Continuing our trip to Brittany, we
caught a flight to Narnes, shuttle to the train station, had a little snack and
caught the train to Quimper, Brittany.
We made a very good decision to stay for 30 days in
one location if it was a location we were interested in living. First of
all it makes it easier on us when we're not moving around with our luggage but
more importantly 30 days gives you enough time to really appreciate a location
and get familiar with getting around and learning the nuances, meeting a few
folks, shopping in different stores and more thoroughly checking things out.
Carolyn picked us up at the railroad
station and we set off to Probannalec-Lesconil—two separate villages but small
so they put them together. We got connected to Carolyn through housecarers.com
when she accepted our description to watch their home and animals while they
went to Detroit to visit her
family.
Neither one of us had ever been to
Brittany and it was never on our radar screen to visit but it is a lovely area
of France and a pleasant surprise. We both loved it and would
return. There's no better recommendation than that.
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| Flag of Brittany |
After a 30-minute car ride we arrived
and met her husband Franck and their two children Alya (13) and Matalin
(9).
Carolyn is American, originally from
Detroit, Michigan. Years prior she had decided she would go to France to
perfect her French and to play the Bretagne music on her flute. She met
and fell in love with Franck and the rest, as they say, is history. She
is petite, very lovely and loves being a mother and dotes on the kids.
She and Franck (a Bretagne) were taking
their two children to meet their cousins in America. Alya and
Matalin are a brother and sister originally from Ethopia with the same mother
but different fathers. Carolyn and Franck adopted them when they were 4
and 8.
Our
home for a month was a wonderful Brittany farmhouse that they were in the
process of adding on bedrooms and redoing a lot of it with updated
features. The kitchen remained to be done and there were two bedrooms
that needed finished in the part that was the addition. There was an acre of land (+/-) and they
generously left two cars for our use. How lucky are we?
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| Franck, Jann and Carolyn in the back yard |
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| The farmhouse from the bottom of the yard |
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| Back of the farmhouse and back deck |
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| View of the backyard from the deck |
When we arrived, Franck took us and the
kids down to Lesconil, a small port about 8 kms away where they catch a lot of
seafood and oysters. Franck had to get some last-minute gifts to take to
America and wanted to give us an idea of the countryside before they
left. He also gave us instructions on taking care of house, including
resetting the pump under the deck if there was a flushing problem with the
toilet. The house had a septic system. (Murphy’s Law: we had to take care of that a couple of times while they
were gone!)
That night Franck made traditional
Bretagne crepes using buckwheat flour for us and they were delicious. Crepes are a popular food
staple in Bretagne. We
are also introduced to Sid, Ms. B and Sweetpea, the three cats we were taking
care of.
Before they left the next day, Carolyn
and Franck introduced us to their neighbors, Marie Laure and Philippe and their two
sons.
Franck’s parents came to pick them up
for the trip to America and our adventure in Brittany began.
The first day we were on our own there
was a knock on the door and the neighbors Marie Laure and Philippe brought over
2 kilos of cooked langostines to welcome us and showed us how to crack and eat
them. He used mayo and we used lemon.
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| Langostines from Marie Laure and Phillipe |
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| Pat driving Philippe's truck |
Turns out Philippe is a truck driver
for the fishing industry delivering fresh fish every morning from the boats to
the stores in Brittany and the langostines were part of his load that
day. It's not what you know: it's
who you know!! Marie Laure knew English and wanted to practice it
while we were there.
We spent the next four weeks really
getting to know Brittany. We visited the local markets in almost all the
nearby small towns, visited the caves
(wine stores) and tasted (and bought and drank) the local wines. We drove
all around the coast, immersed ourselves in the Bretagne lifestyle and had a
very educational, interesting and fun month in Brittany.
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| Our market purchases |
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| One of the small coastal Brittany towns |
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| Jann at one of the caves |
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| Getting wine recommendations |
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| Boules in the village |
We spent many days in Pont L’Abbe which
was a larger village close to Probannalec. It had a wonderful weekly
market with lots of fresh produce, local handicrafts and many fabulous tastings
of cheese or wine.
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| Pont L'Abbe Market |
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| Tie Dye Stall at the market |
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| Lesconil is known for its oysters. |
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| Mussels, clams & other shellfish--all local. |
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Jann has a nose for wine tasting !!
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We spent a very memorable day in Pont L’Abbe when they
were holding their annual
Bretagne festival.
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| Kouign Aman--famous pastry in Brittany. |
Every village and/or town throughout
Brittany celebrates with a festival wearing traditional Bretagne costumes and
playing the music of their heritage. This is what Franck and Carolyn do
all summer. They get dressed in traditional Bretagne clothes and march in
parades. Both of the children are learning how to play instruments and
will march in the parades with their parents. Alya and Matalin may have
had a difficult start in life but luckily they have landed on their feet!
The parade in Pont L'Abbe went down the
main street and along the river with lots of dancers in local costume and local
bands consisting of bagpipes, flutes and drums. The food served at the
stalls was the traditional mussels and frites along with other things such as
croissants. We watched many of the local dance clubs competing on a stage
for local awards.
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| Pont L'Abbe Bretagne Parade |
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| Pont L'Abbe Bretagne festival |
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| Bretagne dancers in the parade |
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| Bagpipe and flute band |
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| Mussels and Frites |
There was a male voice choir from Wales
appearing. The Welsh language and the Bretagne language are similar and
they can understand each other. The languages are very similar, dating
from the time when the original Bretagnes came from Britain to escape religious
persecution and created Little Britain
or Brittany (hence Great Britain
for the island they left.)
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| The Welsh male voice choir |
We really enjoyed our time in Quimper,
one of the larger towns in the area and the capital of Finistere . They,
too, had a large Bretagne festival with a small market, dancers and bagpipes in
the street and local artisans.
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| Jann on the bridge over the River Odet, Quimper |
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| River Odet, Quimper |
Quimper (pronounced kem-pair) has been
a pottery town since the days when the area was part of the Roman Empire, and
today it is virtually synonymous with pottery.
The town’s name is derived from
the Gaelic “kemper,” meaning a confluence of rivers. Hence its name.
Quimper is situated in close proximity
to four rivers, and thus, it was – and is – an ideal place for making pottery.
The current history of Quimper pottery begins in 1708 with a potter by the
name of Pierre Bousquet. Pierre recognized the opportunity that the area
provided for an ambitious young potter. Relocating to Quimper, he established
his factory and began producing utilitarian bottles and tablewares in
stoneware, which is known as grès
in French. Within a few years, the company was producing eight different types
of pipes for smoking tobacco, as well as hand-decorated, tin-glazed
earthenware, known as faïence.
By the last quarter of the nineteenth
century, the original pottery that had been founded in 1708 by Pierre Bousquet
had evolved into a large factory run by descendants named De la Hubaudière, and
was now known as the Grande Maison
or HB factory (for Hubaudière-Bousquet). In addition, since the latter part of
the eighteenth century, two other factories had been founded by former
employees of the HB factory; one had come to be known as the Porquier factory,
the other was called Henriot after its owner, Jules Henriot.
For the Quimper pottery collector, the
period from 1872 to 1930 is generally considered to be the artistic apex. For
the most part, pieces made prior to 1840 were utilitarian in nature and those
made after the 1940s utilized more modern materials and streamlined production
methods.
Today’s collector generally categorizes
pieces made prior to World War II as vintage or “antique” Quimper; pieces made
later fall into the collectibles category. Regardless of age, to be considered
a true example of Quimper pottery, a piece must have been made within the town of Quimper. With a
few exceptions, pieces of Quimper pottery were entirely decorated by hand,
giving each piece unique characteristics.
Another fact about the pottery is that
when you see a piece marked with "Quimper,
France" as opposed to just "Quimper",
the former piece would have been made for export because it had added the word
"France".
People in France know where Quimper is: the rest of the world—not so
much.
We took a tour of the Quimper pottery
factory and loved the pottery designs they were creating so, obviously, we
added some Quimper pottery to our home and can’t wait to display it--wherever
and whenever that is going to be!
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| Pat in front of Quimper pottery factory |
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| Quimper pottery sample |
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| Jann with Quimper pottery |
We also took the Le Petit Train around Quimper and
that was a great way to explore the city center. Quimper actually has a
very long history, including a tower that remains from Henry IV after his
fighting and conquering the area in the 1300’s.
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| Le Petit Train around Quimper |
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| Henry IV Tower |
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| Bretagne Festival in Quimper |
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| Quimper cathedral |
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| River Odet |
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Pipe band in Quimper
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Another market town that we visited was
actually lived in by Paul Gauguin and documented in some of his
artwork. He actually founded a school along with some other French
artists called the Pont d’Aven School and even today there is a large artists
colony there continuing the tradition. Pont d’Aven was a beautiful little
town with the market along the riverbank and the setting was definitely an
artists dream.
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| Pont Aven market |
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| Jann at the Aven River |
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| Pont Aven market stall |
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| River Aven |
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| Jann on River Aven bridge |
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| Pat in Pont Aven |
One area we really loved was Benodet, a
wonderful beach town not far from Probannalec. The beaches (and there
were many of them) were beautiful and full of trainee windsurfers. We also visited the casino there but
blackjack rules are so different from the US--it definitely favors the casino. We had a wonderful lunch
alongside the beach in Benodet. First time we had a pizza with a fried egg
on top, interesting, but good.
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| Jann at one of Benodet beaches |
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| Pat at lunch by the beach |
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| Lunch is a pizza with a fried egg |
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| Coastline at Benodet |
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| Sailing school at Benodet |
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Windsurfing lessons at Benodet
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| Cocktails in Benodet |
Jann worked on the garden while we were
there and managed to really clean out a lot of the weeds in the garden and in the
flowerbeds. She pruned the gooseberry and raspberry bushes and the
low-hanging branches from the trees and shrubs so the lawnmower could get
closer and they could cut the grass.
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