Things to do in Brittany

The wife and I are mid-planning for a stay in Brittany. We've got about a week of uncommitted time we could fritter away on your delightful suggestions for things to do and see. Heave in a few ideas and I'll say 'thank you for the delightful suggestion' in a very sincere typeface.

make sure to eat buckwheat crepes

http://arianeb.com/dateariane/images/slow.jpg

That was enlightening, dave. Until now I never knew digital women shaved their pits.

best butter in the world.
eat tons of kouign amann, krampouezh and gametes.

queequeg

galetes, sorry new computer has spell check that doesn't like breton language. ROFL!

peter g.

Hear some Breton music! I did last fall, for the first time. It was very cool.

When are you planning to go? It rains a lot, so this is U&K.

Anyway, go and see Mont St Michel. Drink Breton cider. Eat awesome food. Get on boats and look at lighthouses. Loads of good beaches all over the place, there's a place called Benodet which has a really cool lagoon.

We will be going in June. I like the idea of breton music. I got no beef with bagpipes. There are no big music festivals in June, afaics, so we'd have to seek it out in local venues.

Some of what I heard was like bagpipes as played by... a Moroccan. Or something. Meander-y eastern melodies played in jig time, weird combinations like that.

I'm already familiar with the music, via an interest in celtic music generally. They like reeds and baritones, based on what I've heard.

Gallettes btw. In Breton it's Krampouezhenn gwinizh du.

nope http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galette

I've only been to the south coast around Vannes/Carnac, which is worth a visit (beautiful islands! menhirs!) - if you'll be around there I can give some more detailed pointers. Palets are tastier than Galettes imo, but Kouign-amann is the unmissable one.

Oddly enough, Brittany is the biggest cheese-producing region in France but they don't make anything good.

If you're a closet David Mitchell type, there's always the Lorient submarine pens tour:

http://www.blavet.co.uk/images/keroman%20u-boat%20pens%201.jpg http://www.blavet.co.uk/images/u%20boat%20pen2.jpg http://www.blavet.co.uk/images/u%20boat%20blockhouse%20roof%20space.jpg

I liked Saint Malo when I was there 24 years ago

here is a cheesy travel video of that town and environs which probably won't be too helpful but what the hell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2Y8jM7Vaog

dinan looks nice

Whereabouts in Britanny? It's a big place ...

We'll def spend some time in the area of Treguier and Plougrescant, and we expect to stop in Vitre for a couple of nights, but we have at least four more days wherein we could explore another area.

A chance to visit a site with menhirs would be sweet, but Carnac looks too overrun and touristified. We bopped around the west of Ireland in 2000 and got used to the idea of neolithic stone circles and tombs just sitting unmolested and unvisited out in a sheep pasture, so you had the place all to yourself.

Our trip has been moved up so that we will be leaving this Monday. We will stay briefly in Paris, travel out to a farmhouse near Treguier for a week, then move a bit further west to a B&B near Morlaix for four nights. From there we'll take a couple of nights in Vitre, then back to Paris for four days and home.

I'll have a netbook with me, so I won't be entirely removed from ilx the whole time, but it won't be like I'm liveblogging the trip or anything.

Bon Voyage!

Merci. Les mots ne peuvent exprimer mon flegme.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPoXfI_mKqw

OK. Brief note here from the front line. My wife and I are in Paris, with the Breton portion of the trip concluded. We Had an auto most of our time in Brittany, and so were able to visit some out of the way hamlets in the countryside.

I can now say I have been to Plougrescant, Tregestal, Plenvenan, Plouezoc'h, Plousanach, Treguier, Vitre, and St. Jean du Doigt. I have hiked a fairish number of kilometres of the GR34. I have eaten moules frites, coquille St.Jacques, monkfish, cod, whelks, raw oysters, shrimp and other seafood I cannot identify. The worst thing about eating every dinner in a restaurant for weeks is that few restaurants seem intersted in vegetables, other than as decorative elements. I have eaten a goodly share of breton gallettes (buckwheat crepes) also.

The seacoast is pleasant. The people are, as well. There are churchs, chapels, oratories, monasteries, or cathedrals so thick on the landscape you can always see a steeple, no matter where you stand. That's about it for now.

Whelks!

Au bulot!

Plougrescant, Tregestal, Plenvenan, Plouezoc'h, Plousanach, Treguier, Vitre, and St. Jean du Doigt

these are all excellent names

Plou- means parish in Breton

And Saint John of the Finger supposedly has a relic of John the Baptist's finger.