All over Brittany, home base Guern

The back yard of the house. Listen to the sounds!

The rain never let up all day, and we got lost looking for the "gite", or holiday letting, in Guern. Tom and Shirley arranged for this wonderful converted watermill, with four bedrooms, for our stay in Brittany. Le Moulin De Guermeur is peaceful and centrally located, but not actually in a town. It was great to wash clothes, and then we had to let them dry on the air dry rack. The humidity was as bad as in Bergen, so generally, it took over a day for our socks and stuff to be wearable! We Americans are so spoiled by electric clothesdryers! We tried leaving the rack in a bedroom with a heater on. At the end of a day of sightseeing, we were treated to a sauna when we opened the bedroom door. :-) A big plus to staying here, is that we had a kitchen in which Tom could whip up great dinners, we could have breakfasts that we were used to, and I even got to try out my Parisian 3-course meal recipes!

Home Sweet Home

Sunday, March 18, we got to Pontivy's Notre "Dame de Joie in time for the last half of mass. We went to tour Château de Rohan, in hopes of finding some genealogy information for Shirley and John. They are descended from Rohan's. We figure they own this whole area, by inheritance! Perhaps the current owners were afraid of just that, since the gates were locked. So we ate crèpes. 

Main dish crepes are called galettes

We drove to Gerémé sur Scoff looking for genealogical ties, also. On the way home, we visited Village de l'an mil, village of the year 1000. It was also closed for the season, but we stepped over the rope and toured it.

We were glad to get off scot free from our breaking and entering, so we celebrated with a roast chicken, tomato/cucumber/balsamic vinegar salad and strawberry pie dinner. Loved the eating on this trip!

Monday we drove all the way out to Douarnenez on the Atlantic coast. The sun shone all day, and it was warm enough to take off my coat sometimes.

We stopped at a mid-18th century town - Locronan - wandered around and ate lunch.

Last stop - Quimper, second largest in Brittany. Toured Cathedrale St-Corentin.

Tuesday, March 20, was Shirley's birthday AND the spring equinox (since it's leap year)! We decided to head to Carnac to see the prehistoric standing stones, and maybe see some druids or whatever. ;-)

No druids, just Tom! These stones are a giant prehistoric Walmart parking lot. Or maybe the landing strip for alien space shuttles. Or some enterprising 19th century person dragged them here and claimed they were prehistoric to bring tourists. Or maybe ... Anyway, they stretch for miles, and they get larger as you go west. Mysterious.

There is also a tumulus, a cairn with a stone for a roof holding up a grassy hill with a standing stone on top. We went in and looked for a carved two-headed axe pictograph, which we think we saw. Not much room to maneuver in there. Wonder what went on in it!

Next we visited one of the more peaceful cathedrals I have ever been in. It was Ste Anne d'Auray (Saint ends in an "e" if it was a female).

Maybe it was so peaceful because there was no martyred Jesus up front. I've always found that icon disturbing.

On the way home, we bought a raspberry-passion fruit cake for Shirley's birthday, and shared it with Steve and Sue, our landlords. Happy Birthday to Shirley!