Our Brittany Vacation - Week One

In France, schools have a two week vacation every two months.  Gary's first vacation was at the end of October.  We decided to visit Brittany in northwestern France.

 

Here we are in matching outfits about to leave. 

Our lunch stop was in Rennes.  Here we are walking to the Creperie we ate at in the old section of town.  Many of these houses date from the Middle Ages.  This was a town that Tom's mother lived in for a year during World War II. 

We got in late to our hotel Toneo on the coast in Trebeurden, near Ile Grande where Eric Sophie and Eric were staying.  We had dinner (bread and hummus) in our hotel the first night. 

 

A still life with the hotel keychain and things we found on the local beaches.

The view of the ocean from our hotel window. 

Eric Sophie and Rafael were staying with their friends Alain and Martin on Ile Grande.  

We met them for an afternoon walk around the island and dinner.  Here we are having aperitifs on their patio before the walk.

Sophie and Eric walking with Alain.  Alain is an artist and designer. 

 

Genia at the start of the walk around the island.

Tom and Gary with Rex during the walk.

 

One of the beaches was filled with egg shaped stones.  People had made many sculptures with the stones.  The stones are protected and can't be removed from the beaches. 

Rex investigating one of the interesting carved stones we found during the walk.  The bottom decoration is the Brittany symbol from Celtic days.

View along our walk.

Sophie and Martine.

  

Tom and Genia.

 Alain and his wife Martine at Alain's exhibition.  He had a vision of working with students to help cut paper figures. There were 3,000 of them hanging in the library chapel.  Below are some pictures of the exhibition. 

A few days later we went for a long picnic hike at low tide, that allowed us to access some of the neighboring islands.

This area exported their granite for hundreds of years.  They would split rocks up by pounding metal rods into the rock, then inserting wooden dowels and then pouring water in the holes with the dowels.  The expanding wood would split the rocks.  Here Genia is pointing to some of the holes.

Here we are stopping for our picnic lunch

Rex had fun during the hike, escpecially since he could be off leash.  The second picture shows him hunting crabs.

One day we went to visit the "Radome", a facility that was built in the early 60's.  There was an identical facility built in Maine.  This allowed the first trans-oceanic transmission of TV signals.  This facility is no longer in use, but is now a national landmark.  They have built a communications museum around it that was very interesting.  The facility in Maine has been torn down....

 

The skin on the dome is made out of Dacron, and is paper thin.  It is pressurized inside.  It protects the antenna inside.

One day we took a drive east along the coast.  Much of the area has large granite boulders, which have a faint pink tint to them.

 

At one spot we drove on a part of the road that crossed the tidal plain, and was only accessible at low tide.  Pretty cool! 

 

We had lunch at a quaint restaurant on the beach fairly close to the tidal crossing.   

 

We stopped after lunch for a little walk.  Rafael showed Genia where to find crabs  It's a law that if you move a rock you have to put it back.

 

We stopped at a second spot to do some hiking.  Gary decided to do some rock climbing.  He started with an easy climb, and then went on to a fairly difficult one, which impressed us all!

 

 

 Here is Gary midway up his highest climb, taking a break to meditate....

 

 Here is Gary at the top of his climb.  Rafael is at the bottom. 

 

 One day we drove to a castle nearby called "La Roche Jagu".  The current building was put up in the 14th century.  It was situated on a cliff above a very strategic curve on the Trieux river. We had a very nice local produce lunch outside next to the castle.  

Below are pictures we took around the castle. 

 

 This is the top floor of the castle, showing the timber structure under the roof. 

 

A reservoir outside the castle. 

 This was a visit we did to one of the local menhir (large standing rocks).

Here are Tom and Gary at the charming fishing hut that we stayed at for two nights on Ile Grande after the Hotel Toeno.