Summer Vacations in Brittany

This summer vacations I went to Brittany in northwestern France. My family and I went there from August 1st to the 21st of the same month. We did a house exchange with a family leaving near Brest through a system of exchange of houses called Intervac.

We mostly visited the coast which is full of lighthouses do to the rocky and dangerous coasts of Brittany. We also visited the Shipwreck Coast and the Pink Granit Coast. This coasts are also full of military guard posts and military lighthouses as well as WWII bunkers and memorials to the dead French (and American) sailors, fishermen and marines that died during the both World Wars.

We visited a lot of cites including Brest which was the one nearest to us. Brest was sort of ugly and like dead. All the houses were like boxes with windows, all the same, with a very cold look. But this had its explanation. During World War II, during the German occupation of France, the Nazis established a submarine base in this key strategic bay (even today it is also a French military naval base, and a very important one). Do to that the Allies bombed the city until there was not a single house left. Actually it was the most bombed city during the war. So after the war the Allies gave money to reconstruct the city, bringing the city back from the ashes as quickly and cheaply as posible. The only real thing that is good about Brest is the reconstruction of a fort that had its origins with the romans and that was expanded over the centurys, in which there is know a musuem.

Actually when we first arrived to Brest the whole center of the city was out of boundaries for everyone, and there were policemen making sure that no one would enter the center of the city. When we asked a policeman he told us that there was a bomb!!! So when we got back to the house we had we looked on internet and we found out that actually what had happened is that they had found a bomb from WWII that had not exploded and that they had found during some excavations. And that it was quite common for this to happen.

We also went to other cities like Quimpe, Crozon, Perros, Vannes, Concarneau, St. Malo (this last two were walled cities and St. Malo had a true medieval look)

Another thing that impressed me a lot of the coast of Britanny was that the tides were extremely strong. When the tide went down, it went down for kilometers in some places, leaving many ports with out any water for hours, with the ships just sitting there. Transforming land into islands when the tide goes up. The best example of this is Mont St. Mitchel. It is a monastery on top of a rock that when the tide goes up it is an island, except for a little road (modern road) that connects it with the land. It is truly beatiful and when there is full moon or no moon the tides are extremely strong and cover 1 of the 2 parkings and completely cuts Mony St. Mitchel from the rest of the world except for that little road, and when the tied goes down almost the whole bay gets emptied. During those days the water goes at kilometers per hour and you see the tide go up, seeing the water gobble up the land at a tremendous speed. When we went there a man had to be recued by an helicopter because he got caught by the tides and has separated from the road by a now large river!!

Well that's everything about my summer vacations in Britanny!! Hope you enjoyed!!