Carnac

 

For the balance of the trip we're staying in Carnac, a small coastal town about an hour north of La Baule on the Bay of Quiberon. The area is known for its beaches as well as its megalithic sites (think Stonehenge), which date back to around 3300 BC.

This morning we visited some of the megalithic sites and they were pretty interesting. The more that you think about them, the more questions they raise in terms of how they were built and their intended purpose. Add in the fact that they were erected over 5,000 years ago and they get even more perplexing.

The following are some sites that reflect "alignments" -- i.e., rows of stones erected at regular intervals. According to one local legend, the stones reflect a Roman legion that was turned to stone by Merlin.

The sites also include a number of dolmen -- tomb-like structures that consists of three or more upright stones that support a flat horizontal "capstone".

There were also a few tumuli -- raised stone / earth structures that cover graves and are often constructed as part of dolmen.

I liked the following road, which we had to take in order to get to the tumulus above.

The following tumulus is on an island not far from Carnac. The stones on the interior that formed the dolmen were massive and raised more questions regarding how something like this could have been built so long ago.

After visiting the megalithic sites we drove to Auray, a town that's important from the perspective of American history. It's where Benjamin Franklin landed in 1776 while seeking military support from the French during the War of Independence.

Here are some pictures that I took during the drive back to Carnac. The first is a farmhouse that I liked and the second is the view of a nearby town from a bridge that we crossed.

We spent the balance of the afternoon on the beach in Carnac in front of our hotel. Luck was on our side with respect to the weather, as it really felt like a summer day yet there was hardly anyone around.