French Friday - the forest of Paimpont

About three weeks ago when the sun was blazing during a particularly hot spell, the thought of a day out in a forest with lakes seemed like a good idea.

Also known as Brocéliande forest, it is a land of legends and Arthurian romance. The only previous time we had visited was when we first moved here in 2004 and were surprised to learn that King Arthur, Lancelot, Merlin et al were legends here too, as we had grown up with the tales since childhood and assumed they were British ones! But the Bretons are a Celtic race who came over to Bretagne (Britain) in the 6th century AD so maybe brought their legends with them.

We'd decided a picnic was in order, something we'd not done in years. (I don't count those 'stolen' sandwiches from hotel breakfasts as a real picnic. A real picnic contains real picnic food that you lovingly prepped at home!). First stop was the lake called 'Etang de Pas du Houx' - not a huge lot to see here other than one path alongside open to the public and a view of a couple of big houses. Most of the land beside the lake is private and this must be a great place to live, other than the hordes of visitors gawking and taking photos of your house!

French Wikipedia calls this a chateau - I beg to differ.
It's just a posh house!

We then stopped in the village of Paimpont which is small and touristy with a large and photogenic Abbey situated beside a lake. There is a tourist office where we picked up a map marking all the touristy and Arthurian legend places to visit. We only went to a few of these places and you could do with a couple of days here to do the area justice.

The Abbey at Paimpont.

Along by the lake was a pleasant walkway with mown paths amongst longer grass and I was really pleased to see signs saying that they had cut down on mowing all the grass to help the butterflies! Many of the butterflies were 'browns' all of whose larvae feed of various grasses. Of course there were ducks and dragonflies and all things related to water around too. We ate our lunch on a bench in the shade of oak trees.

Mrs Mallard with her babies.

Common Blue damselfly (Enallagma cyathigerum), male.

I think this is a not quite mature male Black Tailed Skimmer (Orthetrum cancellatum).

After lunch we set off to the Val sans Retour as we could see from our map that there was a 4km round trip walk following a stream with a couple of lakes, which sounded pleasant and shady.

All about the Val sans Retour.

L'Arbre d'Or (the Golden Tree) erected in 1991 as a souvenir to remember
a fire that destroyed nearly 500 acres of forest in September 1990.

The walk beside the barely trickling stream.

The romantic in me would like to think that the legends of damsels and their lovers (faithful or otherwise) still continues with the amount of damselflies and here, demoiselles, of which there were surprisingly many in such a shady area.

Male Beautiful Demoiselles (Calopteryx virgo). Awaiting females and the one bottom right
is spreading his wings in an attempt to attract a female.

And here she is, a female Beautiful Demoiselle.

One guy got lucky and here they are getting into position.
It's a tricky manoeuvre.

Finally they made it into the 'copulation wheel'.

There were two little lakes like this, full of damselflies and dragonflies.
I could have spent hours here!

Rather than retrace our steps we continued on to do the loop
and returned via a long and very hot sunny path!

Eventually it opened up into vistas and we realised that we were quite high up here.

After chilling out for a while we decided to stop in and see what the Tomb of the Giants
was about on our way back to Paimpont.

Not a lot! A Bronze age burial chamber but we'd walked nearly 2 kms there and back and
were a bit hot and disgruntled as we'd expected something a bit more exciting....

However I didn't mind too much as I finally managed to capture a Small Skipper. There hadn't been too many butterflies about and a real lack of wild flowers, but there were quite a few of these little butterflies in amongst the long grass.

Small Skipper (Thymelicus sylvestris).

Hot, tired and dusty and impatiently awaiting my ice cream.
I've eaten more ice cream this last month than in probably the three previous years!

All in all a very enjoyable day out and only about an hour from home! 

French Friday - Festival de la Moisson

St Ouen la Rouerie - Festival de la Moisson et des Vieux Metiers

Around this time of year, in many villages in France there will be a local fete celebrating la moisson, which is the harvest of the arable crops. We went along to a local-ish village last Sunday to have a have a look see. 'Vieux metiers' translates as old crafts/skills and as you'll see in the following photos the two go hand in hand really. It's all a bit of fun and about seeing how they did these things back in the good old days.

It started with a parade through the centre of the village of everything from a brass band, traditional dancers, Breton horses doing what they used to do in the past (i.e. be working heavy horses), then was followed by a display of ancient tractors and a few other things.

We then moved to the field where the events took place. These events are always held in a stubble field and it's quite fun watching the old threshing machines and having a look around at the displays. These are not huge events and really a couple of hours suffice for seeing all there is to see.

I took quite a few photos which I've tried to whittle down so will just post them here with captions.

The old boys with their old tools

Along came the dancers

The best bit for me - seeing the Breton horses scrubbed up and
actually doing some heavy horse work

I'm no expert but there may be some Cob Normand in this one.
It looks just a bit different around the neck and head, and is a bay rather than
chestnut or the lovely almost palamino colour of many Bretons
with their blonde manes and tails.

Now onto the old tractors

Some of which were lovingly restored and painted in bright colours

Some belched out clouds of smoke!

Some looked like they'd been rusting away in the corner of a barn for the last 50 years!

The Pompiers (Fire Brigade) from times gone by

A combine. I can't say as the ones I see in the small fields here look any more modern ;-)

Breton pulling a gypsy caravan

We looked inside later. It had a stove for heating/cooking on and a bed at the back.
It was really tiny inside.

Over in the field the old threshing machines (les batteuses) were going.

Perhaps there was a problem with this one!

Another batteuse

I'm not entirely sure, but I think this is how they did it before steam or diesel power.
Working horses going round and round. Must have been boring!

There was some local Breton dancing

And this exhibit which cracked me up!
A display of how they did the laundry in the good old days.
Those poor women must have had dreadful backache the next day!

Last but not least.
Me sporting my new basket which I bought
from the man selling hand made baskets.
I love it!

French Friday - Dinan Port

I have tons to blog about/update but with my brother being here we've been out a bit more than usual. So just for a change from veg, flowers and insects it's time to post some photos from a day out at Dinan Port.

Dinan is a medieval walled hilltop town with a chateau overlooking a valley where the Rance river flows through. Just down the hill from the town is Dinan Port beside the river, which is very picturesque and touristy and both places are linked by a steep narrow cobbled lane which has many stunning medieval buildings. No two are the same and there are Kodak moments everywhere! I'm sure I bored my OH and brother senseless stopping to take so many photos, but I'm a tourist when I'm in places like this and I just love the varied architecture, facades and windows.

There are boat trips to be had along the river, which shortly after Dinan becomes a part of the Rance estuary, eventually flowing out to sea after passing the hydroelectric barrage and bridge which links Dinard to St Malo.

I'm not going into more detail about the town, port or river as I do have rather a lot of photos - and these are only a few of the ones that I took!

The viaduct is the road bridge leading into the town from the direction in which we live, which gives stunning views down over the port area

Of course it is touristy and popular, with restaurants and cafes lining the riverside

My OH

Wandering up the road from the port leading to the town.
That's my brother's back view.

I found this building fascinating and wondered what the top half was,
as it just seems to have open slatted windows.

 I love this kind of higgeldy piggeldy building!

It being summer there is no excuse not to have window boxes galore!

Prettty blue woodwork.

Another view of it.

OK, time for a piccy of me..... not sure why I am standing like that.

The aubergine house. Well, it was slightly more of an aubergine colour and less
dusky pink in real life. Whatever shade you call it, I love it!

My OH and my brother

At the top of the road, looking through the town walls into the town proper.
We didn't go much further as we've wandered around Dinan itself before.

I had to have a closer look at this beautiful blue building though!

Whilst I've spared you any insect photos this time (I did take some actually....)
I couldn't resist this lovely house and garden that was just up a side lane.

This one....words fail me. Just stunning.
(Glad I don't have to clean those windows though!)

And finally back down the hill again to the river, looking in the direction of the sea.

And just because he'll probably kill me for it, here's a pic of my bro and me. :-)

In other 'Stop Press' news, a moorhen is back. Only seen one so far but we know it is one of 'ours' because it's been seen coming up the path from the lake to eat the duck food, and only the ones who have been raised here know to do that!