Brittany (11): miscellaneous other images

Local wine bottles spotted in a restaurant one lunch time

Growing near a chamber tomb

Goats grazing near a village path

A very bold robin at one of the sites we visited

The quayside at Vannes - this is also a well-frequented tourist area:

Brittany (10): alignments and settlements

As with Avebury in the UK, the Carnac alignments are closely mixed in with villages and ordinary life, and are criss-crossed by ordinary roads and traffic. Some stones in their original positions are even incorporated into domestic walls. There are also dolmens located among the alignments.

Starting from an aerial view, successive images close in on the dwellings and businesses.

And here you can see one of the rocky outcrops from which the menhirs were quarried in situ:

Brittany (9): the alignments

The Carnac area is most famous for 'the alignments' - parallel rows of stones, continuing for kilometres, running roughly parallel to the coast, traversing the rise and fall of the hills and valleys that run run down to the gulf.

Brittany (8): menhirs

Menhir - tall stones (we would call them 'standing stones) derived from the Breton: 'men' (stone) and 'hir' (high or tall). This series includes one famous, very large, broken menhir - it's thought that an earthquake loosened it, as it was not sunk deep enough in the ground, and then it broke as it fell; also, a smaller stone that fell but did not break.

 

Brittany (7): Mane-Kerioned dolmen

Not all dolmens are out in the countryside. At Mane-Kerioned a village has grown up around the dolmen, a house is close up against it, and the passage is underneath the garden of the house. In the course of its history, it was once used as the village gaol!

Brittany (6): the colours of ancient weathered stones

In contrast to the monochrome dolmens, these are 'portraits' of individual stones which show their age and environment.

Brittany (5): exposed dolmens

Many dolmens are now open to view, open to the elements. Earth mounds have eroded, mounds consisting of heaps of smaller stones have been robbed for building stone in later eras.

I've chosen to show these in monochrome as it seems to me somehow to convey better the starkness of these ancient monuments.