We spent this year’s Fall vacation in Bretagne. During the two-week trip we only saw a fraction of the region, though, and mostly the central and Southern part of it.  Nothing was planned ahead of time, but the theme of the vacation turned out to be various man-sculpted or man-erected standing stones, or large rocks in general, and a lot of them. Instead of taking the train to North, we flew there, and then rented a car for two weeks.  To start the trip, on Sunday afternoon we took the TGV to Lyon Saint-Exupéry (1 hour), and flew out on the evening flight to Rennes (1 hour), and the same back reversed two weeks later. Evening or late afternoon flights didn’t seem like a good idea to begin with, and we chose them because they were the only flights with no connection in Paris, but that turned out to be a very good arrangement!

Besides Rennes, the major towns we visited or stayed in, most of them not for the town itself but to access attractions nearby, were Carhaix-Plouguer (for the Valley of Saints), Huelgoat (for the mythical forest), Quimper, Concarneau (on our drive from Quimper to Carnac), Carnac (for the standing stones), Vannes, and Saint-Just (for megaliths on our drive from Vannes back to Rennes).

The weather was mostly, I guess, typical Breton weather with morning fog, strong and gusty wind, thin rain, but we also enjoyed several beautiful, sunny and warm days, especially towards the end of the vacation.

The next post (Part I) is about our first (two) days in Rennes: on the first one we strolled around the downtown and Parc du Thabor, and on the second Prairies St-Martin that is a vast nature park North of town. Unfortunately we only have pictures of the first day, since neither the second day nor the nature park was very picturesque.