Here we go again…I let time get away from me. So, we need to bounce back to the weekend before this last one. Honestly, during the week we don’t do anything. We walk all morning (got to try to mitigate the damage of incredible bread, fabulous butter…and pastries. Oh the pastries. I have got to stay away from the patisserie) and work through the afternoon and evenings. Whoopee. So you would think that I could get a simple thing like a blog post done. Apparently, that is an unreasonable expectation. Anyway, back to the weekend before last…it rained. It didn’t rain a little. It rained a lot. Like, a lot, a lot. We have been so fortunate with the weather here in northwest France. Considering that it is mid November, we have had a lot of sunny weekends. The trees are mostly gold or bare of their leaves. There is a misty layer in the mornings (being right on the river). It’s gorgeous. But the weekend at hand was miserable. However, we had a car, and there were places to see! The Daughter elected to join us on our journey up to the coast even. I’m pretty sure that I have mentioned in the past my fondness for Asterix comic books.
If you’re not familiar, you should be. Asterix is a member of a Gaulish village during the time of the Roman occupation. And Gaul is…Brittany🤩. The region is also called Amorica. Asterix’s village was never conquered by the Romans – this was due to a magic potion, but let’s leave that bit alone – and he has a lot of fun at the expense of the Romans. There is a lot of play on words (the village druid’s name is Getafix) that I very much enjoy. The village of Asterix is a fictional location (although there is evidence of a village that was not conquered by the Romans. However, there is no evidence of a magic potion being involved), but the writers of the books were influenced by place that they enjoyed visiting, the town of Erquy. This has been a place that I have thought about visiting since I was quite young and I finally got to do it…on the rainiest day of the year so far.
The town of Erquy didn’t have any big signs that said “we are the village of Asterix” – which I guess is a good thing. It was a cute town that was pretty much closed the day we were there. We were pretty desperate to find a place to have lunch (and Google was failing us as none of the hours posted were correct) when we stumbled upon the perfect little restaurant. If you find yourself in that remote corner of world I can’t recommend Chez Sylvie enough ( http://www.chez-sylvie-erquy.fr/ )!
Now that I have thoroughly educated you on Asterix, what else did we do that weekend? We finally went to Vitre. We’ve known about Vitre since our first trip here, but just did not have the opportunity to go there. The old center of town is very cute – not really as charming as Dinan – but very cute. The Chateau is very imposing! We did choose not to tour the inside as many people stated that it didn’t seem worth it. When you have a limited amount of time in each place (as we still do, even though we are here for so long. There will be places that we would like to get to that we won’t just because there is not enough time) you have to prioritize. But the exterior of the chateau did not disappoint!
It was a quick stop, but we did take the time to wander the streets in the medieval section – strangely enough, that’s the same area that the chateau is in. Imagine that.
After leaving Vitre, we had another couple of stops. We had a beautiful drive through the French countryside (the rain had finally stopped for a bit). What a gorgeous place this is. Now, me being me, I have to stop at churches. I am getting a bit pickier…I’m not very interested if it’s newer than 1600. It’s not that I don’t like them or admire them, or feel the spirituality, it’s just that when I’m prowling churches there’s a certain “old feel” that I really love. I’m don’t even remember how I heard about Saint Marse de Bais, and even though it is practically new (built in the second half of the 1500s), I was intrigued. The church is really lovely and the Great War memorial in it is humbling. Bais is a tiny village, maybe 1,000 people, but the list of the people who were from the village and died in the Great War, was astonishingly long.
On the way from Bais to our next stop, we encountered this along the side of the road:
Our last planned stop of the day was a step farther back in time. The Brittany region has the largest concentration of megalithic stones in Europe! Not until we were planning our original trip did we have any idea of the extent of the megalithic sites here. The largest dolmen in the world happens to be just an hour away from us. After winding our way through back roads, past farms and around tractors, we were at our destination, La Roche aux Fees (Rock of the Fairies). Not only can you go right up to the rock grouping…you can go in it!
Keep in mind, this structure is somewhere around 5,000 years old. How did prehistoric people get these rocks to this location? How in the world did they get that top stone up on top of the supporting stones?
This was one of those places that can render you speechless. There are many menhirs about (you can be driving down a road and see one in a farming field!), but this dolmen is something incredible. I am so glad we found out about it.
Our final stop was one of those spur of the moment decisions. We were driving down the motorway and saw a sign for Chateaugiron – it sounded appealing so we chose to drive over there. It’s a pretty town with a nice medieval quarter. The chateau is still in use as the hotel de ville, or city hall! They also appear to have an excellent sense of humor, as there were some leftover Halloween decorations still up🎃
It was a fun way to end our adventures for the weekend.
Up next: the Mother comes to visit…and very soon the Christmas lights will be turned on!!