More About Brittany

Discovering Brittany in August was the most pleasurable rewarding thing we have done in a long, long time. Partly it was the amazing richness and variety of culture history and natural scenery; partly it was the companionship of being together and doing different stuff, (plus enjoying some amazing hospitality); and partly it was...well, being in a corner of France that is not really France...or at least does not consider itself to be French.

You were kind of on the edge of Europe, and yet you felt at the heart of Europe, among ancient dolmens, and with the marks of the Romans, and Napoleon and Hitler imprinted in the landscape. And you’re always within reach of the amazing Atlantic coastline with its wonderful light and shade and every colour of an artist’s palette. No wonder Gauguin and Monet and Turner and others flocked here for inspiration

You were kind of on the edge of Europe, and yet you felt at the heart of Europe, among ancient dolmens, and with the marks of the Romans, and Napoleon and Hitler imprinted in the landscape. And you’re always within reach of the amazing Atlantic coastline with its wonderful light and shade and every colour of an artist’s palette. No wonder Gauguin and Monet and Turner and others flocked here for inspiration

Highlights of that coastline for were the amazing constructions in pink granite, shaped by the wind and the waves that lay along the northern coast, and the white expanse of the coast at Mont St Michel, where sky meets sea and salt marsh in one impressionistic monochrome sweep, and in the middle of this the medieval spires of the cathedral thrusting heavenward.

The climax of the holiday for us was last evening strolling in Lorient among the celtic flavours of Britanny, Galicia, Wales, Ireland and a host of other places and to end up at a concert of the legendary Chieftains which was amazing. Not so much that this band of brothers had been together for fifty year, but the eclectic bunch of talented young musicians from around the globe that they brought on stage with them

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwNyU5ZRKMU