In the thirteenth century the abbey of Landévennec became a fortified castle: towers, moats and drawbridges surrounded the church and the monastic buildings. The exhibition traces that change, shaped by power struggles, ambitions and wealth. Archaeological artefacts, games and interactive displays punctuate the tour, and a digital reconstruction in three dimensions puts the abbey back as it stood in the Middle Ages. The monks’ daily lives figure alongside.
Topic: events
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.
Salon Vibrations at the Abbaye de Léhon
The second edition of the Salon Vibrations fills the Abbaye de Léhon with contemporary work. Paintings, sculptures, wall pieces and one-off objects form a route laid out so that each work answers the space it stands in. The artists and the artisans d’art stay for the whole run and talk through the story behind a given piece. The abbey is a protected monument whose heritage the organisers treat as part of the show.
Erquy on Foot: Chapelle des Marins to the Sea
The Office de Tourisme leads this walk through Erquy on the theme of its réginéen religious and seaside heritage. It sets off from in front of the Chapelle des Marins and works from the town centre out to the boulevard de la mer. The guide sets the commune’s religious buildings beside its villas de bord de mer and the protected natural setting that frames them both. Children from ten upwards can follow, and a place has to be reserved.
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.