Friday, June 3, 2022 - The Mysteries of Carnac

 Three thousand standing stones (menhirs) in rows like soldiers, arranged according to height over more than 4 kilometers. 

Carnac - standing stones - well some of them

Placed by Neolithic people sometime between 5000 and 2500 BC. Archeologists know where they "quarried" them and have identified how they might have moved them the miles from the quarry site to Carnac. They even have an idea how they stood them up on end in these endless rows. But what they don't know is "why?" For what purpose were these stones put here at a huge expense of labor and manpower. 

Alignment of Ménec

There are no celestial alignments that might indicate a calendar of sorts. Religious ceremonies or royal ceremonies have been suggested. Are they a border between tribes, a warning not to pass this boundary? Are they a message from the past to us? No one has a clue. 

But that doesn't diminish the power of actually seeing these megaliths, touching them, sitting in awe of the accomplishment by men and women who only recently had given up nomadic life for farming and the formation of societies. 

Part of a circle of standing stones

The tourist office in Carnac provided us a map of the area. Besides standing stones (menhirs), there are dolmens and tumuli in the area. We started at the Maison des Megalith, a visitor center (and parking lot and starting point of the Petit Train, a 50 minute ride around the area to see all these Neolithic monuments). 

La Maison des Megaliiths

There is a path for much of the way that is scooter-friendly and has occasional picnic tables, so we grabbed the lunch backpack and headed out to walk the length of the alignments within eyesight.

Houses were mixed amongst a circle of standing stones at the beginning of the walk. We wondered what it's like having a Neolithic stone in your front yard. I guess you get used to it. 

Some people took advantage of the position to open a creperie in the back of their house. 

This house is a creperie with tables out in the back yard. 

 Keeping the people who made this in mind, the stones each take on a personality of a team of men managing the placement of that stone. Then look at the hundreds in sight and remember the 3000 in this area and you can't be anything but awestruck. As Dave said, "Building cathedrals in the middle ages was a piece of cake compared to Carnac." 

We ate lunch "with the stones". In fact, the whole area is fenced off with electric fencing that keeps people out. (Although apparently by paying for a guided tour, you might get inside the enclosure. We didn't see that though.) But we were next to the stones in a quiet shaded picnic area. Quality time with the stones, you could say. 

Picnic with a view of the standing stones of Carnac

And quality time with this chaffinch who hopped around us the whole lunch time.

We stopped for an ice cream and a beer (you can guess who ordered each) at a snack place and planned to head to some of the other places - sites of dolmens, small groups of standing stones, and tumuli. 

snack bar in an old house

But then we discovered that I had lost the tourist center map. We spent a half hour finding the 2 tourist offices in town only to find them closed today. (And a funeral going on at church to which half the town seemed to be in attendance.) 

St. Cornely (named after a 3rd century pope who came to Brittany to escape persecution in Rome 

So, plan B, we drove along the beach - with the tide out, it seems half a mile wide. Beautiful white sand. If we decide to do a beach day, that's where we'll go. 

I couldn't snap a photo out the window in Carnac. This is the beach in La Trinité-sur-Mer, the next town from Carnac. When the tide is in, the whole photo would be  covered in water.

same beach, you can see the water line. The island in the photo above is in the middle left - a long ways out.

The beach at La Trinité at low tide looks like great fun to play in. Little puddles of sea water here and there. What is normally an island is exposed and you can walk to it. (Just watch the tide!) 

We drove home through La Trinité-sur-Mer, a pleasure port town whose port is full of white sailing masts. 

Again, we had put the raincoats in the car as the forecast was for rain, but the day was perfect again. Cool breeze and sun filtered through light clouds keeping the walk comfortable. We had a few drops of rain as we were driving home, which stopped in time to have apéros outside. You can see from the photos that the day got increasingly cloudy in the afternoon, but the temperature was comfortable.

We bought a lawn chair at the Bricolage (Do-It-Yourself) store  next to the tourist office that should give me a more comfortable chair for my back. (We'll obviously leave it here, heh, heh.) The store is a Home Depot for sure. 

Tomorrow we're thinking of going to Vannes in the morning for things from the market and then to Arradon in the afternoon for some kind of a fest. All Dave knows is that it has music. We may not be there very long. And of course we'll check the weather before heading out.