Posted on by Sheryl

A Weekend of Ancient Fortifications, Part 2

Ugh. How does time get away from me so fast? I still haven’t talked about all of the weekend before last – but I want to talk about the weekend that just happened! What to do???? Finish weekend before last. Duh. Now that is settled…

Sunday was another beautiful fall day here in the northeast corner of Brittany. The leaves are changing colors and some trees are bare already. The nights are definitely chilly! The crowds have dissipated – mostly. The Husband and I chose to set off to the northwest of Dinan, up on the the Cote d’Emeraude (Emerald Coast). Our friend, Samuel, had another brilliant suggestion of a place to stop on the way to the coast that he knew would make me happy. About 20 minutes from Dinan is a very ancient town called Corseul. How ancient? How about this –

Roman ruins!! This is the remains of a large temple to the god Mars from the 1st century.

Yep, real live Roman ruins! Oh man, was I in a happy place. As you can see, it’s just the foundation and part of the inner sanctum that remain. However, what is there is fabulous. It is unbelievable how perfectly straight the walls are. I know the Romans had incredible engineering, but this is impressive. Corseul was the main Roman administrative town for this region, so it was a fairly major area. The town was founded in 10 BC and was a thriving place until the 3rd century, when it was burned by raiding barbarians. Stupid barbarians. Back to the temple: it was constructed in about the 1st century and was visited by at least one emperor, possibly Nero. It must have been a thing of beauty when it was whole.

The inner sanctum, where only the priests and emperor were allowed to go.
The outer walls of the sanctum. Massive, thick walls with incredible details.
There were these really cool windows that you could line up with the ruins to see what it likely looked like. It was first thing in the morning, so every thing was pretty damp. Not the best photo but it was the best we could do!
This one shows the image a little better

We wandered about the site for quite while as we were the only ones there. The site is surrounded by farmland and sits up on a little hill. So peaceful!

Time to move on to the main stop. We meandered our way up the coast to Plevenon to see Fort la Latte.

The day’s driving route

Fort la Latte began in the 14th century, with many changes and additions through the 18th century. It is in an impressive defensive position! And soooo beautiful. I couldn’t stop gushing about the color of the water. The Channel Sea (I might have mentioned this in a previous post: it is not the English Channel here, it is the Channel Sea. Quick way to make a French person very testy with you is to call it the English Channel) is so clean and clear here. I could have stared at it all day.

You can climb to the very top of that tall tower. We chose not to. It was…an interesting climb. We did climb to the wide upper edge though!
The inner courtyard
This is taken from the tall tower, looking down at the very rugged coastline.
If you have the ability to enlarge this photo do so. And look at the stairs going up to the tower. There is nothing on either side of those stairs. No wall, no rail. And they are maybe four feet wide. Now imagine running up them. Wearing armor. Yeah.

We also stumbled upon a gorgeous restaurant in the village of Frehel. Again, in the middle of nowhere and n what was old farm buildings. Best steak frites. Mmmmm. The entire day was one pleasant surprise after another, from the temple to the fort. We already knew that we loved Brittany, but as we have the opportunity to explore and see more off the beaten path places, we are falling more in love with the beauty, both natural and historical, that surrounds us here.

2 Replies to “A Weekend of Ancient Fortifications, Part 2”

  1. The ancient ruins at Corseul were amazing! I can understand why a rock back would choose to make a video there!

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