is located on the very tip of the Rhys peninsula. This strategic location made the site vulnerable to the Nazis during World War II, who built a typical bunker into the prehistoric structure, making it part of the Atlantic Wall defences.

The concrete ramp and the concrete seen to the left on the third tier are the location of the Nazi bunker

This dolmen dates from c 3900 BCE and was robbed in 1943.  A dig in the 1980s led to the discovery of eleven engraved stone slabs. The floor of this burial chamber is made of a single slab of stone.

Notice the drawing on the upper right-hand corner of the large stone.

There is a set of feet at the lower bottom right

The spiral is thought to represent a circle of axe heads

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Gavrinis

Gavrinis is a small island in the Gulf of Morbihan in Brittany. The name is believed to be derived from the Breton words gavr (goat) and enez (island).

At one end of the island is the Gavrinis tomb, a Neolithic passage tomb built around 4200–4000 BCE, making it one of the world’s oldest surviving buildings.

As you approach the site, it appears to be a simple mound of dirt.

As you walk around to the other side of the mound, the underlying stones reveal themselves.

The entry to the Gavrinis tomb

Of the 29 orthostat (squared stone) slabs that form the sides of the passage, 23 are decorated with carved symbols and patterns. Some of the symbols appear to represent non-abstract objects, such as axes and staffs. A common horn-like motif may symbolize cattle, and a shape conventionally referred to as a shield may be a highly stylized representation of a human figure. More abstract motifs include zigzag lines, lozenges, and snake-like lines.

The axe shape referred to in the circular motif in the Petit Mont.

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Er Lannic

As you leave Gavrinis, you can take a quick boat ride past Er Lannic. Er Lannic is a bird reserve and also the site of two stone circles, one of which is submerged as the water levels when these were built were considerably lower. The change in water happened with the ending of the ice age.

The smaller standing stones of Er Lannic can be seen on the left. The mound in the back is Gavrinis

The largest stone on Er Lannic

 

Visiting Britanny Between Cairns, Tumulus and Dolmen

 Brittany, France
Jul 242025
 

July 22, 2025

It was another full day of cairns, lovely towns and gorgeous scenery.

Auray and Le Bono

The day began with a little American history in the Port of Saint Gustan.

In 1776, when Benjamin Franklin set foot on French soil to seek support in the American War of Independence, he came ashore in the tiny Breton port of Saint-Goustan, forced off course by the wind.  His intended destination was  Nantes. I am rather sure the town has made a bigger deal of it than most Americans.

On the front of the above building that houses the mural of Franklin is this plaque.

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The Bar Franklin

The town is situated on the banks of the River Loch

An adorable marking in the road to show a tourist trail of the area

The remnants of an old bathhouse at the foot of town

The old suspension bridge of Le Bono

On May 22, 1837, an order from King Louis Philippe I ordered the building of the Le Bono Bridge. Heavily damaged, it was restored on November 6, 1871, and duties were collected. The bridge was decommissioned in January 1879, and after years, it now serves as a charming footbridge.

Harvesting Hay

Ever since I have been seeing round hay bales in fields, I have wondered how they went from field to barn.  I learned today.

Putting giant round hay bales on tractor trailers

It is only fitting that hay bales in Brittany are perfect Monet paintings.

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Alignements of Carnac

 Brittany, France
Jul 242025
 

July 21, 2025

I am traveling with my friend Susan.  You know you have a good travel buddy when you both get excited about spending the day looking at rocks.  Today, we spent the day driving from one end to the other of an area of Brittany known for its stone structures—the Alignements Du Carnac.

Alignements de Petite Menec

The stones in this alignment consist of 101 menhirs (individual stones), arranged in 10 rows. Seven of them are oriented to the east, and the last three are oriented northeast.

These stones date back to approximately 4800 to 3000 BCE According to experts, these stones represent the last phase of the Neolithic era (era of polished stone).

The stones of Carnac consist of more than 3,000 prehistoric standing stones, hewn from local granite and erected by the pre-Celtic people of Brittany, forming the most extensive such collection in the world.

It is safe to say that no one truly knows the what or why of the stones.

Recent preventive excavations in the vicinity of Carnac have yielded dates that range for the most part between 4,800 and 3,500 BCE.  But it isn’t easy to be precise. Despite their actual age, modern beliefs associate them with 1st-century CE Roman and later Christian occupations.

A Christian legend associated with the stones held that they were pagan soldiers in pursuit of Pope Cornelius when he turned them to stone.

Alignment of Kerlescan

This alignment is enormous, but a fence surrounds the entire site. The site consists of thirteen rows with 555 stones.

In Brittany, local versions of the Arthurian cycle include the Carnac Stones. This tradition claims that the reason they stand in such perfectly straight lines is that they are a Roman legion turned to stone by Merlin the Wizard.

Some theories of the stones are that they served as astronomical observations aligning with celestial events like solstices and equinoxes.

Geant Et Quadrilatere Du Manio – The Giant of Du Manio

Menhirs vary in height from knee high to taller than the average human.  The most impressive of all, Le Géant du Manio, stands around 20 feet tall.

Alignments of Menec

 

There is a small, but not particularly impressive, museum at the Memec site called the Maison des Mégalithes. You drive through almost one mile of the largest menhir field with 1099 stones to get to the Maison.  It is absolutely impossible to capture the majesty and the feeling of being overwhelmed with the size of the site.

Personal Details:

Three days at Hotel La Maison OBONO Hotel.  The service was excellent. The one dinner I ate in the dining room was fabulous, and their wine selection excellent.  I ate Brittany oysters as often as possible.