Day 55: Quiberon - Carnac - Auray, France

We woke up around 9h and left by about 9h 45.  Yohann drove me to several sites in the area so I could visit and take pictures.  It was a very fast paced morning, but it was a lot of fun.  Here are a bunch of pictures:

This is the north coast of the peninsula, called the "Wild Coast"

Me, standing on the WILD COAST.

This sticker is demanding that this text appear in the Breton language, and not the language of the occupying Frenc.  (More on that later.)

WILD ARCH (L'arche de port blanc)

WILD STAIRCASE

In the good ole days, you could walk wherever you wanted.  There was also no grass left.  Yohann says this is way prettier now.  I believe him.

There is no real historical significance to this church, even though it is 167 years old.  This is a good example of traditional Breton architecture.

Because this was a fishing village, the church has a very different look and feel.  The women and mothers of the town would come here to pray for the safe returns of the fishing boats.

The stained glass was all very simple, but very nice.

We then visited the Fort de Penthièvre.  It is at the top of the peninsula, and is about 150 years old.  When the Germans took it over, they used it to kill French people. Here, they apparently liked to entomb people, still alive, in the walls.  Now, it is only used by the French army for training exercises.

Le Fort.

This guy is practicing running away if the only escape route is two parallel, suspended steel cables.

We then visited some of the old German defenses from WWII.  The Germans were fairly confident that if an attack came, it would come somewhere in Brittany. (The beaches in Brittany are much more forgiving than those in other parts of France.) This is evidenced by the extremely heavy fortifications. (SPOILER ALERT: WE ATTACKED IN NORMANDY) Just in this area, there are maybe 8 large bunkers, and this large tower thing.   It was used as a watch tower and probably had some kind of big gun on top. 

Probably not the friendliest looking structure I have ever seen.

It looks like this guy was about 15 feet from being a lot shorter.

 We then went and visited the megaliths at Carnac.  This is a major anthropological site.  It is a collection of nearly 3000 megaliths (anthropology speak for "rock") arranged in really long lines.  The rocks date from between 2,000 and 4,000 B.C.E., and nobody has any clue who put these rocks here, or why. 

I bet you I know where we could find those missing rocks. 

The go a really long way.  Look in the distance...

 The two preceding pictures were taken from the same location, facing opposite directions.  This is just a tiny portion of the megaliths at Carnac.

Some of them are absolutely massive.  I would imagine they started here, and then later decided maybe they better just get a bunch of smaller ones.

They were so smart they figured out how to line of 3000 rocks, but it never occurred to anybody to pile them up on each other to make something useful?  The could have made an observation tower like this one, to look at their really long lines of rocks...

Finally, the tour ended with a visit to the tomb of Georges Kadoudal (Cadoudal, if you want to look him up on Wikipedia).  He is a very controversial figure in French history, and the namesake of the Kadoudal Drum & Bugle Corps.  Long story short: Brittany was it's own country.  The queen of Brittany married the King of France, thus joining the two nations.  However, Brittany maintained many of it's rights that the rest of France didn't have. (Kind of like what people think Texas is like.) In 1789(I think), a bunch of French people decided they were hungry, so they revolted against the king, and told the Britons to go fight.  This pissed Georges Cadoudal off because Brittany was losing all of the rights it once had, so instead of joining the revolution, he revolted against the revolution.  (Kinda like William Wallace(Braveheart))  He killed a lot of French people which is generally frowned upon in France, but he is somewhat of a local hero in standing for the rights of Brittany.  There are still those who believe that Brittany should have more rights as a country, though, they revolt by putting stickers on signs.  Brittany does have some unique rights.  For example: while most highways in France are toll roads, those in Brittany are not.

Yohann chose to name his corps after Kadoudal(Breton spelling) because he is a strong historical figure, and gives his corps a strong identity rooted in French and Briton culture.

Pantheon much?

I then spent about 8297047598 on a train coming home.  My train to Bordeaux somehow took an extra 40 minutes, so I missed my train to Pau, but they just put me on the next one.  It was a really great day.