pointe du raz

Remember when I said that visiting Ile de Groix was probably the best thing we've done so far?
I might have changed my mind...

It's hard to tell, but on the picture above, there are people climbing the rocks...

we thought they were nuts until we tried it ourselves!

I've really wanted to visit Pointe du Raz since our first Brittany tour, but I'm glad we waited for some warmer weather. We can now say we've been as far west as France allows!

hidden gem

While my brother was here, we glanced over the list of Brittany "Hidden Gems" for some day trip ideas and decided on les gorges du Corong. For this particular place, there should have been a large emphasis on HIDDEN! After finally finding the forest path, we decided to pop into a nearby village for a bottle of water because they suggested two hours for the hike. The village ended up being a ghost town other than a pseudo Welcome Center where we found someone and asked where we could buy water. On to the next village, at 12:34pm... town supermarche closed until 2:30pm. We hopped into a Tabac which is most comparable to a convenient store (but not exactly) but this one turned out to be more of a bar than a store. After a short conversation about buying a bottle of water, the owner decided to just sell us a liter (yes ONE LITER) bottle for 1euro. She made our DAY! A quick stop at the village water closets and with the most precious bottle of water, we made our way back to the trail. Not until after seeing a woman walking a pet goat...

 Of course more legends of Brittany...

part way through the trail you come across the gorge and have to cross the rocks to get to the other side - the pictures don't even do it justice. Legend says that the first man to inhabit Brittany, Boudédé, was walking along the river and threw the stones that would get caught in his shoes into the gorge and this is how the 'chaos' was created.

Scientists have another (more realistic) theory, but this is more fun!

Seeing this 'chaos' was worth the chaos of the trip!

oceanside ice cream

Summer season brought an ice cream stand to the beach near our apartment!

Bon-weekend!

phare d'eckmühl

On Saturday, Mark was able to join us on a roadtrip. Our first stop was Phare d'Eckmühl, a large lighthouse on the rocky, southwest coast. We made a trek to the top to take in the views even in the gloomy weather.

After exercising our legs on the stairs to the top of the lighthouse, we found some nearby rocks to climb in preparation for our next stop, Pointe du Raz! That will get its own post because it was one of the coolest things I've ever seen!

carnac megalithic

The first full afternoon my brother was here, we drove to Carnac. It is one of three sites of megalithic stones in Brittany. There are more than 3,000 standing stones erected by the pre-Celtic people of Brittany. It's the largest collection in the world believed to be erected during the Neolithic period, some being as old as 4500 BC.

Unfortunately, you can't walk amongst them anymore unless you pay for a tour but there is a path around the area that allows some pretty great views. There are modern myths of why the stones stand in perfect line: one being that they were soldiers in search of Pope Cornelius and he turned them to stone. The locals have other Breton myths.

6th on 4th

We've lived here SIX MONTHS! Half a year! Where did the time go? We celebrated by hosting a 4th of July BBQ!

We grilled burgers, meat sticks, and sausages and somehow our mini-grill kept up! Potato salad and deviled eggs were also on the menu, but I'm pretty sure the eggs were solely eaten by the 3 Americans in attendance! Other countries represented: Australia, Canada, France, UK, Russia...

The beverage of choice (almost only choice) was BUD! The supermarche was fully stocked and we almost bought it all. They must have known we were coming! And don't think we went without fireworks - sparklers came in to the rescue!

My favorite holiday was spent doing what I love to do; hanging with family while BBQ'ing by the water and watching fireworks (some French kids actually set off some really tiny fireworks outside our apartment, on the beach)! Of course being surrounded by a sea of people dressed in red, white and blue and having the whole clan here would have made it better, but I think we pulled off a pretty great party!

goodnight supermoon

Another one of those, "you don't know what you have, 'til it's gone." I never realized how spoiled I was growing up in rural Iowa. With the big city lights missing you can see each and every star out there and I swear the moon is bigger and brighter coming up over fields of corn. I was excited to spot the supermoon (wishing it was in Norway) this past weekend, but this is as good as it got. Darn clouds!

 Yes, it's still this light out around 10:30pm!

Now clouds go away and warm up a little - brother is coming to town and we've got some road trips to make and sites to see!