presqu'île (12. 560)

Returning to the long, narrow peninsula of Gârves opposite Port-Louis via the route sandwiched between two beach fronts, we took in some more views of the harbour and marina of this an storied fishing village and ancient former quarry.

Though stable since the Middle Ages, this tombolo (see previously, the first documented mention cutes three isolated islands) is the outermost reach of the drifting dune massiv and is threatened with erosion, especially in the built up areas.

The fortifications at Pohr-Puns was build at the end of the seventeenth century as advance defence for Port-Louis and Lorient and the batteries in the sparsely populated areas along the dunes were an experimental training grounds in the 1800s to test the range and effectiveness of artillery on battleships, known as the Gârves Commission, ballistic research continues here to this day under the auspices of a nearby naval base.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a visit to the Rocco di Caldè (with synchronopticæ) 

twelve years ago: plugging leaks 

thirteen years ago: redefining the second 

fourteen years ago: the introduction of the bar code 

fifteen years ago: busting a Russian spy ring 

logis seigneurial (12.558)

Outside of Vannes (Gwened, the de facto capital of the region) near the village of Sarzeau (Sarzhav), we visited Château de Suscinio, built in the thirteenth century as residence and retreat for the dukes of Brittany and fortified over the next two years until Breton was fully aligned with France as a summer home between the seaside and a well-stocked forest for hunting, this uniquely preserved castle retains the representational elements of the high Middle Ages of the casement, moat and towered gatehouse after the introduction of gunpowder and the canon made such structures obsolete and most were scaled back as estates if not falling into complete disrepair.

Part of the preservation was owing to its role in the War of the Roses, housing a contingent of exiled Lancastrian including Jasper Tudor and his nephew, future King Henry VII, safeguarding the potential heirs from kidnapping and execution by Plantagenet usurpers. Having lent support to the Lancastrian rebellion—in exchange for guarantees of independence from France, the duchy eventually transferred their wards, rebuffing the counter-offer and double-cross of Yorkist king Richard III for the surrender of the Tudors after eleven years in absentia.

Following the death of duke Francis II and the end of the Tudor line, the duchy was ruled by Anne of Brittany, twice Queen of France, before finally being annexed upon her dearh without issue in 1514. Quarried for stone after it was abandoned by the ducal dynasty, Jérôme du Camboult, the cousin of Cardinal Richelieu aspired to convert the Reviere into a tading company but attempts failed and presently the surrounding marshes are used as evaporation pools for salt extraction.

 synchronoptica

one year ago: a visit to the Borromean islands (with synchronopticæ) 

twelve years ago: nuclear waste in our backyard plus Anglicisms on the train

thirteen years ago: throwing good money after bad 

fourteen years ago: defining the meme plus the cost of fuel shipments in America’s forever wars

fifteen years ago: preoccupation with the undead 

le village aux cinq portes (12. 557)

Originally established as an annex for Port Louis (see below), the maritime hub Le Orient was significantly expanded during the age of transatlantic trade (including the triangular commerce in enslaved individuals) by the French East India Company, hence the name of the largest city in the region, shortened to Lorient—see previously—and though the chartered concern was also bankrupt with the South Sea Bubble but maintained its importance as an export centre. Feeling La Havre was too exposed, the Nazi Kriegsmarine established their largest U-Boot harbour here in 1940 and 1941, and despite heavy bombardment from Allied forces, they were unable to destroy the submarine pins and instead leveled the city to deny Germans further amenities.

Still an active port, ships continued to be built here for both military and civilian use.

Just down shore, we also visited the citadel (previously) of Port Louis—also first commissioned as a relief station for St Malo and entrepôt for the Compagnie française des Indes. With the Revolution, the royal wharf and arsenal was ceded to the state with the king covering its debts.

Many of the privateers fighting in the American revolutionary war set sail from here, and the citadel, presently a museum, was used as a prison for Emperor Napoleon III and members of the French resistance during WWII. It is separated by a long and narrow inlet to the sea, the lagoon referred to le petit mer de Gâvres after the peninsula and fishing village opposite, known for its technique of Pêche à pied—that is collecting seafood by hand at low tide.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Ponti dei Salti (with synchronopticæ)  

thirteen years ago: drone warfare (Dronen Bedrohung) plus incomplete graffiti

fourteen years ago: copper thievery 

fifteen years ago: shades of green and photosynthesis 

le chemin du cadoudal (12. 556)

We went to the inland sea by the village of Locoal-Mendon to take a walk around a wooded spit of land reaching out into the estuary and landscape of oyster-culture.

The once secret path to the settlement of La Foret for smuggling out members of the clergy aligned with Royalists and counter-revolutionaries during the Terror that followed the founding of the First Republic as they had refuge until they could escape by boat was established by Georges Cadoudal (Jorj Kadoudal) to compliment their hidden base of operations.

Not a nom de guerre but rather a case of nominative determinism, the surname means in Breton “warrior returned from the fight” and was honoured as a mashal of France during the Bourbon restoration, the headquarters preserved in its grove and business of farming off shore continuing. The trail was lined with a collection of remarkable trees, gnarly and stunted from the salty winds.

coques et moules (12. 554)

Today was a beach day and we wandered over the dunes to the water’s edge along the plage near where the cargo ship the TK Bremmen washed ashore in 2011, long since cleared away and salvaged due to the pollution risk from oil in the hold.

Taking a nice stroll in the sand and surf, there was the remains of a World War II concrete pillbox bunker, a relic of Nazi Germany’s Atlantic Wall and impervious to destruction after eighty years. Later on we returned to the Island of Saint Cado and had mussels served the traditional way with frities and fortified cidre in tea cups.

We walked around the whole of the island. A service was being held in the chapel but we saw the devotional fountain fed by the sea, built in the 1700s with a Celtic cross in deference to Cardoc, patron of Gaul and Armorica (along with Saint Anne, the mother of Mary), restored in the twenty first century for the procession of Saint Cado’s Pardon (see previously), a pentential pilgrimage—to be granted indulgence—coinciding with a feast day and unique to Breton.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a visit to a historic hermitage (with synchronopticæ) 

twelve years ago: Wiesbaden’s Fort Biehler plus an FAQ on FAQs 

thirteen years ago: wayside shrines, the Feldenkrais method plus the return of the hibachi

côte sauvage (12. 551)

Continuing south to the peninsula of Quiberon (Kiberen) just beyond the narrow isthmus (technically a spit of land called a tombolo as the island is joined to the mainland by a built up sandbar and not a strait proper, the link only dating to the eleventh century when deforestation unleashed the deposits) at Fort Penthièvre, a French military training base that was captured by Nazi German as an extreme reach of the Atlantic Wall, taking a trail that led through a nature reserve (the vegetation ruined by over tourism with arrival of the train to the resort town on the southern most tip)along a windswept rocky coast direct on the ocean, beach attractions rare due to its rough waves and untamed landscape.

route des menhirs (12. 550)

Though there’s a continuous trail through the region, about ten minutes south begins a really high concentration of megalithic monuments, mostly standing stones and dolmen (tombs) and tumuli (burial mounds), starting in the village of Kerzerho in the commune of Erdeven (An Ardeven) stretching all the way to the peninsula of Quiberon in the Bay of Biscay.

Over eleven hundred stones are placed in a narrow area stretching for two kilometers and bear witness to a number of arrangements and alignments which have not all been triangulated with a purpose, one stone circle cutting across the highway, some corresponding with the rising sun and seemingly part of a much larger structure.

These monuments were erected by Bronze Age pre-Celtic people and are thought to be a form of ancestor worship, new stones stood up for each successive generation, but there are no definitive theories or archaeological evidence as the benchmark of scholarship, Stonehenge, if fully removed by the transition of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers to settled farming culture.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Lukmanier pass (with synchronopticæ) plus arriving at Lake Maggiore

ten years ago: assorted links to revisit, the concept of the personal and unperishing soul plus the passing a chimeric lamb

eleven years ago: a visit to Koblenz 

twelve years ago: a mistaken anchor 

thirteen years ago: endonyms and exonyms in sport