The countryside abounds in truck farms that serve all of France, as well as more traditional agriculture, like cows, chickens and pig farms. But the bounty of the truck farms is exquisite. Just yesterday the local fermier arrived on our doorstep to deliver to our hosts two grand cauliflower and a handful of local artichokes which we will eat this weekend. When we arrived back in the afternoon from our travels, another crate of zucchinis was awaiting us, almost bringing us to the point of groans about what would we do with a dozen foot long zukes!
Brittany abounds in treasures. In two days we have visited a neolithic cairn reputed to be up to 5000 years old, a town that was rich in the Renaissance from its linen trade and thehome to the last reigning duchess of Brittany, who married a French Parisian king and sealed the fate of her Breton-speaking subjects to become part of a larger nation-state. It offers, too, huge bays, which at low tide are sandflats extending over a mile into the Manche, otherwise known as the English Channel.
That said, getting here takes time. From Washington DC, our home, the time to our friends' maison secondaire is a long 18 hours...seven on a plane from Dulles to Charles de Gaulle and three and ahalf on a Train à Grand Vitesse from Paris' Gare Montparnasse, and then a 45 minute ride by car from Guingamp to the village of Penvenan. This time all was accomplished without hitches, though there are possibilities for delay if weather is bad leaving Washington or traffic is bad for the Air France bus between Roissy-Charles de Gaulle and the rail station.
But it is a special place. Our friends' home has a 14th century well. It's a house built about 110 years ago in Breton golden stone. Our room overlooks the Atlantic when the clouds lift. Occasionally we see wildlife in the adjacent rolling fields. Of course, our hostess has a love of the local shrub, the hortensia, know to English speakers as hydrangeas, which abound around the house, barns and farm buildings. Huge pompoms of pinks, purples, blues and whites.
Previous visits have taken us to Mont St. Michel on the borders with Normandy; Treguier, the epsicopal seat for the region where the cathedral is dedicated to the patron saint of lawyers, St. Yves; and the Isle of Bréhat where the tides run to 30 feet.
Tides in Brittany are huge. When the tide is out, marée basse, the sands run for miles toward to the sea with small pools of water, but when the tide is in, marée haute, the waves crash against the seawalls and sometimes overrun the seaside roads. At low tide boats are stranded on their sides in the harbors, while at high tide, they swing on their buoys. All in 24 hours.
Yesterday, after the morning run to the Carre-four, the local supermarket, and a full lunch of local pâtés, andouillette, and a roast of beef with green beans and spices, we headed off to the Cairn of Barnenez, which overlooks the Baie of Morlaix.
The cairn was discovered in mode
rn times in 1954 when a contractor bought what he thought was pile of rocks covered with dirt. As his trucks and backhoes excavated, the drivers found tombs in the pile and realized they had an archeological site under their bulldozers. The archeologial dig began, eventually to find 11 tombs, all but three of which are sealed. The cairn, built about 5000 years ago, the same time as the Egyptian pyramids, is believed to be a burial site, but we have so little information about neolithic times that we are unsure. 
The view over the bay is incredible, but at the time of construction, the sea was about 25 feet lower than today at high tide, so much of what is now seabed would
have been agricultural lands. What it does show is that Brittany, and its original population had a civilization well before the age of Vercingetorix and the Gauls of Caesar's time.
Every place you go is a site of history in this old province. From the neolithic times to the Renaissance is less than 20 miles to the old town of Morlaix. Here the linen trade made the city rich. It became the home of prosperous nobles who, unable to earn money through commerce, gave up their titles, provisionally, to move into town, work as businessmen to earn the money they needed to keep up their estates, which were not profitable, and then resume their titles and their country estates.
The homes in Morlaix are half timbered, but have a
multistoried centralhall that helped heat the upper rooms. Generally the first floor was used for business. The home we saw must have been very advanced for the time with indoor toilets on each floor. Of course, there was no evidence of running water to flush them!
In the main square of Morlaix, nestled in its valley below the 19th century rail viaduct that soars in the air above the harbor, is the home of Duchess Anne, the last reigning
duchess of independent Brittany. She marrie
d a French king and at that point Brittany became French, eventually losing its status as a duchy, and facing the 18th and 19th century regulation that French be the language of the land. Today Breton has a slight resurgence—the street signs are written in two languages—but we have never heard anyone speak it in a store or restaurant. It is distantly related to other Celtic tongues, like Welsh and Gaelic, though the languages are not mutually
One of the French customs to which we needed to adjust is having the main meal in the middle of the day and a smaller repast in the evening. Our Thursday meal was various cold cuts—country pâté and andouille sausages with baguette to commence and then a small roast of beef with spiced green beans as the vegetable. In the evening, a shrimp risotto. Always the tradition, at least for our hosts' generation, is cheese before dessert laid out on a platter for eveyone to choose small pieces as each wishes. Our hostess is a dessert fanatic, so we always have dessert, including a home-made compôte of apples from the garden, unspiced and unsugared, but mild and very pleasant.
Friday, August 28.
Time for old churches and the End of the World. There's neve
r a visit to France without at least one old church. The best for the tourist are listed with “trois étoiles”, three stars., in the Guide Michelin. On our tour we found one, and it is glorious. Ste. Thégonnec is a small town off one of the main freeways heading West from our Penvenan hosts' home. Situated
on the top of a hill is an religious enclosure, one of the best kept in all France, with church, ossuary, porch, calvaire and entry, surrounded by a wall. The calvaire, in the center of the yard in front of the church is a fairytale of horror and beauty, with sculptures of Christ being taken from the cross, but also of ordinary women and men, with full codpieces, in the act of being part of the Passion. In the nearby ossuary, where the bones of saints are kept, is a wooden representation of Jesus being taken from the cross, carved about three hundred years ago.
The church itself has spires and cornices in a Breton style of whimsy, which is mimicked across the old province in the village parish churches everywhere.
Our goal was not Ste. Thégonnec but the points and cliffs 
at Finisterre, Land's End, which drop into the sea. The points, the waves and the rocks are magnificent, fortunately in both a bit of drizzle and chill and in gorgeous sunshine as the
weather changes quickly and often. You realize that many a medieval man or woman could stand here, see just a couple of distant islands and fear that the end of the world happened after that. We didn't fall off.
But modern times intrudes on these cliffs, at least modern
times of 70 years ago. There are the blockhouses and gun emplacements built by France's German conquerors during World War II designed to keep unwanted invaders, like Brits, Americans, and Charles de Gaulle, from appearing over the horizon and landing without impediment. While most are sealed up now, the concrete remains and the metal bolts that held the cannons needed to maintain Nazi control of the continent stand as a memory to the madness of the world.
After the beauty of Finisterre, finding lunch became a major occupation. We decide to stop at Douanannez, a fishing town, the center of French sardine production, to overlook the harbor and enjoy a selection of Breton oysters, fish pâtés and soup. Gorgeous small oysters with shallot and vinegar sauce, fresh bread, a pâté of sardine and white fish, and a fish soup with gruyère, made a wonderful meal, interrupted by the arrival of a playful dolphin in the harbor we overlooked.
While most of the crowd felt a cormorant was attacking the dolphin, we agreed that both the dolphin and cormorant were playing a game since each kept coming at the other when the bird could easily have flown away and the dolphin could have searched out other entertainment. The show continued for at least 15 minutes as the dolphin surfaced with a hoot and the bird fluttered overhead only to return for more.
That made an appetite for dessert! Black coffee, caramel ice cream, and two pastries, one a far breton, a flan with fresh plums and the other a buttery pastry, now made sometimes with a fruit or chocolate center, similar to a tarte made with a croissant pastry. The far breton is made by filling a cake tin with a light pancake batter used for making crêpes bretonnes, adding fresh pitted plums, and then baking till it sets. The second is known as kouign-amann, originally was full of butter. Now a good kouign-amann is light and airy and not, as the French say “trop gras” or fatty.
Part of the problem with a voyage from Penvenan to the sea is distance. We were now more than 200 kilometers from the sea, about 130 miles. We had spent the afternoon at the end of the world and enjoying a lunch that fit the time and the space, but we now had a long two hour trip home ahead of us. Fortunately French roads, particularly the Routes Nationaux freeways are just fine.
Arriving home at 10 pm, with our tummies growling, we had a lovely evening meal of leftover cold roast beef, vegetables and cold cuts, green salad, and a grand basket of breads. And then to bed. A fresh reisling from Alsace didn't hurt.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Late to rise, but good coffee, fruit and a croissant, then off to market. The day before yesterday Ben and our hostess had visited a neighboring farm where the owner raises “cerfs,” deer. He sells deer meat, or venison, at the market and we expected to take some back to our Parisian hosts on Monday. We telephoned Paris to make sure there was interest—as if we didn't know. 
But our trip to the local Saturday morning market didn't produce a venison roast. The deer-owner didn't have any today. What to take in place? We already planned grand artichokes and cauliflower, but what to replace the venison? No problem: The charcuterie vendor had just the thing. A marvelous pâté de campagne, which we call head cheese, and another reddish pâté--of tripe. We expect our hosts to help us devour them we arrive on Monday on Montmartre. We are also taking a jar of venison pâté as well.
Along the way our host and hostess went for shellfish. We came home with pounds and pounds of mussels, now consumed from their white wine sauce with the necessary frites. We are now ready to bask in the sun, read our books and nap. Dinner is to be fresh oysters, cold artichokes and salad.
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