Chapter 18teen: Brittany - The Northeast Coast

Brittany - The Northeast Coast

Crozon, a few hours by car north of Carnac, is where we stopped for lunch before heading out to a destination that I had on my radar early on during the planning of this grand voyage: the land's end cliffs at Pointe Pen Hir.

At almost exactly the same latitude on the Atlantic coast of Canada, one finds Trouty, Newfoundland, a much more remote and obscure region of the world than this magnificent point of land in Brittany.

right across the Atlantic from Crozon Peninsula is Bonavista Peninsula in Newfoundland

The drop is several hundred metres right down to the rocky beach below.   

Venturing too close to the edge is rather freaky, unless of course, one is a climber with the right gear.  

We did see a class of young girls fitted out for a rappelling lesson.

Across the beach and into the next bay is île Longue, the location of France's nuclear submarine base.

I needed a geologist with me to explain the stacked polyhedron rocks, and why they can be seen in so many regions of the world, including at the roadside of Daisy Lake on the drive to Whistler, BC.

The Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland is similar in structure, though much more symmetrical and accessible. 

These large balanced stones are nonetheless dramatic features of wild nature. They draw you in and make weird faces at you.

While I was kind of expecting savage storm weather for some wild coastal photography, I think we got lucky with what we had - warm, clean clear air, refined by an unusually dry wind from the ocean.

...ooo0ooo...

Though we were close to the Normandy D-Day 73rd Anniversary celebrations, Joanne and I did not attend. 

We had our own two minutes of silence at another very moving War Memorial. 

There is a large and imposing cross that stands on a rocky plateau at Pointe Pen Hir.  It commemorates the fallen Bretons during the two wars of the 20th century.







The inscription reads, 

TO BRITTANY for a FREE FRANCE

The sculpted figures are of a proud young woman, with manacled wrists, who has broken her bondage, a link of chains hanging freely from her right hand. She towers above a humble group of men and women, common workers, wife and mother, and fighting men - army, navy and air force - who have sacrificed themselves for the freedom of their country.

A few hundred metres from the cross, on the promontory of the point, is the International Maritime War Memorial. I have never seen anything quite like it. A field of ships' anchors stand as iron tombstones, each one bearing a brass plate with the name of its ship. Most were French battleships, some were Liberty Ships. The latter were purpose-built American merchant ships used for the transport of supplies during WW2.

French Battleships Dunquerque, Strasbourg, Clemenceau, Courbet

This is a gloomy site, and I am presenting it the way I experienced it - with a feeling of darkness and foreboding, of fright and unease.

The main victims were 30,000 German submariners (mean age 20 years), 45,000 merchant seamen lost in the Battle of the Atlantic 5,155 merchant ships destroyed (638 French), 739 German submarines sunk.

The museum plaque reads: this memorial shows only cruelty without glory of naval warfare for merchant shipping.

After a couple of hours in this remarkable place of lightness and darkness, we drove away, ready for a couple more hours of slow driving to our final destination and accommodation, further north, not far from the English Channel. 

I was lost in thought behind the wheel when Joanne yelled, "Look at the beach. Stop the car."

I pulled over, ran down to the beach with my camera, and captured these three images. The French army was on manoeuvres on this beach in Brittany. Were their fathers or grandfathers also here more than seventy years ago?

No, I don't think so. 

As the soldiers came close to me, young men and women, they smiled. I smiled back. 

I said, "Merci, pour les photographs."

They nodded and kept on walking to where the beach ended. The troops stopped there. It was time for a break, for their lunch, I guess. Maybe a baguette and a flask of wine??

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