Colour, volume and circulation through a space are the materials Elsa Tomkowiak works with, somewhere between painting and sculpture, and La Galerie on Rue Touroux hands its rooms over to her for one appointment in the fifth edition of Les Minutes Bleues. Walking the installation comes first, then a café where the group puts words to what it has just crossed. The intercommunal tourist office of Binic-Étables-sur-Mer programmes it locally, inside a festival that Côtes d’Armor Destination builds across the natural and cultural heritage places of the department, under the blue light the festival is named for. Every age is admitted, booking is strongly advised, and admission is free.
Region: Brittany
Le Petit Théâtre en Famille at La Passerelle
La Passerelle takes children through the Petit Théâtre, the Italian-style house it keeps at Saint-Brieuc, on a free visit. The room is inscribed on the inventory of historic monuments and has carried thousands of spectators across its seasons. Visitors learn the vocabulary of the place: where cour and jardin fall on a seating plan, where the parterre sits and the poulailler hangs. One group takes five to eight year olds, another nine to twelve.
Initiation au breton et pressage à l’ancienne
The Écomusée du Pays d’Auray runs this Morbihan grandeur nature session in the Verger Conservatoire at Saint-Dégan, where some two hundred apple varieties are kept. Participants follow the stages that turn fruit into juice: broyage, pressage, then a dégustation of what they have made. The Breton language arrives with the work, picked up through the gestures, objects and shared moments the pressing calls for. Boots and warm clothing are advised.
Au fil du lin, de la culture à la texture
The Maison des talus et des routoirs à lin opens at Pouldouran, in La Roche-Jaudy, around the plant that made this corner of the Trégor rich. Lannion-Trégor keeps the site and sets out what the little blue flower left behind. The route that starts at its door passes the routoirs, the talus and the fermes massives, and reaches the port goémonier. Each stop carries the story forward, from the crop in the field to the texture of the finished linen.
Fest noz à Plédran : Carré Manchot, Sterne, Le Bour Bodros
A fest noz fills the Horizon hall in Plédran, a municipal venue that bills the night for all audiences. Three groups share it: Carré Manchot, Sterne and the duo Le Bour Bodros. Carré Manchot has spent four decades animating festoù-noz, while Sterne and the duo each bring long stage records of their own. Refreshments and light snacks are served on site, so dancers can stay the course.
Brasserie de Launay: a Breton organic brewery visit
Wheat beer, pale ale, red ale, IPA, dark ale and strong ale make up the range, which runs to 75,000 litres a year. Each stage is explained in order by the brewer, from the selection of raw materials to brewing, fermentation and bottling. Lamballe-Armor holds the brewery today, after a start at the Gare de Moncontour, in the old Penthièvre country that modern Breton calls Pentevr. Groups run to fifteen people at most, and the route stays accessible to people with limited mobility.
Les secrets de la coquille Saint-Jacques, marinée et snackée
Chez Kabañ, a cooking studio in the village of Saint-Suliac on the Bords de Rance, hands its kitchen to seven cooks at a time. The scallop is the subject: a tartare de Saint-Jacques aux clémentines et kasha, then the shellfish seared in citrus butter beside farz noir. That buckwheat farz belongs to the Breton table, and the menu ends on le traditionnel gâteau breton. The studio cooks Kig Ha Farz and la cotriade bretonne on its other dates.
Dawn in the Criée at Saint-Quay-Portrieux
Fifteen participants at most follow the fish through the criée at Saint-Quay-Portrieux, from the unloading and the sorting of the catch to the auction hall and the loading of the trucks, before things settle down for breakfast at the harbour. A lab coat and shoe covers come with the booking, and the visit is open from twelve years up. It is one session of the fifth Les Minutes Bleues, which opens heritage sites of the Côtes-d’Armor in blue light.
Fest-Deiz with Anne-Marie Nicol and Gwénaëlle Pineau
Two players carry the whole dance floor at the salle du Groëz Ven in Ploemel, where the association Dalc’h Atau runs its fest-deiz. Anne-Marie Nicol takes the bombarde and Gwénaëlle Pineau the accordéon diatonique. The reed answers the bellows across the hall, about the leanest line-up a Breton dance floor can run on. The pair set the dances and the room answers, step for step.
Café-criée : les coulisses de la criée de Concarneau
Concarneau’s criée works in the early morning, as the catch is graded and sold on the floor. Visitors follow the rouages of the sale, then sit down to a breakfast with the guide-conférencier of the town’s Patrimoine service. Talk turns to testimonies collected from the men who worked the hall, to fishing techniques, and to how the whole filière has changed. The auction is the emblematic site of fishing in Concarneau.