Maison Brieuc opens its production workshops at Yffiniac and walks visitors along the route its ingredients take, from raw material to finished product. Pâtissiers, carameliers and confituriers are at work as the group passes. What comes off these lines is the Breton repertoire of palet breton and kouign amann, Confibreizh and spécialités au caramel, worked au beurre salé with sel de Guérande. The visit is offered as a matter of transparency.
Topic: events
Visite guidée de la Maison à Pondalez, Morlaix
The Maison à Pondalez is a timber-framed house of the early sixteenth century, a piece of Morlaix civil architecture. Its plan is the style « à lanterne »: one tall central space open through several floors, a monumental wooden vis staircase, and the suspended walkways, the pondalez, linking the storeys. A guide of the Musée de Morlaix leads the visit through rooms holding its flax collections. The house is classée Monument Historique.
Contes et histoires du pays at the Ferme d’Antan
Angélique leads her listeners from one end of the Écomusée de la Ferme d’antan to the other, telling the contes et légendes du pays. The figures she summons are the korrigans, the lavandières de la nuit and the croquemitaine. The telling moves on foot through the farm village at Le Saint Esprit des Bois, in Plédéliac. It is one evening of the fifth Minutes Bleues, the Côtes-d’Armor festival staged in the blue light of dawn and dusk.
Luigi Odorici, fondateur du musée de Dinan
The Bibliothèque municipale de Dinan gives a long run to Luigi Odorici, an Italian political refugee who settled in the town. He became its librarian, then founded the museum and kept it for close to forty years. The display gathers pieces that passed through his hands: the Portulan de Pascoal Roiz, a portrait of saint Dominique, and the first book printed in Dinan. His bequest still forms the core of the museum’s holdings, and access is free.
La fromagerie Le champ du trèfle à Erdeven
The Champ du trèfle is a family holding of three generations at Erdeven, and it opens its cheese dairy for a guided round. Sylvain took over the dairy his parents founded and turned the holding to organic farming. What it makes is raw-milk cow’s cheese, worked on the farm from the herd’s own milk. The Morbihan’s tourism authority files the dairy among the department’s direct-sale cheesemakers, and the round closes with a tasting.
Guillaume Yaouank at the Ballons Rouges
Guillaume Yaouank grew up in the maritime air of Lorient and sings with nothing but his voice and a guitar. His repertoire is maritime folk song in its purest form, with a Breton seafaring flair and a detour to his Irish cousins. Five albums and years of touring in France and abroad sit behind the set. He plays the Café Théâtre des Ballons Rouges, a small room in Lamballe-Armor.
Farm cheesemaking at Au Pré de la Terre
Au Pré de la Terre is run by three people at Plélan-le-Grand: Stéphanie on the family holding, Kévin setting up his own operation, and Paul. Every litre from their Breton cows is processed on site into no fewer than six cheeses, plus butter, skyr and Gwell, the dairy product particular to the Pie Noire breed. The herd grazes year round and grass is at the heart of the system, on a farm certified organic. The two-hour visit closes with a tasting.
Points de vue sur le château de Dinan
The château de Dinan opens for a sensory visit that works on perception instead of chronology. Optical illusions unsettle the eye, hidden places are opened, and exceptional panoramas are reached. Visitors read the château through the eyes of those who crossed it, moving from one point of view to the next. It belongs to Les Minutes Bleues, the Côtes-d’Armor programme that opens the département’s patrimoine in the blue light of dusk.
Handloom weaving at L’Échoppée Belle, Pontivy
L’Échoppée Belle is a shop run by the makers who stock it, and for this round one of them sets up her loom among them. Anne Grolleau works the handloom in front of visitors and spins wool as she explains how the frame is threaded. She names the textile fibres she uses, says where each comes from, and gives the names of the different cloths. Weaving on a hand frame is one of the oldest trades practised by the Breton artisans who share the shop.
Science at the Manufacture des tabacs, Morlaix
The Espace des sciences occupies the Manufacture des tabacs in Morlaix, and over the Toussaint break it opens its nine exhibition rooms to all ages. Foucault’s pendulum shows the Earth turning and Globe 360 takes the planet apart. Coup de foudre à la Manu makes static electricity visible. The guided Au plus près des Moulins goes into the Manufacture’s own mills, still working, past a machine classed as a Historic Monument.