TRAVELS (and more) WITH CECILIA BRAINARD: Travel France: Coast of Brittany St. Malo, Roscoff, Finistere, Pt. Matthieu

Thursday, May 21, 2015

Travel France: Coast of Brittany St. Malo, Roscoff, Finistere, Pt. Matthieu

From Mont Saint-Michel, we continued our journey west to the coast of Brittany, which is in the north-west section of France.

Brittany feels like another place. The wild crashing sea is there, and the tides change dramatically. I saw farms of artichokes and other vegetables. There are also cows and sheep. But I suspect it is the sea that has defined the people.

(The Bretons are a separate ethnic group; they are Celtic like the Irish, Welsh, Scots, Cornish, and Manx peoples -- more on this next time.)

We are in the city of Quemper, the capital of Finistere, and we will be learning more about the people and their culture.

So for now, let me share some pictures taken in north-west Brittany.

The picture of Lauren and me was taken in the ramparts of Intra Muros in St. Malo. (Manila has a walled city called Intramuros as well!).

The four successive pictures demonstrate the great difference in tides here. When it is low tide, the boats are resting on the sea floor. When the tide is in, the boats rise twenty feet or higher. (Tides are affected by the sun, moon, and the geography of the place. Areas with large land mass do not have great tidal fluctuations.)

I'm sharing other pictures taken as we did our coastal tour: a Celtic megalith, lighthouse, and St. Matthieu's point with a lighthouse and ruins of an abbey.