Arc-en-Ciel Imprimeurs has printed from Lécousse for more than 50 years, and its 12 salaried staff keep the offset and digital presses running for local firms, authorities and associations. The guided tour crosses the workshops step by step, following production from books to advertising panels. The trade on show is at once traditional, technical and constantly evolving. Photography is prohibited inside, so nothing leaves on a phone.
Topic: events
Pouldu blockhouse, an Atlantic Wall visit
The Clohars-Carnoët Memory and Heritage Association opens a 775 m3 casemate of the Atlantic Wall above Grands Sables beach at Le Pouldu. Inside the restored artillery hall, the troop shelter and the rear firing post, panels and period weapons and uniforms set out the Breton Resistance, the fighting of the Lorient Pocket and the Laïta Front. A guide leads the round, or it can be walked alone. A booklet on the blockhouse is on sale at the door.
Fête automnale des Amis du Monde à Meneham
Les Amis du Monde de Kerlouan gather in the heart of Meneham for their autumn fete. The afternoon is a fest-deiz, danced in daylight to a traditional music group. Pumpkin soup, sausage galettes and crêpes come out of the kitchen beside a refreshment stand. Meneham is the village the association works in, and the Côte des Légendes office opens the site this season for lantern-lit visits, giant werewolves and Ar vro Bagan’s pirate play.
Session de musique bretonne at Mar’mousse
Musicians gather at Mar’mousse, a kav, bar and resto in Plérin, to play Breton tunes together. The invitation is to come and play, not to listen: newcomers are eased in on an easy stretch first, and the session proper is launched afterwards. Anyone who would rather dance than play is welcome to, which is what the repertoire is for. The house signs its own pages in Breton, Produet e Breizh hag e brezhoneg gant karantez. Entry is free.
Des histoires à la bougie at the Abbaye du Relec
The guide opens at the Abbaye du Relec while there is still light enough to pick out the detail of the site, and sets out its history. The atmosphere shifts once night has fallen. By candlelight the walk becomes a veillée, and the légendes bretonnes take over from the history. The stories told in the dark are the lugubrious ones of Brittany, recounted on the departmental estate at Plounéour-Ménez for anyone from eight upwards.
Crazy Lobster composite workshop, Saint-Brieuc
Crazy Lobster shapes technical parts from carbon and glass fibre, a Breton workshop whose first customers were boats. The round crosses the shop floor zone by zone: machining, painting, infusion, sanding. A part is carried from development through prototyping and testing to a finished piece. The firm’s history lies in pleasure sailing and offshore racing, the trade this coast is known for, and that know-how now goes elsewhere in industry.
Conférence-concert de Brieg Guerveno et Maïlys Princé
The Micro-folie at Ploërmel puts a talk and a concert in one evening at Les Carmélites. Maïlys Princé, a Breton content creator from the area, opens on the cultures and languages of Brittany as social media carry them, and on what digital mediation does to intangible heritage. The singer Brieg Guerveno then takes up the question « Pourquoi chanter en langue minorisée ? ». His concert of new work in Breton closes the night.
Armateurs de Rhum opens its rum workshop
At Saint-Jouan-des-Guérets, outside Saint-Malo, a family distillery opens the room where its liqueurs, gins and rums are made by hand. A guide takes callers along the production line, from the raw material to the bottling. The talk covers traditional methods and what a terroir does to a spirit, and ends with a tasting of the house’s bottlings. The house ages rum at sea, ships some under sail, and distils its gin from buckwheat and Breton seaweed.
Solomon Rossine : La Bretagne qui est toujours avec toi
The Chapelle des Ursulines at Lannion hangs the series Solomon Rossine completed after thirty-five years in the town. 77 oil paintings and many drawings came out of excursions made on foot, by bike and by car, always with a sketchbook. Visitors follow what those sketchbooks brought back: the old train station, the streets of Lannion, rain in the countryside. Wayside shrines, Breton festivals and the Pardon give the series its subject.
Empreintes du crépuscule: linocut at Saint-Thélo
At nightfall the Maison des Toiles at Saint-Thélo opens the house of a linen-cloth merchant for a linocut workshop. Visitors read its architecture detail by detail in the failing light, then cut a block and print what they took from it. Their prints are set beside the work of Jeanne Malivel, the artist who worked in woodcut. The sittings belong to Les Minutes Bleues, which opens twenty-four heritage sites of the Côtes d’Armor in blue light.