Tiki-Touring La Gacilly, Redon and the Megaliths

We were up early and on the road for a day of sight-seeing, today. We wanted to return to La Gacilly to view the Photography Exhibition that is on for the month of September. This isn't just ANY Photo Exhibition...all the photos are printed up large and placed out of doors in the public areas. Quite Unique. Even though it was 9am when we arrived in La Gacilly, there was nothing open...well, this IS Sunday, after all. As the time got towards 10am, a few doors started opening and Tabac and Brasserie owners were setting tables out and sweeping their floors ready for the day. We were the second car to park in the parking lot at the bottom of the hill. Just as well we came early, because by the time we left, around 11am, the parking lot was almost full, and the town was full of cyclists, motorcyclists, and those of us on foot.
The exhibition below was about Climate Change and the effects it is having on places like Bangladesh. The photos were meant to be shocking, and they are. We realize how fortunate we are to live in a first world! Don't you love the outdoor arena! The chairs in the middle are meant for contemplation of the artwork.

 Crossing one of the bridges, which is foot traffic only, we looked downstream to where the small Marina is. Cruisers were parked there...and people were just getting up and moving on downstream.

 The main street at the bottom of the hill. Gacilly is a Hillside town, and we had to walk up about 500feet to get to the main square and all the other exhibitions, strewn about the town. Again, seating meant for contemplation of the large format printed photos on the outside of the buildings.

The folks in the nearest boat are casting off. We didn't really understand the way they had tied up to the dock,and watched in fascination as they laboriously pulled their ropes in from the ring, when they could just as easily take the rope loop end off the cleat and whipped it through the look in about 5 feet of rope, instead of pulling the other end of 30 feet! We guessed they were renters!

...and they are away! They cannot get under the bridge because of the rapids and falls, so they have to turn around and go back the way they came. Such pretty light this morning:)

 When we came back to the town side of things, this fellow had just caught a fish. Not sure what kind of fish, but it was exciting to watch.

 One of the reasons boats cant go upstream! The Rapids!
  The colorful photos on the walls in the distance are really huge, and rather gorgeous. They are natural scenes of landscapes.

We climbed the hill the way we had done a few days earlier, amazed at the flowering boxes everywhere.

These posters are all over the town, advertising the Photo Exhibition. Love this!

As all the towns are old, it is just a matter of what is the prettiest of the old, and how to show it in a new way. Lots of flowers everywhere, of course, as the last of the summer blooms fade.

We stopped at the café/brasserie on the left, and ordered a Cappuccino. It was the most pitiful Cappuccino ever. The milk had all but disappeared by the time she brought it to the table. Well, what do you expect when you can't challenge them in their mother tongue..bah! No excuse though!

 The local Elementary School had gorgeous colorful murals on the outside walls.

 ...and the prettiest Passion fruit we have ever seen. I didn't try one, as they all seemed a bit unripe.

 Gacilly is very much an artists town, where the different Atelier have some really splendid signs to their shops. This is a Mermaid, in case you are having trouble seeing!

 Across the courtyard from the mermaid was this old pump with a broken flower pot on top. It wasn't until I was looking through my photos last night that I saw the pot! lol

 Looking back down hill to these photo exhibitions in the town garden. How wonderful a backdrop is this.

 The garden itself is a work of art:)

 Making our way back to the car, we looked uphill to see these photos on the side of the buildings.They do make the place look very festive. The subject of this exhibition is, How much do people(Different nationalities) in the 24 countries studied, eat. The results were published in a National Geographic Magazine, some time ago, I remember, but it was worth contemplating again.

We left Gacilly on the way to Redon. We had a false go at getting there a few days earlier, so this time we were really going:)
There really isn't much distance between these towns, so it took us less than half an hour to our destination. It was also lunch time. We put lunch off until just half 12, and went in search of the Cathedral undergoing renovation...which of them isn't!? and then found some Locks, water and boats, which of course will always take our attention, even away from food!:)
We found a lovely little restaurant and went in and sat down. The sign in the window said they speak English, but we always try to speak as much French as possible..good for us, but not necessarily for them! People are incredibly patient with us/me. We decided to go with the fixed price menu with three items..entrée, plat and dessert. Was ordered the Marin Cru...marinated raw seafood, which was delicious, and I ordered the carpaccio of beef with a ball of melon glace and a raspberry vinaigrette...also delicious. He had the Moules Mariniere...Mussels, and I ordered white tuna with gallette of potatoes and ratatouille. Excellent, both. Dessert: He ordered three balls of ice-cream - lime, passion fruit and coffee. All home made. I ordered the two chocolate mouse (white and dark) with crème anglais...wonderful, and we didn't feel too full at the end. Not American sized meals, thank goodness. 14euros each. We finished with a café crème.

This Cathedral of St Sauveur dates back to the year 863or  something. It is in the process of renovation, and is quite amazing, when seen from above....

 The spire is a stand alone building with a clock inset on one wall and a Christ sculpture on another. Catholic, of course.

 These Cloisters have been renovated already and they look wonderful and almost new.

This sign indicates that it is on the Nantes to Brest (going north) Canal. There is also a bike circuit that is 29 kms long, through Redon South. Lots of cyclists out on the roads this Sunday. They aren't obliged to move over for motorists, so we had to take our chances...carefully, when overtaking them, which proved difficult when there was a pelleton with about 20 riders, and on squiggly roads! sigh!

This is a photograph of a photograph of the Cathedral and cloisters under renovation. The buildings are huge, and the renovation is very necessary. The buildings were added to the National Historic Places Organization in the late 1990's.

 Parts of so many buildings are old and then other parts are younger. A building might have been built before the year 1000ad, but added to or renovated numerous times over the centuries, and you can see where those have all taken place. This tower is a classic example.

 Another classic example on these houses.

 Along the River Vilaine, are pretty flower boxes to brighten the otherwise monochromatic color scheme of grey stone/granite.

 Across this bridge is the Department Loire et Atlantique. We are standing on the side of the Canal that is on the Department Morbihan. Yes, those are German and English flags:) Plenty of tourists, boaters and cyclists of both nationalities.

 We were fascinated to see how narrow the locks were. This is the canal that goes from the Atlantic to the English Channel, from La Roche Bernard at the bottom, all the way to St Malo at the top.

These boats were parked at a crossroads of canals. The mooring rings were so far up the wall that they had to moor beside the stairs, to enable them to get off their boats.

 We were just in time to see this tourist Hire Boat enter one of the Locks. He has to go this way, because it is a one way system through this series of locks.

 We rushed over to see how it all works in these parts, and were amazed at just how close to the walls, the boat was. Skinny!

 This illustrates part of the Vilaine River from the Atlantic at the bottom. Redon is somewhat of a crossroads to several canals, as you can see. We are not very far from the south coast.

 Something we love about the French...Condoms are available to the public through these vending machines:) This one was outside a pharmacie.

  We liked this Coat of Arms for the town of Redon. It perfectly illustrates the purpose of the town.

Did I tell you what we ate for lunch? We originally thought we would go with the 2 plate menu, but decided quite without knowing it, that the dessert was a must. Glad we did! Sorry, photos in this restaurant would have been pretty tacky. It WAS a Sunday, after all!

Waz enjoyed the Tartare Marin...a raw, marinated seafood combination, which was delicious, and I enjoyed the carpaccio of beef...raw beef with a wonderful ball of Melon Semifreddo to go with it.
Was went for a main course of the Moules (Mussels) Marinieres, which he mopped up with some lovely crusty baguette. I had the Poisson du Marche (market fresh catch of the day) which was White Tuna, beautifully cooked, with a gallette of potatoes and a Ratatouille...very yummy. To top it all off, Waz went with the Coupe de glace...3 balls of ice-cream: Passionfruit, coffee and Lime. Fantastic! I went with the Fondant aux deux Chocolats...A light mousse type of dessert with dark choc. on the bottom and white choc. on the top, with crème Anglais (vanilla egg custard) and a kiwi and orange slice. Yum! We ordered a Café crème to complete the meal, and left feeling nicely full, but not overfed. Everything was beautifully presented and we thoroughly enjoyed this meal which was 17.50 euros each. Excellent value!

It was time to go back to the car, and after a series of tight turns, we arrived where we should have, and then discovered something else to look at, and off we went again. Usually this included something for sale!:)

We decided to take a loop to get home. This isn't hard, around here, with so many little farm roads one can take to get there and back, rather than the two lane highways.

This time we thought a trip to the Megaliths might be fun. We have never seen any before, so this was new for both of us. They were less than Mega, but there is an interesting story that goes with them, if you believe it!

We had risen in elevation to get to the parking lot, and then had to walk a wee way to see the stones. The vegetation was a surprise: Gorse, Broom and blackberry! hmmm...did the British bring all these nasties with them? This being a very Celtic place!
These two Frenchmen rode ahead of us on their mountain bikes.

 The Average height of the Megaliths was around 6ft, but the largest one at the end was probably 9ft tall. Not that mega after all!

The story goes something like this: There were a bunch of maidens dancing by the light of the moon, or fire, or something, and this displeased the Gods and they were turned to stone for their frivolity. I don't know how much of this is true, but we were told this story in broken English by a couple of French women with two rescue dogs...yes, we got that part right:) Abandon, was the word used!

Then there were these white granite rocks that were lying down. These were not large, but not small either. You can see all the gorse in the background! the vegetation around here was sparse and the whole place was not hospitable. There were many more of them, but we wanted to get home for a cuppa, and walking another 3 miles to see more megaliths wasn't too exciting.

Our next destination, on the way home, was the small town of Pipriac. There was no special reason for going there, other than it is underlined on our map, and therefore a town of 'interest'. Per usual, the center of town is the church or cathedral, which we usually have to drive around to go anywhere..or as the sign says 'Autres Directions'..meaning...other directions, and those would be to any one of a dozen small places, smaller than the current town.  Does that make sense? Remember I told you that we go through all these little Hamlets and towns to get home or to where we want to go, on any given day? Well, this is what happens. Mostly, there is no more than 5 miles between towns, farm houses, or Hamlets, if that.
Pipriac, there is a significant War Memorial. Each town has one, with some being larger than others. This is a large one, and what stopped us, to take a photo, was the two fern symbols on the top. The fern is usually symbolic of NZ, being the Silver Fern. I don't think this was what these were, however. Most of the statues are positive, but occasionally we come across a fallen soldier which is more solemn.

And so we went home, along the little single lane roads, pulling onto the grass on the right side of the road when a car came towards us on the other side of the road..no shoulder, just grass...if we were lucky. Sometimes we just had to stop and wait for them to pass, because the only other option was a 3 ft ditch!

We arrived home in time to feed the lovely animals, give them some loves and get ourselves dinner. Another interesting outing and day.