Our destination today was Carnac. On the way to Carnac we made two brief stops that were recommended to us. Today is labor day in France so we were not expecting a lot to be open, but as we were driving we noticed that most of the stores that would be open on Sunday were open.
Our first stop for the day was Quimperle, a small town where two rivers come together. The first thing we noticed was that at every street corners there were little girls and some boys selling small bouquets of flowers. The flowers are Lilly of the Valley and they are considered good luck. The reason kids sell them on May 1st is because today wild flowers can be sold without a license or paying taxes on the receipts. So it is a chance for kids to practice a little free enterprise. We were finally cornered by two cute sisters about 8 and 10 and ended up with a sprig of Lillys.
The town itself was nice with some older half timbered buildings and a couple of stone archways, one of which fronted a parking lot for a grocery store. The town is subjected to frequent flash floods so they have built high walls along the rivers to help contain them when they happen.
Our next stop was Port Louis. It is another port town, that is famous for its Citadelle. It is a 17th century fort and is impressive. During WWII it was used as a prison by the Germans, and a lot of French resistance fighters were executed there. Along the walk there were signs showing photos of the Martyrs of the Citadelle, the photos were accomplished by the age and the occupation of the person who had died there. Most of them were 18 to 23 and their occupations were pretty mundane such as farmer, mechanic, and sailor. To me that made it even more touching, as these guys without any real military training laid down their lives for France.
Our last stop for the day was Carnac. Carnac is another beautiful Breton port city with a great beach. But the primary reason we came here was for the Alignments of Carnac. These are stones called Menhirs are laid out in three fields stretching over 4 km’s (2.5 miles approximately). There are over 3000 stones cut from granite, some weighing as much as 20 tons laid out in lines. There are also a few circular formations. Each of the sites has the largest stones at the western end of the field.
These stones were laid out approximately 4500 bc to 3000 bc by the pre-celtic people of Brittany. They are roughly contemporary with Stonehenge, but laid out quite differently. Also in the immediate area are several burial mounds that are 410 ft by 200ft and 39 ft. high. When they were excavated they found a main burial chamber and 5 sub-chambers off of the main chamber.
The work to build such a massive site with the tools available at that time is incredible. This is the pre-history equivalent of a giant cathedral, or the pyramids. No one is completely certain as to the purpose of the alignments or the motivation to devote so much work to building the site, but the most common theory was that it was part of a religious site.
