We managed to cover a lot of ground on a trip that was meant to be spent sitting in front of the fire. Since we found ourselves not far from some of the megaliths Druid Brittany is known for we took off for Carnac. The town has an extraordinary church porch roof that looks like it belongs in Baroque era Rome, and an altar that appears equally out of place, both worth seeing.
But what we came for were the standing stones. I had been expecting something more the size of Stonehenge but what we found were acres of 3-4 foot stones set in long straight lines. There were thousands of them set in the boggy earth. It's unclear what the purpose was, but it must have taken enormous effort to set them so many millenia ago.
We were near the water by that time and went on to lunch in a deserted, rainy and windy Quiberon. I'm sure this is a great area to spend time in in the summer and windsurfers must adore it. We left quickly.
A couple of hours of navigating the tiny back roads brought us to Rochefort-en-Terre, a well-preserved village near Chateau Talhouët with a medieval church and houses that once served well-to-do families and are now craft shops and creperies.
It's charming, and again, summer would allow one to sit in the cafés and watch the world stroll by. In the Christmas season the empty streets and stone buildings are strung with lights and look a bit like a holiday card, with all the people missing. They're probably all indoors, in front of that roaring fire, which is where we took ourselves.
No comments:
Post a Comment