Our Blog - Bretagne, 2022

Another summer and another trip to the cool, fresh air of Bretagne (Brittany). It is usually cool there, although this summer there have been some hot days as well! This year, we decided to stay in three different places, each for a week. Last year, we did two weeks at a time and we thought that we "ran out" of things to do within a reasonable radius of the places we stayed. So we opted for three places for one week at a time. A bit more expensive, since we pay for cleaning when we check out of each one, but we thought that was worth it.

There are LOTS of different pages here, so I will break them up into sections so I can get the early ones posted while I write the later ones. Here are links to each part (later links will be added as I put up sections):

Part 1

We took three days to get to our first week-long stay. We headed out after Lucy's agility course and stopped for lunch in the Plus Beau Village of Villeréal before ending the day in the village of Pons where we stayed at a really nice B&B just outside of town.

We have a trip planned later in the year to the Loire Valley but we decided that maybe the city of Angers would be easier done with this trip. I've separated Angers into a couple parts, since I took quite a few pictures of certain places. I will have links in the main city of Angers page but you can also go directly to the Apocalypse Tapestry blog or the Château of Angers blog directly.

We booked a 1-bedroom gîte (like a little cottage) that was really cute. It has a fairly full kitchen, was nicely furnished, and had everything we needed. We were a 20-minute walk to the nearest town, but the first 1/2 of the walk is along the beach. The area directly across the street from us is an inlet although most of the time, we see it as a big mud-flat. High-tide is around 1am and 1pm the day we arrived, so the tide was pretty low.. Here are some nice pictures of what we see from the front windows.

You may think there are LOTS of links here, but many of the places we visited are quite small and may only have 1 or 2 things that we looked at, so the blogs are somewhat short.

Our first day, we walked to town for breakfast and back, and then headed out. We only did a few things since we also needed to stop by a supermarket for a couple final things that we were not able to find at the open market. Then we went to the little town of Carantec to visit the church, walk down to the beach, and have lunch. Then we went over to see the Cairn de Barnenez (a megalithic, stone mausoleum housing 11 burial chambers). but they didn't allow dogs so we went on our way.

We were within walking-distance to the town of Roscoff and since we had stayed there before, we didn't do too much in the way of touristy things. But we did take some time in the church (since it was raining last time) and took the ferry over to the Ile-de-Batz for about 1/2 a day. We walked around the island, grabbed lunch, and then headed back. We finally caught the tide rising as we came back, and Lucy did a little playing in the water.

One thing that we did this trip was to explore several "enclos paroissial" or "enclosed parishes" that they have in this part of Brittany. There were several around, some more elaborate than others. They are churches that are enclosed within a wall which must also have at least 3 other things: a cemetery, a calvary, an ossuary, a triumphal gate, a fountain, or a reliquary chapel. They are characteristic of this area in the 16th and 17th centuries. Most of the ones we visited has an ossuary, which seems a little odd to me. But since the cemetery was within the walls, there was a limited amount of space. As space is needed, bones would be removed from the cemetery and placed into the ossuary and that space could then be used again. We saw these on different days, but I have grouped them together since they are all enclosed parishes.
  Enclos Saint-Jean-Du-Doigt
  Enclos in Bodilis
  Enclos in Saint-Thegonnec
  Enclos in Guimiliau
  Enclos in Saint-Servais

Part 2

I will try to finish up our first week in this section. We spent quite a few days at a beach of some sort, which is interesting since I had never really thought of beaches on the English Channel. It is quite rocky, but in between the cliffs are some nice beaches. As well, there are quite a few places where there are little bays of water that become beaches, or at least walkable, when the tide goes out. One of those places is the Keremma Dunes. It is one of the largest dune areas in Brittany, covering over 450 acres. We ended up in this area twice ... once we spent on the Channel part of the beach and the second, we walked through the Kernic Bay.

Then a tour around the 16th-century fortified Chateau de Kerjean before viewing a church in the town of Plouezoc'h and the village of Plouescat.

One of the larger towns in that area, the town of Morlaix has some really nice old buildings in the historical center. One of our final stops in this part of Brittany was the village of Lanhouarneau and the church of Saint-Hervé.

We checked out of our first gîte and took Lucy for a little walk at the Perharidi beach.

Then we started heading West, stopping for a lunch at an Oyster Bar on the way to near Lanildut where we stayed for the next week.

Part 3

Our 2nd full week of vacation was spent on the western coast, northwest of Brest, which is the largest city in the area. This part of Brittany is known for its' more "savage" coastline and a specific type of granite called "Aber" granite. There are also lots of little chapels and chateaus.

I'll start with a couple small chapels, including the Chapel of Saint Gonvel and the Chapel Notre Dame de Bodonou.

There are lots of castles in various states (from ruins to fully reconstructed). The Chateau de Kergroadez had been reconstructed but we weren't able to view about half of the chateau due to additional work.

Every day, we would do at least one good walk with Lucy either along the coast, on a beach, or in a forest. We wanted to be sure we gave her some time running and playing, since we don't think that she really enjoys sitting outside of a church while we go in to look at it. Some of these walks included the coast around the village of Lanildut and a nice beach near Landunvez. Sometimes we mixed a puppy-walk with a visit to a town, like we did at Le Conquet and the Presqu'ile across the La Ria river and the Presqu'ile de Saint-Laurent and Porspoder.

Then the towns of Saint-Renan and Lanrivoaré. We also visited the remains of the Abbey complex of Point Saint-Mathieu

While we don't do a very good job of it, we also try to catch a few more interesting things while in Brittany. This year, we got to experience a re-creation of a traditional wedding procession in the village of Brélès.

Part 4

This part is a bit long, but it will finish off our Brittany vacation for this year. We spent a day in Brest, which is the largest town in the department of Finistère and an afternoon at the Museum of Memories for World War II.

Two more chateau's. We had seen just the outside of the Chateau de Suscinio last year, but this year we spent a couple hours doing a tour through it. The last chateau was the Chateau de Keriolet.

we also did a whole bunch of villages, some of them where we didn't do anything other than look at a church or some rocks. most of them were near where we stayed for the 3rd week outside of Quimperlé. In no specific order ....

Then we headed home, through Talmont-sur-Gironde and then a quick stop at Agen before reaching Toulouse.