Brittany, Part 5
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| 7th September, 1999 We
established from the Tourist Office that there is a Cyber Cafe in Morlaix but found it
closed, so we continued on our wanderings to St. Thègonnec which has one of the best
examples of a Church Close. This is something peculiar to this area and
comprises a church surrounded by a wall and entered through an ornate 'Triumphal Arch' and
containing a 'Calvary' depicting the Crucifixion and an 'Ossuary' building where the bones
of earlier burials were stored. These three features of St. Thègonnec
can be seen above left although we are not completely certain that the building in the
background is the ossuary and not a funeral chapel. The Church itself is quite
ornate but had been badly damaged by fire. The baptismal font above right is
from Commana which was on of two Closes we visited the previous day. Its
figurines depict faith, hope, charity, justice etc. All the churches were
lavishly decorated and had semi-circular ceilings painted blue with gold stars.
At several of the Closes the Ossuary/Funeral Chapel building is used as a tourist
office and souvenir shop and in one we saw a remarkable box bed which we understand used
to be common in the area. |
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Though the weather had turned against us after two glorious weeks we decided to
head to the north coast and see some of the rugged bays such as Kernic above left before
heading south to Brest which in the wet we did not find too charming.
It does have a castle, shown above right, and Europe's biggest lifting
bridge. In all we were glad we had chosen to stop for lunch in the more
charming town of Lesneven.
Our final stop for the day was Quimper which we first
heard of because some lawyer there tried to stop a French Grand Prix because cigarette
advertising was carried. It is a very interesting town with many
mediaeval buildings. The picture right shows one of the rivers that flow
into the town at the site of an old drawbridge. By chance we parked right
opposite the local Cyber shop where we checked our e-mail. |
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8th September, 1999
We had noticed that many, if not most, of the small towns and villages of west
Brittany began with Ker then we realised from the dual language road signs that Ker is
translated into ville in French. We went to such a place on the 8th after
David did the shopping and Kate got 'coiffed'. Keroman is the
submarine base build by the Germans in Lorient which used to be a beautiful
place. Now only the pleasure port below left remains
unspoilt. The word awesome seems somewhat week to describe the base and
the pictures below can not give the true feel for the place. Hopefully it is
the last war site we shall feel obliged to see.
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The base has three huge bombproof concrete buildings
each of which held many submarines for servicing and repair. A complex system
of slipways, cradles and rails enables the submarines to be moved around. The
roofs, themselves metres thick, had outer roofs designed to absorb
bombs, the result of which can be seen below right, as we walked between the two
roofs. |
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So heavily defended and so well built,
the base remained useable throughout the war, though the surrounding town of Lorient was
destroyed. The base remained in use by the French navy until 1997 and
one of their older submarines is left as an exhibit, though it is not yet open.
One of the reasons for its abandonment is that, though bombproof, it
was never weatherproof and the rain pours in through the roofs. Also,
though huge, it will not accommodate the new submarines. Having come to
terms with the closure of the naval base, the people of Lorient are now looking at the
positive opportunities that the huge area gives them for tourism and leisure. |
We left the base at Keroman and drove to Carnac, which is to the
south and east. Unlike the stones at Huelgoat, those at Carnac are all fenced
in and the area was teeming with tourists. The alignments are puzzling
because, even in the stone ages, people could have made straighter lines if they wanted
to. It is, of course, possible that they have been moved over time, but there are so
many that it is hard to see why anyone would bother. Perhaps over time the
land moved, bending the alignments.
Of some interest is the local politics in that bureaucrats from afar
have had all sorts of ideas for commercialising the area - although they would claim to be
protecting it - regardless of the rights of the locals. We realised how
fiercely independent the Bretons are and at every opportunity they fly their local flag,
as do the Catalans in the south.
Our last stop of the day was in Vannes, which had been important in
the development of Brittany. It too has some of the finest mediaeval buildings, as
we show above centre, and the remnants of an impressive wall.
9th September, 1999
The day was overcast and it had rained during the night, so we
decided to write up our journal. It always takes a long time to capture the
pictures and that took till lunch time. We decided in the afternoon to
go to La Poste. We have spent a lot of time looking for Cyber cafés and were
surprised to find that our local post office had an iMac Internet terminal for which one
can buy a smartcard for 50 FF, which lasts an hour and can be re-filled for 30 FF per
hour. The system is good, but slow and not in the least user friendly.
A smart young lady is necessary to get even an experienced user on line, as
your card needs initialising with an e-mail address. A little more thought
would have enabled them to sell a user configurable card. It is going to be
impossibly expensive for them to spend time with each and every user. As
usual, we tried to break the rules with our e-mail address and the system threw a wobbly
and after an hour the young lady was "desolée" and suggested we return at 8:30
the next morning. This is not a time we have been familiar with these last
five weeks. We have decided to move on as soon as we have sorted out La Poste.
Last updated: 18/03/01
