Total Recall?

As it's now been 2 weeks since we began our "vacation" in Brittany/Bretagne, remembering the things that we saw and did has been a challenge, to say the least. Brittany is one of 13 administrative regions in France and is subdivided into four departments. It is a distinct cultural territory with Celtic roots within France and was historically an independent kingdom, then a sovereign duchy, and since 1532, a part of France. For a land mass that is slightly smaller than the U.S. state of Maryland, it's amazing how much time it would require to do justice to its numerous "worthy" cities/towns, villages, nature areas, and historic sites. We spent 10 full days there--bookended by travel days to and from Toul--and feel as though we barely scratched the surface of what the region had to offer.

Our personal "Taste of Bretagne" tour included time spent in each of the four departments. We started with two nights in Rennes, the regional capital located in the Ille-et-Vilaine department. Afterwards, we rented a car for the remainder of our time in Brittany, which included four nights in the town of Dinan (Cotes-d'Armor department), three nights in Quimper (main town of the Finistere department), and two nights in Vannes (main city of Morbihan). We spent a day exploring each base, and then did day trips to locations in relatively close proximity to each respective base. We also plotted stops for our drives between the bases. In this way we managed to get a fairly decent mix of towns large and small, as well as landscapes and miscellaneous historic sites of interest. Despite the July crowds in some of the places that were "must see" spots, we managed to survive with our sanity mostly intact.

If "a picture is worth a thousand words," I could shorten my postings about our Brittany trip considerably by simply using the following photo as a perfect representation of Brittany: A creperie and half-timbered buildings.

In the town of Dinan, former seat of the Dukes of Brittany, one of its many creperies can be seen
 among some of the over 115 half-timbered buildings in the well-preserved historical center.

Creperies are everywhere in Brittany. Crepes are very thin wheat flour pancakes, usually eaten for dessert with a variety of sweet toppings, and are a traditional dish for most French regions. However, the abundance of creperies in Brittany is probably due to the fact that the buckwheat flour counterpart to crepes, called a galette, originated in Brittany and is deeply embedded in Breton culinary culture. Galettes are usually eaten with savory fillings (one of the most common combinations being the "complet" with egg, ham, and cheese). The Breton contribution to the more ubiquitous crepes is the use of salted butter caramel as a topping. It would be interesting to know how many creperies there are on a per capita basis in Brittany as compared to the rest of France.

As for the half-timbered buildings, well, they're not unique to Brittany, as they're also found in other parts of France, especially the regions in the north of the country and in Alsace to the east. However, the timbered frames may be more colorful in Brittany than in some of those other regions. Several of the places we visited have preserved many half-timbered buildings of the 15th to 17th centuries, but more widespread--and modern--is the use of granite in Breton buildings, as it is plentiful as well as sturdy enough to stand up to the maritime climate. 

So, no broad generalities will serve to describe our time in Brittany. 

We had one day on Sunday, July 19, to get a feel for what Rennes had to offer. During its 2000-year history it was one of the major cities of the Dukes of Brittany, and until the French Revolution was the site of a Breton political parliament. Today Rennes is the capital of Brittany and the prefecture of the Ille-et-Vilaine department. 

Rennes is well-known for its medieval old town and the number of half-timbered buildings
that survived both a disastrous fire in 1720 and significant damage to the city in WWII.

The city's surviving medieval gate, the 15th century Portes Mordelaises.
 The Dukes of Brittany would pass through these gates to be
 crowned. At top, the gate is flanked by crumbling medieval ramparts.
At bottom, the view toward the city from inside the gate.

Of slightly more recent vintage than medieval.

The Vilaine River is one of two rivers that runs through Rennes. (The other river is the
Ille, which together with the Vilaine, forms the name of the department in which Rennes sits.)
The Vilaine was one of the first rivers in France to be canalized, as early as the 14th century.

Upper: Notre-Dame-en-Saint-Melaine church, originally an abbey
church, served as a cathedral during the first half of the 19th century.
Portions of the existing structure date to the 11th century. Today it serves
as a parish church.  Lower: The 19th century Rennes Opera House.

More modern yet is this unique feature of Rennes' heritage, the art deco mosaics of
two generations of the Italian Odorico family who settled in Rennes in 1882. At left: the 
Poirier building from 1931. At right: the Saint-George swimming pool from the 1920's.
 This exterior view is only a small portion of the mosaics; photos of the interior look stunning.

Not at all medieval: the recently modernized Rennes train station. Any resemblance to a
waterslide is purely coincidental.

The 17th century Parlement of Brittany building escaped destruction in the 1720 fire, only to be
burned down by a fire in 1994 that broke out during protests by local fishermen. It was rebuilt
to replicate the interior and exterior of the original structure and is the site of the Court of Appeals.
These days it also provides the canvas for the annual summer light and sound show (see below).

The 17-minute sound and light show for 2026, "Au fil de l'eau" ("with the flow of the water"), was
enchanting. With the first day of the show being July 18, we had timed our visit to Rennes perfectly.

It got rather warm in Rennes on the 19th, so we spent most of the afternoon just hanging out at the hotel. The city offered free entry to a number of museums, but for some reason, the ones we were interested in were closed that day. We then tried to attend a VO (version original) screening of "The Odyssey" at the local cineplex, but the showing we wanted was completely sold out by the time we got to the theater--and we hadn't thought to book tickets on-line. C'est la vie. 

The remainder of the Brittany adventures will follow in subsequent postings. It's been a busy few days, as we ended up returning from Brittany a day early (on July 29 rather than July 30) so that we could get ready for the visit of some prospective boat buyers. As a result, my creative juices are about a dry as the Marne au Rhin Ouest canal at the moment, and they need another day or two to replenish!

Lazy Days

It's been a pretty quiet period for us in the time since the last blog posting. We had good intentions for biking to a number of villages in the vicinity, but the weather turned very hot, which stripped us of most of our inclinations for exerting ourselves to go sightseeing. Lon managed some painting repair work, but the bulk of our days--at least during the midday hours--was spent inside the boat. It was simply too warm outside to do much else.

We did manage to do one day trip to the town of Clamecy, on the Canal du Nivernais about 44 kilometers (25 miles) to the south of Auxerre. We did this on Saturday, August 19, as that was the only day where the daytime high was not forecast to exceed 90 degrees Fahrenheit. As it was outside of our biking range, we took the train down in the morning and returned via bus in the late afternoon. Located at the confluence of the Yonne and Beuvron rivers, it is another Burgundian "medieval village", of which there are many. The medieval center of Clamecy has been classified as a protected sector by the French government and has some lovely buildings from that era.

Timbers-R-Us: A stroll through the historic center of Clamecy revealed some
lovely streetscapes.

Clamecy as seen from across the Beuvron River.

The castle (circa 1700) in Parc Vauvert.

The collegiate church of Saint-Martin, built from
the end of the 12th century through to the 16th.

Saturday was market day, and the covered market
was buzzing with activity. The produce looked really good;
I wished we'd been in a position to actually shop.

Clamecy is a stop on the Nivernais Canal, and has a very nice Halte Nautique for 
passing boaters. 

A flowered bridge over the Beuvron River.

Lunch was ham and cheese sandwiches from a local 
bakery as we sat at the Halte Nautique.

Clamecy was once the site of mills for wood, woolens, and flour; tanneries; and boot and shoe manufacturers. It was also known for trading of wine, cattle, wood, and charcoal. For over 400 years it enjoyed great prosperity as a center of the "Flottage du bois", whereby huge quantities of wood from the Morvan forests were processed and floated down the river system to feed the insatiable appetite of Paris for wood to heat its homes. 

During the "great flood", the logs at 22 ports were thrown into
the river at the same time, and ended up in Clamecy for
further processing--sorting and stacking into rafts that would
then be floated to Paris.

The Clamecy Museum had an exhibit on the 
"Flottage du bois". As Paris transitioned to the 
use of coal for heating, the "wood floating" industry
declined. The last free log float took place in 1923.

Although we were hiding out from the heat during most days, we were not without social outlets. For about a week, Canadians Jill and David--and a rotating guest list--were rafted to the outside of us on their barge Thetis. We shared docktails more than once with them and with fellow Floridians David and Betty.

Thetis left Auxerre on Friday, August 18, to head up the 
Nivernais Canal.

We shared more than one dinner out with Betty and David. This
particular outing was for crepes. They are getting their motor sailor
ready for sale after years of incredible cruising adventures in
oceans, canals, and rivers. As their residence is Melbourne, FL,
we have hopes for a winter reunion with them back in the States.

Because we haven't been cruising I no longer have any excuse for not getting my morning exercise walking done. Some days the lingering over coffee is just too attractive, but I have managed to get out a few times, and with the heat, the earlier the better. On one of my walks I passed the Palais de Justice (courthouse). It was a nice enough building . . . 

 . . . but what really intrigued me was the sign that I saw painted on one corner adjacent to the parking area.

"Forbidden to urinate under pain of fine"

In a country where it has sometimes seemed (in fairness, not so much these days) that public urination is a spectator sport, the appearance of the wall made me wonder if the threat was all that effective.

After heavy thunderstorms on Thursday and Friday, today was absolutely glorious, wonderful weather for the 6th annual "Rues Barrees Festival d'Auxerre" (closed streets festival). Over 3 days, 20 artistic companies take to the streets of Auxerre to "strut their stuff"--acrobats, mimes, dancers, and others. Sidewalk sales were taking place at the same time, so the center of town was a lively place to be. 

We weren't able to spend a lot of time at the festival, but we were there to see this wandering
troupe of ballerinas who had escaped from the conservatory. Their performance was
highly interactive with the audience and very funny.

We are heading out tomorrow to a hotel at Charles de Gaulle Airport in preparation for a Monday morning flight to Oslo, Norway. We've not been to Norway before and are looking forward to seeing a bit of the country from which both of us have ancestors. Besides just general sightseeing, we have a stop planned in the town of Mo i Rana and a drive to the farm that was the home of one of my great-grandmothers in the 1800's. We'll be doing a fair amount of moving around by train and ferry, so I don't expect that I'll be posting anything here until after our return to Auxerre on September 7.