Poul-Fetan

 Poul-Fetan is a 16th century farm.  From 1979 to 1992 volunteers worked to restore the ruins of the buildings and the farm.

The traditional costumes of Brittany include a variety of elaborate lace hats for women.  The farm had a whole building dedicated to showing the costumes for each region of Brittany.

 

These women showed us how laundry was done back in the day.

 

 

 

 

 

 Each building had one or several displays explaining some part of life in the 16th century.  There was a whole building on ironing!  My favorite part of the farm were the games.  There was a whole area reserved for games, most of which resembled some form of lawn bowling.  Pétanque , which is similar to bocce or bowls, is very popular in France.  Walking through almost any park you will see men playing pétanque.  After taking le cirque for two terms after school, Lillian was able to take a few steps on the stilts.

 This wooden woman was one of the playing pieces for a game we played.  You rolled enormous dice and moved her through a series of wooden clogs.

 A photo of hollyhocks for my dad.  How are your hollyhocks coming?

 We also visited the post card museum.  It would not make my top five, but it was interesting to see all of the old postcards.  Unfortunately, they only had a few reproductions for sale.

 Fort for one

Trouble

We explored just one little part of Brittany and recommend the region of Morbihan.

Biking along the Blavet River

The Blavet River runs south from the middle of Brittany to  near Loirent where it exits into the Atlantic Ocean.  Along most of this river is a beautiful bike path.  The part of the bike path where we biked has an extensive lock system and we watched kayakers open and close the locks to make their way down river. The girls have rarely biked this year and were anxious to get going.  Pierre found a great place to rent bikes at Blavet Cyclo in Inzinzac-Lochrist.

This blog features a family that biked the whole bike path.  We biked about 21 kilometers total and we were proud.

Lillian did a great job on this big bike.  She needs a new bike and her current bike is much smaller than this one.  She is posing near one of the lock houses.

Many of the locks and houses were decorated with flowerpots.

We walked across one of the locks to a little island to have a snack.
Why am I holding my seven year old?

It was a lovely, lovely ride.

We returned to the bike shop around 12:30 and realized that, of course, it was closed until 2:00 for lunch.  Luck was with us,right behind the bike shop was a take away crêpes place and a park!

Château de Suscinio

Princess Lillian and Princess Sylvia

Chateau de Suscino  was a favorite of the dukes of Bretagne from the XIII to the XV century.  It is situated in a forest, along a marsh, and next to a small lake.  This location made it an ideal hunting lodge.  It was a ducal residence until 1532 when Brittany became part of France.  Since 1965 the château has been owned by the region of Morbihan, much reconstruction has been done since that time.

There was a quiz for kids to do as they walked through the castle, there were dress ups, and there was a temporary, hands-on exhibit about archeology.

 These tiles were found in 1975 in an archaeological dig outside the walls of the château.  It is believed to be the floor of a chapel that burned around 1370.

 The guards had a good view and a good shot from this walkway.

 There is currently a dig in the courtyard of the château.

 Duchess Anne of Brittany would have spent time here.  

Anne, Duchess of Brittany (25 January 1477 – 9 January 1514^[1]), also known as Anna of Brittany (French: Anne de Bretagne; Breton: Anna Vreizh), was the last independent Breton ruler, who married two successive French kings. She was born in Nantes, Brittany, and was the daughter of Duke Francis II of Brittany and Margaret of Foix. Upon her father's death, she became Duchess of Brittany, Countess of Nantes, Montfort and Richmont and Viscountess of Limoges. In her time, she was the richest European woman.  Click on her name above if you want to read her fascinating history.

We drank some of this beer in her honor.

Cooling off at a different beach.

There were some dead jelly fish on the shore of this beach, which as Lillian said, "kind of put her off swimming."  Luckily, we had been there for long enough to thoroughly cool off.

The Carnac Alignments

 Did I mention it was hot?  These three are relaxing in the shade before the Carnac professional (pictured below) tried to kill us through heat exhaustion.

These two were great listeners

The Carnac alignments are fenced in during high season, and you can only go inside the fence if you pay to listen to a guide.  Our guide let us in and then locked us in the enclosure.  She then told us EVERYTHING she knew about The Carnac Alignments.  Elderly people were looking for shade.  One woman sat down on her cane/stool behind the guide in the shade of a megalith.  She was yelled at and told that she wouldn't possibly be able to hear where she was.  The French really like to vocally joust, so this woman yelled right back that she could hear better from there.  After about an hour and a half, Sylvia and I saw another guide by the gate and bolted for it.  Lillian and Pierre followed about a half hour later and had to jump the fence to escape.  This guide really wanted to prove that she knew her stuff; she was unwilling to summarize, even to save lives.

The Carnac alignments were erected in the Neolithic era, between the fifth and third millenia B.C. by farming communities.  There are several groupings of menhirs along the road near the visitors center. 

According to the legend of Saint Cornely; the Carnac megaliths were Roman soliders turned to stone.  Over time, people began cutting up the stones to use as building material.  Starting in 1830 France began buying the land from individual land owners in order to better study the ruins and to preserve the area. 

The source of these stones is not nearby and even with modern tools, it takes a long time to cut a rock of this size.  Today's experts still don't know exactly how Neolithic man managed to create these alignments.

This is a ruin of a covered burial mound.  These are the things that I think look like stone tables.

Sylvia loves playing frisbee.  I am giving her the thumbs up for one-handed catch.  We are playing with one of our OgoSport disks.  These were a lot of fun in and out of the water and are also good frisbees for kids.  The owners of the gîte are turning part of the building behind us into their home.

Another Brittany Beach

 This was my family's favorite beach.  It was enormous.  The tide was very impressive, and we watched what seemed like miles of beach appear before our eyes as the tide went out.

By the time we left, the water had retreated past the buoys.

 

I feel like we went from grey and rainy to hot and two billion degrees overnight.  It is hot in Paris now and the next week looks like it is going to be boiling.  

With weather like this, the beach is the only place to be.

Vannes

 In the afternoon, we headed to Vannes, which was founded by Romans in 56 B.C.  It is a quaint city with lots of half timbered houses.  If you want to read more about its history, visit this website.

It was hot, hot, hot.

We visited the history and archeology museum in Vannes.  It is housed in Gaillard Castle, which dates from the 15th century.  Lots of coins have been found around Vannes and the museum had lots of crazy stories about people stumbling across  caches of Roman coins.  

Pensive Pierre

Camors Adventure Forest

Lillian!

Sylvia!

Sylvia came in right under the height limit.  The guy said it was fine, but it meant she really had to stretch at times.

Because she is 9, Lillian got to explore higher heights.  

Camors Adventure Forest was great.  They had different levels for everyone from three year olds to adults.  They were also very concerned about safety--Although the guy did say that we didn't have to wear the helmets if we didn't want to.

Crêpes at the château

Brittany is known for crêpes and we did our best to eat a lot of them.  Pierre found this fine restaurant, La Crêperie du Chateau, in Pluvingner, a little town near our gîte.

Can you spot Pierre in his element?

 Around 1950, this château was moved from somewhere else and relocated to Pluvinger.

 You can also rent the whole place for your wedding.  There is a chapel on the other side of the lawn.

 Our dinner reservation was for 7:00, which is when they open, and we were the only customers for the first thirty minutes or so.

 There are plastic dogs to climb on, scooters to ride, and delicious food, too.

We, of course, returned here for another dinner later in the week.  

If you are ever in Pluvinger, stop here.