What a grand entrance we had to Brittany.  “Le Mont St. Michel” made for one spectacular and dramatic first act. As you approach this tiny fortified medieval island treasure it looks like the backdrop for some kind of stage production but as you get closer to the rock it becomes clear you’re in for something much more special. St Michel is an island at high tide, at low tide it has many kilometres of sandy beach in front of it. We witnessed much of the fascinating “flood” tide from the “high-altitude” courtyard of the magnificent pre 11th century gothic Abby. To reach the Abby you must walk and climb “the Pilgrims Walk” through the narrow winding streets of the medieval village below it. This place is truly fascinating but an element of commercialism has crept in and taken away from the romantic atmosphere somewhat. Not surprising considering this medieval attraction draws millions every year. Its massive parking lot was only about 20% full during our visit and the place seemed quite busy so we can’t even imagine what it would look like during peak season with a full parking lot. Construction on a new connecting bridge to the island is almost complete and when finished it will replace the old land causeway restoring the eco system and provide better access to the Island.  Not far away is the important ancient port city of St Malo. This was the home of Jacques Cartier and it was from here that he sailed West to not only discover Canada (first to map the St. Lawrence River) but to give us our name as well. There is a nice park and statue marking the significance of all this but strangely it’s lacking any Canadian flags and we couldn’t quite understand that, but we did find Jacques resting tomb in the local Cathedral.
On the west coast of France we visited a “Rockin” little town called Carnac. This place is world famous for it’s 3,000 (planted?) rock boulders. It’s said that these large (some very large) rocks were placed in long straight rows around 4,000+ BC and they are still confusing the experts much like Stone Hedge in England (I wonder how one determines how long a rock has sat in one place for?). As you can see from the picture, Margot thinks it’s all a hoax (Wink!). On we drove to the beautiful port city of Nantes. Located inland on the Loire river this place was once the capital of Brittany until Anne, the daughter of Francois II was obligated to marry two French Kings (at different times!) and in so doing, united forever Brittany to France. We spent the better part of a day going through Anne’s castle museum. This port city has a rich history including ship building, military, fishing and import/export that included the slave trade. Today much of the industrial ship building business has shut down but a few years ago a very interesting new business popped up in it’s place. It’s sort of like a “If you build it… they will come” story. In some of the old ship building sheds, groups of skilled visionaries, craftsmen and engineers started to build “Machines”. What are machines you ask… BIG moving creatures that are paraded about on the old ship assembly grounds. They draw thousands of fans from all over the world to see this stuff and even ride on these incredible mechanical marvels. By the way,  this has all evolved in the old neighbourhood of the famous si-fi author Jules Verne… wonder if there’s a connection?  Erik, you’d be very impressed with the quality of engineering. This weekend is a “Machine” festival and new machines will be officially added to the collection with a big city parade . It really is a cool thing to see (especially for an old Tech Ed teacher) but when you see some of the grand future plans they have in mind you realize this gallery will soon be a mega tourist attraction. Tomorrow we head “up-stream” to explore the chateau loaded Loire River estates on our way towards Paris.