When I lived in Brittany my host dad, JJ, talked a lot about the legends of his homeland. Brittany is full of magical places. I saw a few small clusters of standing stones while I lived there, but always wanted to take a trip to see the biggest cluster in France, Carnac.
From Wikipedia: The Carnac stones (Breton: Steudadoù Karnag) are an exceptionally dense collection of megalithic sites in Brittany in northwestern France, consisting of stone alignments (rows), dolmens (stone tombs), tumuli (burial mounds) and single menhirs (standing stones). More than 3,000 prehistoric standing stones were hewn from local granite and erected by the pre-Celtic people of Brittany, and form the largest such collection in the world.
The stones were erected at some stage during the Neolithic period, probably around 3300 BCE, but some may date to as early as 4500 BCE.
Although the stones date from 4500 BCE, modern myths were formed which resulted from 1st century AD Roman and later Christian occupations. A Christian myth associated with the stones held that they were pagan soldiers in pursuit of Pope Cornelius when he turned them to stone. Brittany has its own local versions of the Arthurian cycle. Local tradition claims that the reason they stand in such perfectly straight lines is that they are a Roman legion turned to stone by Merlin.
I also enjoyed looking closely at the lichens, mosses, and caterpillars on the stones.
Mossy trees make all the forests in Brittany look enchanted.
After Carnac we headed out to the nearby coast -- to Quiberon. It is a penninsula that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean side of Brittany.
Just for fun- here is the coat of arms of Quiberon -- notice the white hermine at the top.
In Carnac we had lunch at a little cafe with yummy pastries. My mom and J had their favorite croque monsieur sandwhiches. A had a pizza slice and I had quiche.
The desserts were huge! A. had a pistachio macaron that was almost as big as her head.
Rozenn had a raspberry macaron.
I had a huge apple turnover.
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