A guide-conférencier of the Pays d’art et d’histoire Auray Quiberon Terre Atlantique opens this chapel once the light has gone. The decoration is picked out of the dark in the faisceau de la lampe torche, leaving the rest unlit. Notre-Dame de Locmaria is listed as a Monument Historique, and its polychrome roof frame and paintings are exceptional for their rarity. Les Incontournables open megaliths and chapels nearby the same way.
Tag: guided-tours
La colline aux clochers, Quimperlé’s upper town
Place Saint-Michel has been the heart of Quimperlé’s upper town since medieval times, under the bell tower of Notre-Dame. From its four corners a guide leads walkers towards other monuments of the town’s history, the Ursulines convent among them and the Saint-Eutrope chapel. Archaeological digs on the route have just revealed new secrets, and the walk takes them in. It sets off from the parvis of the église Notre-Dame de l’Assomption.
Il était une nuit: night visit to the Prieuré Saint-Etienne
Night settles over the Prieuré Saint-Etienne and the site opens for an unusual guided visit. Visitors are led through the priory after dark, a moment outside time between imagination and the waking of the senses. The building at its heart is the oldest chapel in Morbihan, a listed Historic Monument raised in the tenth and eleventh centuries above the Oyon valley. Around it lie Gallo-Roman remains, polychrome wooden statues and wall paintings.
Le Savon Breton, cold saponification up close
Le Savon Breton opens its workshop at Saint-Brieuc-des-Iffs so that visitors come away hard to catch out on soap. The route runs through the laboratoire, the ingrédients and the méthode de fabrication, which here is saponification à froid. The savonnerie is an entreprise artisanale of the Bretagne romantique and works only with ingredients it selects itself. The boutique opens at the end of the visit.
Les ateliers de la biscuiterie Joubard
The Biscuiterie Joubard opens its doors at Saint-Thuriau and takes visitors into the making of Breton biscuits. The route runs through the workshops, past the machines and along the production lines. It ends in the factory shop, where the biscuits are sold loose by weight or packed into coffrets cadeaux. The Pontivy Communauté tourist office carries the booking, and what is on show is a Breton biscuit trade still at work in its own commune.
Visites du Petit Théâtre – La Passerelle, en famille
La Passerelle keeps a small théâtre à l’italienne, one of the 170 historic houses of that form counted in France. The guided visit takes families into the room: the parterre, the baignoires, the balcony and the boxes of the two upper floors, and the poulailler above them, also called le paradis. Two age groups go round separately. The house is listed, and its 250 places have carried jazz, classical and current music.
Guided walk in the forest of Coatloc’h, Scaër
A guide from the Pays d’Art et d’Histoire leads this walk through Coatloc’h, a preserved massif on the edge of Scaër. The route follows the traces left by the sabotiers who cut clogs here and by the charbonniers who burned its wood. It passes the vestiges of a prétendu château, a castle nobody has proved stood there. Quimperlé Communauté runs it: four kilometres on reservation, closed to anyone who walks with difficulty.
Gouermel marsh, between land and sea at Plougrescant
Two worlds meet at the Gouermel marsh, and the walk sets out in front of the Gouermel leisure centre at Plougrescant. The marsh is a frontier between land and sea, laid out and worked by people over the centuries, and the guide reads that work in what still stands. Its built heritage is one thread, its biodiversity another, with the new uses taking hold there the third. Boots and weather-proof clothing are asked for, and places must be booked.
L’Atelier de l’Argoat et l’andouille de Guéméné
L’Atelier de l’Argoat walks visitors through the making of the Véritable Andouille de Guéméné à l’Ancienne. The family firm has made it in Brittany for over thirty years, by hand, from French pork intestines and without colourings. The round ends at the shop on site, with a tasting and a booklet of recipes and games built around andouille. The workshop works mainly with Breton suppliers and carries the Produit en Bretagne label.
Three trades behind the forest of Brocéliande
Brocéliande is known for its legends, and this walk asks what work goes on behind them. Around the Jardin aux Moines, three parties read the same stretch of forest in turn: a storytelling guide from the Office de tourisme de Brocéliande-Paimpont, timber professionals from Fibois Bretagne, and foresters from the CNPF. Visitors hear how the forest is told, then how it is cut and sold. The trail runs two kilometres and sets out only if five sign on.