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BRITTANY
Mystical and mythical, this rolling landscape reaches the roiling sea where history reigns with steadfast pride. The architecture of ancient times fully at home in the present.
Mont Saint-Michel
One may spot this soaring pinnacle on the horizon well before reaching the sea that surrounds it at high tide. We first saw it rising above the inland corn fields, its spires reaching up as if to touch the last cloud of a clearing storm. Inside its fortress walls a tiny medieval town terraces upward to the Abbey that crowns the island like a tiara. The inspiration to build a cathedral in such a perilous place, atop a remote rock formation off the Normandy coast, came to Bishop Saint-Aubert in a recurrent dream in 708 AD, eventually realized in all its rustic majesty. We stayed the night on the island and witnessed the evening tide swallow up the vast sandbar below, along with the day’s messages etched by visitors. By sunrise, the sea had pulled back, revealing a blank slate ready for more sand scribes. The ancient stone walls warming now as the morning shadows retreat.
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“All The Light We Cannot See” in St. Malo
"Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever."
—from the novel, “All The Light We Cannot See” by Anthony Doerr, which takes place during the Nazi occupation of France, featuring a young blind girl, who flees war torn Paris to shelter with her uncle in St. Malo.
This walled Medieval city on the northern shore of Brittany has endured loss beyond measure, but stands as a symbol of resilience. Bombed beyond recognition during World War II, it rose again to crown the coastline with slender spires, scalloped rooftops and fierce ramparts, all of which now house shops, restaurants and boulangeries, inviting a steady stream of curious visitors.
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Night and Day in Dinan
Rain-slicked cobblestones reflect the warm windows and lanterns of another age, paving a silver night in gold. In any light, Dinan is a hidden treasure in northwestern France, just upstream from St. Malo, at a bend on the Rance river. Incredible to think that this narrow waterfront was once a major port when trading vessels from England and Holland were compact-sized. By the 13th century, as ships grew larger, St Malo’s wide port was developed to take on the job —and the goods. Meanwhile, Dinan grew up gracefully behind stone fortifications, protecting her half-timbered Brittany beauty for future generations, like ours.
The sun forces through a persistent rain as one mythical god tries to outdo the other, neither taking into account how easily a rainbow could steal their show. Nonetheless, the exchange continues, presenting village scenes of Dinan in contrasts of squinting brilliance and dampened shadows. Like a watercolor in progress, crisp edges of shops and churches meet the blurred wash of medieval alleyways, forming the image of a place stilled in time.
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Taden Day Dream
The town of Taden is so soft spoken on the map that one might miss it entirely if it weren’t for a dramatic widening of the Rance river at the foot of the village. A landmark easily mistaken for a lake, its calm, mirrored water reaches across the landscape beckoning boaters, kayakers, hikers and day dreamers.
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Menhir (Stone) of Saint Samson
Rising eight phallic meters above nondescript farmland is a granite Stonehenge-like loner, pitched at a 42 degree angle, its four sides aligned to the points of the compass. The nearest source of granite is 4km away, which means a lot of prehistoric muscle was employed to get it here. Archeologists surmise that this “menhir” marked the furthest point inland where the (then) highest tide would reach. Legend has it that if anyone pulls the stone out, seawater will come bubbling up and inundate all of France in a biblical-size flood. Best to look, but not pull!
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Parc du Thabor, Rennes
Rennes, the capital city of Brittany in northwestern France is a sunny college town with a perfect park at its center. The graceful rambles of Parc du Thabor trace the urban hillside, rendering each season into a changing exhibit of color, texture and form. This heart of Bretagne also serves as the main depot for the TGV high speed rail from Paris. >>All aboard!
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Pointe du Grouin
All roads in Britanny eventually reach a quaint town or a sweeping seashore. Both serve great food! At the craggy, end-of-the-earth looking Pointe de Grouin, the sea provides an alfresco bounty that brings out the locals as well as tourists. They depart united in delirious bliss, with some overachievers suffering a temporary food coma and/or sunstroke. But worth it!
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