Quimper to La Rochelle

Next stop on our first short tour of Brittany was Quimper, capital of the Finisterre Department and a centre of Breton history and culture.

Our apartment was remarkably close to the centre of town and the Odet River. It is another fascinating medieval town with cobbled squares and half-timbered houses.

 

Medieval cantilever

This is the bluest hydrangea I've ever seen

 

Quimper is famous for its pottery, and we loved visiting the Musee de la faience.  We now understand that faience is the term used to describe tin-glazed pottery. The artisanship of some of the pieces on display was exceptional and some of the individual artists became very well known and admired.  That said, many beautiful pieces were also produced by teams of workers with different specialised skills.

  

We also went to the Musee Departmental Breton, to learn about the history and culture of the Finisterre. We particularly liked the exhibits of the traditional costumes and the story of the attempts (which continue) to revive the historic Celtic language.  There was also a lot of great furniture.

Gorgeous set of marquetry tables

We spent a day out in the car.  First stop was the pretty but very touristic town of Locronan. It had a lot of arts and crafts stores, but most seemed squarely aimed at the mass market.  I have been reading a collection of Jan Morris travel essays, and I think she would have described Locronan as definitely lacking fizz.

We drove on to the Pointe de la Touche to look at the impressive surf beaches and the Bigouden region, which is the heart of the Breton fishing industry. Interesting but seemed pretty desolate.  I’m not sure I’d want to visit in winter.

We finished our driving tour with a visit to the Kerne Cidrerie.  We arrived just in time for a quaint little tour, followed by a tasting.  Although we like cider, we were extremely excited about their pommeau and eau de vie.  We left with a few bottles of course.  We rounded at the day with crepes for dinner back in Quimper.  We can confirm that Breton crepes really are the best.

Our final day was spent hiking in the verdant Gorges du Stengala, just north of Quimper.  We were struck by how wild and leafy (Jan Morris might have said viridescent) the vegetation is all around the gorge.  The Odet river runs through this narrow valley, which is steeply wooded on both sides.

The most confusing balisage I've seen

From Quimper we were moving onto La Rochelle.  In looking at the route we realised we were passing near the town of Lorient.  As fans of the Das Boot series, we knew that this town was the head quarters for the Germany Navy’s submarine fleet in WW2, and the massive concrete structures still remained.  A little googling revealed that parts of the base had been turned over to a museum, so we spent the afternoon on a fascinating tour with a very well researched guide.

Docking pen for a Uboat in the K3 bunker

After the base opened in late 1941 they became concerned about improvements in allied bombs, and so added this extra layer to the roof to create a blast relief chamber.  It was very successful

David leaning against the blast door at the side entry to K3

The roof of the K3 bunker: vast

Uboats needing repair could be brought in through this slipway in the  K1 bunker and hauled up via giant motors and railways across to the K2 drydock bunker or another K1 drydock bunker for repair

The cradle and railway system used to manoever a Uboat from the K1 slipway into one of the drydocks.  They could do this entire movement in under 45 minutes so as to avoid opportunistic bombing by the allies whilst unprotected

Other parts of the Lorient base have been given over to high tech marine industry.  These blades/keels? are incredible.

We arrived in La Rochelle late afternoon, where we spent two nights and one day.  I like the name and have wanted to visit for a long time.  More seriously I also waded through a 3-book biography of Cardinal Richelieu a few years ago (which took a good couple of years to read) and I do remember the vital role he played commanding the siege of La Rochelle, when the Huguenot resistance there was soundly defeated. Perhaps this sticks more strongly in the mind of someone brought up as a catholic.

In the end our day was spent casually and most enjoyably wandering around the old town and the enormous port with its many docks.

 

 

 

 

To get from one of the docks, boats needed to wait for two pedestrian bridges to be opened in succession.  A good deal of money has been spent maintaining and upgrading these docks, with more to come.  It seems to us however that they are principally used for leisure boating.

The old town is medieval, very well maintained and spotless.  La Rochelle seems generally to be a well-off and organised town, befitting its beautiful sounding name.

The next day we set of for Bordeaux, stopping at Chantegasse, where our friends Coby and Roelof have family who run a complex of gites.  We were interested to take a look as Coby and Roelof have spent time there doing renovations.