Motivation ~ Itinerary ~
.jpg "Plage du Ris (Brittany)")
Top: Scenes from Brittany. Plage du Ris, Bay of Douarnenez from Pointe du Vin, View of Douarnenez.
Bottom: Scenes from Normandy. Jardin d'Étretat, Niemeyer Fountain Le Havre, Monument L'Oiseau Blanc in Étretat, Le Havre - Catena Containers Sculpture by Vincent Ganivet.
Bottom: Scenes from Normandy. Jardin d'Étretat, Niemeyer Fountain Le Havre, Monument L'Oiseau Blanc in Étretat, Le Havre - Catena Containers Sculpture by Vincent Ganivet.
Motivation
During our French getaway, we found that instead of comparing France against the USA, we couldn’t help but compare it to Italy, our adopted home, and particularly Bergamo. That unexpected lens turned even mundane things we saw or experienced into moments for reflection.
The last time we were in Normandy was in 2006 and at that time the focus was to see the Bayeux Tapestry, the D-Day beaches, and Mont St. Michel. We took part of a day back in 2006 and visited Honfleur and the Satie Museum. It was a dark and rainy November day. The town seemed to be asleep, and we didn’t do a lot of touring around, but the place left an impression on us.
Speaking of impression: we still talk about the Satie Museum to this day. We entered the museum (back in 2006) and surprised the person running the place. He and the museum seemed to be sleeping when we arrived. After taking our money, in my memory he flipped on a switch and the museum roared to life. We were the only people there. Every room in the old house was based on a different color and piece of music at least was we remember it.
We did not dare try to repeat that magic of that moment at the Satie Museum, so we did not go there on this 2025 trip.
Our motivation for our France trip was to explore Honfleur and nearby areas more thoroughly in better weather, like the Cliffs of Étretat. We also wanted to make our first foray into Brittany, which has always intrigued us as a place to visit.
Itinerary
We flew into Paris Beauvais airport and rented a car. We drove to Honfleur and stayed there four nights. Then we drove to Douarnenez (Brittany) and stayed there 4 nights. The last day was a marathon drive of about 8 hours from Douarnenez back to Paris Beauvais. This included stops.
(By the standards of one German couple from Hannover that we met in Douarnenez, our last day’s marathon drive was peanuts. They were driving 15 hours in one swoop. To each his own.)
The drive from Honfleur to Douarnenez was fine. We had a long lunch stop in Dinan, a fascinating town that was approximately midway. On our return to Paris Beauvais airport, in hindsight we would have planned a stay for 1-2 nights, say in Caen or some small village.
That said, driving in these parts is made easier by numerous rest-stops (called “aire”). We saw families picnicking in these places so I think long drives are not that unusual in northern France. You just plan around it and stop a lot.
Tip: We drove on some tolled roads that you had to carefully look for signs that instruct you to go to sanef.com site to pay tolls. In our case, we were on the A13, which uses this free-flow tolling method, i.e., no toll booths. Our rental agency didn’t point that out to us.
Honfleur
Honfleur is a town in Normandy of around 8,400 people on the southern bank of the Seine Estuary, where the Seine River empties into the English Channel. This was our Normandy part of the trip where we were based for 4 nights.
- Day 1 – Arrive, walk the town, Église Sainte Catherine, dinner.
- Day 2 – Honfleur day: Panorama du Mont-Joli, Chapelle Notre-Dame de Grâce, Le Jardin des Personnalités, La Mora.
- Day 3 – Le Havre day: Église Saint-Joseph, Museum of Modern Art André Malraux, Le Volcan, City Center.
- Day 4 – Head to Étretat: Monument "L'Oiseau Blanc" - Nungesser et Coli, Jardins d'Étretat, Cliffs of Étretat north and south.
On day 2, we decided to leave the car parked and explore on foot all the places listed above, in that order. The Chapelle Notre-Dame de Grâce was very peaceful when we visited around 10 am and it was a pleasure to linger inside staring at all the naval themed artwork including the model boats hanging from the ceiling. Be sure to check out the interesting system of bells that are mounted on the ground by the side of the church. Don’t worry, they’ll remind you that they are there every 15 minutes.
After this chapel, we made our way down to Le Jardin des Personnalités. This garden has what we’d call little “rooms” featuring the busts of a famous people whose life in some way intersected with Honfleur. There are descriptive signs about the different people, but this is a great use of asking questions to your AI assistant of choice.
One person we came across in the garden was Lucie Delarue-Mardrus (1874–1945), an acclaimed poet, novelist, and sculptor from Honfleur. She was a writer of verse, fiction, travel memoirs, and children’s tales, celebrating love, nature, and her Norman roots. She was also quite progressive for her time. Look her up! La Maison de Lucie hotel bears her name and is where we stayed while in Honfleur. We highly recommend this hotel and loved the staff!
The Mora museum – it doesn’t officially call itself a museum, but we will – is a short walk from the city center. At the museum there is an audio-visual experience about William the Conqueror. You remember him from all the school history quizzes, right? He’s the guy who landed in in England in 1066 and defeated King Harold II at the Battle of Hastings, after which he was crowned King of England on Christmas Day 1066.
Besides the audio-visual experience and more interesting in some ways is the effort to rebuild William the Conqueror’s ship called “La Mora”. The worksite where they are building the ship, is an intergral part of the museum visit and shouldn’t be missed.
We learned a lot about history and the Viking roots of Normandy visiting this museum. Did you know that Normandy literally means “land of the Northmen” – where they came from – and William was descended from Rollo, a Viking leader who became the first ruler of Normandy?
Food-wise in Honfleur, we had wonderful baguette/butter/jam breakfasts at our hotel and lunch and dinners out. We ate twice at the exceptional Restaurant Boulangerie Pâtisserie SaQuaNa. We had lunch there and then immediately booked dinner for the following night. In general, we didn’t need reservations on this trip, but SaQuaNa was an exception. Yes, it’s that popular but worth it. We also ate at Restaurant Tourbillon and La Cidrerie, both in Honfleur center and both were nice but our nod goes to SaQuaNa.
Le Havre
Le Havre sits on the other side of the Seine from Honfleur and doesn’t seem to be quite as famous as Honfleur, at least in our minds. Once we learned that Le Havre’s city center is a UNESCO site, we just had to go visit. The two cities are connected by the beautiful Pont de Normandie, at 5,90 euros a pop to cross.
We arrived in Le Havre on a Sunday, the day before Bastille Day and the city was unusually quiet. We felt like we walked into a Giorgio de Chirico painting with empty, geometric, and desolate spaces. For example, we walked around the complex called Le Volcan (The Volcano) in center city and we saw maybe 2 people as we wandered around large white cone shapes resembling volcanoes. Out of the bigger volcano, a large hand reaches out surreally as if to offer you something. It’s the Niemeyer hand fountain.
The city of Le Havre was severely bombed during the Second World War.
Hitler had declared Le Havre a Festung (fortress), ordering it to be defended to the last man. The city was heavily fortified with bunkers, anti-tank ditches, and over 11,000 German troops. To minimize Allied casualties and break German resistance, the British Royal Air Force (RAF) launched massive air raids. Between 5–12 September 1944, RAF Bomber Command dropped over 9,600 tons of bombs on the city. 80% of the city was destroyed.
The city was rebuilt according to the plan of a team headed by Auguste Perret, from 1945 to 1964. He was a one of the pioneers of reinforced concrete architecture. There is a unity in the construction and layout of the city that is pleasing yet let's say odd. It's hard to explain but better to experience. We think that the city is missing green: trees and small green spaces, which would really help.
The Église Saint-Joseph in Le Havre also designed by Perret is worth a visit. It really is an interesting church and space.
For our day in Le Havre, we had a fun lunch at the curious Calice Et Mandibule. We tried a baobab peanut butter dessert there that was delicious.
As we drove back over the Pont de Normandie to Honfleur, we talked about the contrasts between the two cities, and the “havres” and “havres not”.
There are a lot of options to consider for exploring the Normandy coast around Honfleur. We wanted an hour or less drive, so we thought about whether to visit to the north of Honfleur, Étretat (postcard white cliffs) or Fécamp (more of working village). We chose the former.
To the southwest of Honfleur, there is the much talked about duo Deauville (glamorous) and Trouville (laid-back). We skipped these entirely this visit.
So Étretat it was. It was also Bastille Day, an important holiday in France. In terms of travel, you say Bastille Day in France is like Independence Day in the US or Ferragosto (August 15) in Italy.
Despite the holiday, it wasn’t too bad getting around. The cliffs of Étretat will always be full of people. It’s just that kind of place. And the cliffs were beautiful, but we were more impressed with the Les Jardins d'Étretat, which give you some pretty nice views as well.
The garden is called a neo-futuristic garden (meaning?) perched atop the cliffs on the north side of town. The trail that takes you on the cliff walk to the north of town takes you right to the entrance of these gardens. The gardens started their life in 1905, when a famous Parisian actress Madame Thébault built the villa and planted the first tree.
The location of the garden is nearby the famous Falaise d’Amont. (Falaise means “cliff”.) The coast from Le Havre to Le Tréport (further northeast from Fécamp) and including Étretat is often referred to as the Alabaster Coast.
The garden today is largely the result of a 2016 intervention by landscape architect Alexandre Grivko who reimagined that original plot, crafting the current layout that weaves art, geometry and natural heritage together. To this point, there are some interesting pieces of art in the garden and some not-so-interesting pieces – in our humble opinion. Still, it’s definitely worth a visit for what they’ve created there.
Besides the garden, we really liked the Monument "L'Oiseau Blanc", nearby the garden. The monument honors Charles Nungesser and François Coli who took off from Paris on 8 May 1927 aboard the Levasseur PL.8 biplane L’Oiseau Blanc. They were attempting to make the first non-stop transatlantic flight from Paris to New York. Their aircraft was last sighted flying low over Étretat’s cliffs before disappearing, and their loss remains one of aviation’s great mysteries.
Why were they trying to do this? To win prize money. In May 1919, New York hotelier Raymond Orteig offered a $25,000 award to the first aviator(s) flying nonstop between New York and Paris (in either direction). The victor would be none other than Charles A. Lindbergh. On May 20–21, 1927, he flew solo from Roosevelt Field (Long Island) to Le Bourget (Paris) in his single-engine Spirit of St. Louis. Covering roughly 3,610 miles in 33 hours 30 minutes, Lindbergh clinched the Orteig Prize and the rest is history.
In Étretat, we had a very pleasing lunch of moule frites at La Flottille. We would go back to this town just to have that meal again!
.jpg "Chiesa di Santa Caterina (Honfleur)")
After our stay in Honfleur, we drove to Douarnenez in Brittany, with a stop in Dinan. The dividing line between the regions of Normandy and Brittany is the Couesnon River the empties into Mont St. Michel tidal bay. Dinan is in Brittany.
Why Douarnenez? Douarnenez was suggested to us by a friend familiar with the area. We had done a bit of research on the region and realized there were many good choices for us to be based. Our friend’s suggestion won the day.
We knew from the start – based on the distances and the beautiful but tangled network of roads in Brittany – that getting around would be slow. And that largely turned out to be true. Given that we didn’t try to see everything to avoid lots of driving. Our rules of thumb on driving are this: 1) if we are based in an area for a few days, we try to alternate days so if we drive one day, we don’t drive the next, and 2) if we drive, we try to limit it to under two hours total for a day. So, after the drive from Honfleur, the next day for us was all about walking an exploring Douarnenez.
Our itinerary for our time in Douarnenez:
One fascinating spot in Douarnenez is the Plomarc'h Pella, Gallo-Roman garum archaeological site on the edge of town. This is where salted fish was prepared along with garum for centuries. From the sign at the site:
Garum was a fermented fish sauce that was the ancient Roman empire’s go-to condiment. Garum was made from made from fish guts, salt, and sometimes herbs. It has a lot of umami. Though garum faded after the fall of Rome, you can get an idea of what it’s like with the modern-day Italian condiment called colatura di alici, as well as similar condiments in other cultures.
One of the key salted fish species prepared at the complex in Douarnenez was sardines. In fact, the history of Douarnenez is intimately connected to sardines and sardine fishing. There are informational panels all throughout the city that are part of the “Le chemin de la sardine” (Sardine Path) that you can follow and learn about sardines and key events in the city’s history.
Why do sardines like the Bay of Douarnenez? A goldilocks situation of the right food (zooplankton and phytoplankton), the right depths, and sheltered environments. If you want to try some of these sardines, there are many places to get them in Douarnenez. We suggest the La Maison de la Sardine. They have a good selection and an interesting video to watch about sardines and the history of Douarnenez. (The nearby Le flimiou is great for lunch!)
And, if you are really into sardines and the history of Douarnenez, you can check out the Statue de la femme sardine – a statue that is half sardine half woman. But beware, you can only reach the statue at the lowest tide. We were off by a few days and could only gaze at her/it from the city walls.
When you are done thinking about fish, make sure you try kouign-amann, a Breton laminated dough pastry, made with bread dough, butter, and sugar. It’s filling, so maybe split one with your bestie or you’ll ruin your dinner. We picked one up at the Boulangerie Des Plomarc'h.
We are slow learners, but occasionally we even surprise ourselves. Case in point: we kept noticing that many towns around Douarnenez started with “Ker”. Were we imagining it? No! According to the informative page Uncovering the Stories Behind Breton Place Names, “Ker” means “village” in Breton, as in Kerlaz, Kerfany or Kermaria, which translate as “Laz’s village,” “village of the fountain” and “Mary’s village,” respectively.
One day during our stay in Douarnenez, we took a drive out to Pointe du Van. That’s where we started wondering about the “Ker” in names. And don’t you worry, we honored our 1-hour drive time rule of thumb.
From Pointe du Van, we hiked to Pointe du Raz and back. About 15 km. On the subject of names, the Pointe du Raz headland gets its name from the Raz de Sein, the treacherous channel between the point and Île de Sein that can be seen offshore. The word raz comes from the Old Norse “rás”, meaning strong current or race of water and is related to the English word “race”, as in a fast-moving tide. So, Pointe du Raz literally means “Point of the Current”, reflecting its history as a place known for violent seas, swirling tides, and shipwrecks. In fact, standing on the point, you can see how turbulent the water is.
Brittany is a treasure trove of Neolithic architecture—its moors and coastal plains are dotted with menhirs, dolmens, and other ancient stone structures from over 6,000 years ago. Besides menhirs (standing stone), and dolmens (stone tombs), there are cairns (piles of stones), tumulus (earth-covered burial mounds), cromlechs (stone circles or rectangles), passage graves (tombs with narrow corridors), and covered alleys (large stone corridors). The biggest concentration or neolithic architecture is in the Morbihan department in southern Brittany, around Carnac. Douarnenez to Carnac is over 1.5 hours one-way in car, so we left that area for another time and did not focus a lot of neolithic architecture except for the Covered Alley of Lesconil, which is just a few minutes outside of Douarnenez center. Lesconil is tucked in between wheat fields in a copse of chestnut trees.
The megalith tomb in Lesconil is a gallery grave dating back to the end of the neolithic period between 3,500 and 2,000 BC. Today, we only see large stone slabs creating an A-shaped corridor, but in its time the structure was covered by a mound or cairn forming a tumulus. The corridor formed by the slabs is over 12 meters long, 2 meters wide and 2 meters tall. These tombs were likely the center of religious, social and political life and probably hosted the remains of the most notorious persons of the community like chiefs, priests or warriors.
Leaving Lesconil, we couldn’t help but take a few heads of the ripe wheat and liberate the wheatberries into the palm of our hands and gently blow on them to remove the chaff. Didn’t know wheatberries tasted so good as is.
.jpg "Covered Alley of Lesconil (near Douarnenz)")
.jpg "Plage De Saint Anne La Palud (Brittany)")
.jpg "Beach near Pointe du Raz (Brittany)")
During our 8 days in France, we found ourselves delighted—and admittedly a bit envious—of the sheer diversity of flavors and presentations. Maybe it was the magic of vacation eating, but every plate felt special. To us, there was a much larger variety of foods and preparations to choose from than we are used to in and around Bergamo. Yes we were eating out more and perhaps wider ranging than we might at home. But it was in restaurants (and cafés, bistros, etc.) where we found so much more choice. Again this is our opinion, not scientifically proven. And, dishes were typically artfully presented with contrasting flavors, textures, and colors. Vegetables were more plentiful.
Every Italian region has its base ingredients, traditions, and dishes. Last month for example, we were in Valtellina and almost every restaurant, trattoria, osteria, and rifugio we visited had its version of pizzoccheri. (See the post The Many Faces of Pizzoccheri.) Few of the pizzoccheri dishes veered very far from the standard way of preparing it. That was quaint and reassuring but felt constrained especially when there might be only two entries on the menu and pizzoccheri was always one of them and tagliatelle was the other. (If the tagliatelle was house made, that always won out for us.)
Let’s take crêpes, savory (galettes) and sweet, that we saw on our trip in France. The crêpes we had were a vehicle for a lot of creative combinations of ingredients. The savory crêpes were often served with a salad. It was a meal. It’s a basic preparation but with lots of twists that keep it interesting.
Savory crêpes are typically made with buckwheat flour, which is also an important grain as week in Valtellina (pizzoccheri are made from 75% or so buckwheat). Yet, in the Valtellina, crepes are more a niche item and typically are served with just cheese – our recollection here. Meanwhile, in the north of France the crepe has evolved into a more robust culinary tradition.
The city was rebuilt according to the plan of a team headed by Auguste Perret, from 1945 to 1964. He was a one of the pioneers of reinforced concrete architecture. There is a unity in the construction and layout of the city that is pleasing yet let's say odd. It's hard to explain but better to experience. We think that the city is missing green: trees and small green spaces, which would really help.
The Église Saint-Joseph in Le Havre also designed by Perret is worth a visit. It really is an interesting church and space.
For our day in Le Havre, we had a fun lunch at the curious Calice Et Mandibule. We tried a baobab peanut butter dessert there that was delicious.
As we drove back over the Pont de Normandie to Honfleur, we talked about the contrasts between the two cities, and the “havres” and “havres not”.
Alabaster Coast
There are a lot of options to consider for exploring the Normandy coast around Honfleur. We wanted an hour or less drive, so we thought about whether to visit to the north of Honfleur, Étretat (postcard white cliffs) or Fécamp (more of working village). We chose the former.
To the southwest of Honfleur, there is the much talked about duo Deauville (glamorous) and Trouville (laid-back). We skipped these entirely this visit.
So Étretat it was. It was also Bastille Day, an important holiday in France. In terms of travel, you say Bastille Day in France is like Independence Day in the US or Ferragosto (August 15) in Italy.
Despite the holiday, it wasn’t too bad getting around. The cliffs of Étretat will always be full of people. It’s just that kind of place. And the cliffs were beautiful, but we were more impressed with the Les Jardins d'Étretat, which give you some pretty nice views as well.
The garden is called a neo-futuristic garden (meaning?) perched atop the cliffs on the north side of town. The trail that takes you on the cliff walk to the north of town takes you right to the entrance of these gardens. The gardens started their life in 1905, when a famous Parisian actress Madame Thébault built the villa and planted the first tree.
The location of the garden is nearby the famous Falaise d’Amont. (Falaise means “cliff”.) The coast from Le Havre to Le Tréport (further northeast from Fécamp) and including Étretat is often referred to as the Alabaster Coast.
The garden today is largely the result of a 2016 intervention by landscape architect Alexandre Grivko who reimagined that original plot, crafting the current layout that weaves art, geometry and natural heritage together. To this point, there are some interesting pieces of art in the garden and some not-so-interesting pieces – in our humble opinion. Still, it’s definitely worth a visit for what they’ve created there.
Besides the garden, we really liked the Monument "L'Oiseau Blanc", nearby the garden. The monument honors Charles Nungesser and François Coli who took off from Paris on 8 May 1927 aboard the Levasseur PL.8 biplane L’Oiseau Blanc. They were attempting to make the first non-stop transatlantic flight from Paris to New York. Their aircraft was last sighted flying low over Étretat’s cliffs before disappearing, and their loss remains one of aviation’s great mysteries.
Why were they trying to do this? To win prize money. In May 1919, New York hotelier Raymond Orteig offered a $25,000 award to the first aviator(s) flying nonstop between New York and Paris (in either direction). The victor would be none other than Charles A. Lindbergh. On May 20–21, 1927, he flew solo from Roosevelt Field (Long Island) to Le Bourget (Paris) in his single-engine Spirit of St. Louis. Covering roughly 3,610 miles in 33 hours 30 minutes, Lindbergh clinched the Orteig Prize and the rest is history.
In Étretat, we had a very pleasing lunch of moule frites at La Flottille. We would go back to this town just to have that meal again!
.jpg "Chiesa di Santa Caterina (Honfleur)")
Top row: Chapelle Notre Dame de Grâce - Honfleur, La Mora (Ship) in Honfleur, Buildings in Le Havre, a room a Hotel Maison de Lucie in Honfleur.
Middle row: Chiesa di Santa Caterina - Honfleur, Bust of Erik Satie and Lucie Delarue-Mardrus in Le Jardin des Personnalités - Honfleur.
Bottom row: Scenes from Jardin d'Étretat including work (faces) by Samuel Salcedo and work (hoop) by Gevorg Tadevosyan.
Douarnenez
After our stay in Honfleur, we drove to Douarnenez in Brittany, with a stop in Dinan. The dividing line between the regions of Normandy and Brittany is the Couesnon River the empties into Mont St. Michel tidal bay. Dinan is in Brittany.
Why Douarnenez? Douarnenez was suggested to us by a friend familiar with the area. We had done a bit of research on the region and realized there were many good choices for us to be based. Our friend’s suggestion won the day.
We knew from the start – based on the distances and the beautiful but tangled network of roads in Brittany – that getting around would be slow. And that largely turned out to be true. Given that we didn’t try to see everything to avoid lots of driving. Our rules of thumb on driving are this: 1) if we are based in an area for a few days, we try to alternate days so if we drive one day, we don’t drive the next, and 2) if we drive, we try to limit it to under two hours total for a day. So, after the drive from Honfleur, the next day for us was all about walking an exploring Douarnenez.
Our itinerary for our time in Douarnenez:
- Day 1 – Arrive late, night walk in town, dinner.
- Day 2 – Douarnenez: Plomarc’h walk, Gallo-Roman garum production site, explore waterfront, visit some churches, eat our first kouign-amann, Plage du Ris, Plage De Saint Anne La Palud.
- Day 3 – Day trip to the coast, and hike from Pointe du Vin to Pointe du Raz and back.
- Day 4 – Douarnenez and environs: Covered Alley of Lesconil, Sables Blancs Beach, Shopping at La Maison de la Sardine, Locronan exploration and dinner.
Sardines and garum
One fascinating spot in Douarnenez is the Plomarc'h Pella, Gallo-Roman garum archaeological site on the edge of town. This is where salted fish was prepared along with garum for centuries. From the sign at the site:
THE SALT FISH INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX OF PLOMARC'H PELLA (1st to 4th Century AD) The Roman salt-fish industrial complex at Plomarc'h Pella is the largest of its kind discovered to date in the bay of Douarnenez. It comprises four buildings constructed both in the bottom of a small valley and on the slopes either side. One of the buildings has been partially restored, and is open permanently to the public. The quality of its preservation and its completeness make it an exceptional example dating from the roman period. Roman occupation first occurs on the site during the 1st century AD but it was not until the beginning of the 2nd century AD that it was developed as an industrial site.
Garum was a fermented fish sauce that was the ancient Roman empire’s go-to condiment. Garum was made from made from fish guts, salt, and sometimes herbs. It has a lot of umami. Though garum faded after the fall of Rome, you can get an idea of what it’s like with the modern-day Italian condiment called colatura di alici, as well as similar condiments in other cultures.
One of the key salted fish species prepared at the complex in Douarnenez was sardines. In fact, the history of Douarnenez is intimately connected to sardines and sardine fishing. There are informational panels all throughout the city that are part of the “Le chemin de la sardine” (Sardine Path) that you can follow and learn about sardines and key events in the city’s history.
Why do sardines like the Bay of Douarnenez? A goldilocks situation of the right food (zooplankton and phytoplankton), the right depths, and sheltered environments. If you want to try some of these sardines, there are many places to get them in Douarnenez. We suggest the La Maison de la Sardine. They have a good selection and an interesting video to watch about sardines and the history of Douarnenez. (The nearby Le flimiou is great for lunch!)
And, if you are really into sardines and the history of Douarnenez, you can check out the Statue de la femme sardine – a statue that is half sardine half woman. But beware, you can only reach the statue at the lowest tide. We were off by a few days and could only gaze at her/it from the city walls.
When you are done thinking about fish, make sure you try kouign-amann, a Breton laminated dough pastry, made with bread dough, butter, and sugar. It’s filling, so maybe split one with your bestie or you’ll ruin your dinner. We picked one up at the Boulangerie Des Plomarc'h.
Places and Names
We are slow learners, but occasionally we even surprise ourselves. Case in point: we kept noticing that many towns around Douarnenez started with “Ker”. Were we imagining it? No! According to the informative page Uncovering the Stories Behind Breton Place Names, “Ker” means “village” in Breton, as in Kerlaz, Kerfany or Kermaria, which translate as “Laz’s village,” “village of the fountain” and “Mary’s village,” respectively.
One day during our stay in Douarnenez, we took a drive out to Pointe du Van. That’s where we started wondering about the “Ker” in names. And don’t you worry, we honored our 1-hour drive time rule of thumb.
From Pointe du Van, we hiked to Pointe du Raz and back. About 15 km. On the subject of names, the Pointe du Raz headland gets its name from the Raz de Sein, the treacherous channel between the point and Île de Sein that can be seen offshore. The word raz comes from the Old Norse “rás”, meaning strong current or race of water and is related to the English word “race”, as in a fast-moving tide. So, Pointe du Raz literally means “Point of the Current”, reflecting its history as a place known for violent seas, swirling tides, and shipwrecks. In fact, standing on the point, you can see how turbulent the water is.
Brittany is a treasure trove of Neolithic architecture—its moors and coastal plains are dotted with menhirs, dolmens, and other ancient stone structures from over 6,000 years ago. Besides menhirs (standing stone), and dolmens (stone tombs), there are cairns (piles of stones), tumulus (earth-covered burial mounds), cromlechs (stone circles or rectangles), passage graves (tombs with narrow corridors), and covered alleys (large stone corridors). The biggest concentration or neolithic architecture is in the Morbihan department in southern Brittany, around Carnac. Douarnenez to Carnac is over 1.5 hours one-way in car, so we left that area for another time and did not focus a lot of neolithic architecture except for the Covered Alley of Lesconil, which is just a few minutes outside of Douarnenez center. Lesconil is tucked in between wheat fields in a copse of chestnut trees.
The megalith tomb in Lesconil is a gallery grave dating back to the end of the neolithic period between 3,500 and 2,000 BC. Today, we only see large stone slabs creating an A-shaped corridor, but in its time the structure was covered by a mound or cairn forming a tumulus. The corridor formed by the slabs is over 12 meters long, 2 meters wide and 2 meters tall. These tombs were likely the center of religious, social and political life and probably hosted the remains of the most notorious persons of the community like chiefs, priests or warriors.
Leaving Lesconil, we couldn’t help but take a few heads of the ripe wheat and liberate the wheatberries into the palm of our hands and gently blow on them to remove the chaff. Didn’t know wheatberries tasted so good as is.
.jpg "Covered Alley of Lesconil (near Douarnenz)")
.jpg "Plage De Saint Anne La Palud (Brittany)")
.jpg "Beach near Pointe du Raz (Brittany)")
Top row: Wheat fields in and around Douarnenez and wheatberries in hand.
Middle row: Alley of Lesconil. A church kin Kerlaz, Site de Plomarc'h Pella (vestiges gallo-romains).
Middle row: Alley of Lesconil. A church kin Kerlaz, Site de Plomarc'h Pella (vestiges gallo-romains).
Bottom row: Plage De Saint Anne La Palud (Brittany), Beach near Pointe du Raz (Brittany), Moulins de Trouguer (Pointe du Vin).
Le fin: France filtered through Italy
Food envy
Every Italian region has its base ingredients, traditions, and dishes. Last month for example, we were in Valtellina and almost every restaurant, trattoria, osteria, and rifugio we visited had its version of pizzoccheri. (See the post The Many Faces of Pizzoccheri.) Few of the pizzoccheri dishes veered very far from the standard way of preparing it. That was quaint and reassuring but felt constrained especially when there might be only two entries on the menu and pizzoccheri was always one of them and tagliatelle was the other. (If the tagliatelle was house made, that always won out for us.)
Let’s take crêpes, savory (galettes) and sweet, that we saw on our trip in France. The crêpes we had were a vehicle for a lot of creative combinations of ingredients. The savory crêpes were often served with a salad. It was a meal. It’s a basic preparation but with lots of twists that keep it interesting.
Savory crêpes are typically made with buckwheat flour, which is also an important grain as week in Valtellina (pizzoccheri are made from 75% or so buckwheat). Yet, in the Valtellina, crepes are more a niche item and typically are served with just cheese – our recollection here. Meanwhile, in the north of France the crepe has evolved into a more robust culinary tradition.
Top row: Sweet and savory crepe in Honfleur at La Cidrerie, Risotto with Japanese rice and dessert options - Honfleur - SaQuaNa,
Middle row: Petits Plaisirs Food Truck and Pesket Fish and Chips in Douarnenez, a plate at Ar Maen Hir Locronan, smoked fish at Monsieur Papier (Plogoff).
Bottom row: Moule frites in Étretat at La Flotille, a colorful dish in Le Havre at Calice et Mandibule, a dish at Tourbillon in Honfleur, a dish at Colibri in Dinan (great tasting menu here).
We had three big drives on our trip. One from Beauvais to Honfleur (~ 170 km), one from Honfleur to Douarnenez (~ 430 km), and one from Douarnenez back to Beauvais (~ 630 km). We saw a lot of beautiful countryside.
We saw a lot of fields of grain, often mowed and punctuated with round hale bales. Those bales against a blue sky never tire us for photos. We drove through countryside that seamlessly led us to a small town. Pass by the granite-block church with its lichen blotches, and we were back in the country.
The flow from outside town to inside town – and we are talking of smaller towns here – was smooth and thoughtful. Road design prompts drivers to slow down. Traffic calming measures included speed humps and bumps and tables (doubling as pedestrian crossings), chicanes and lane shifts, and pinch points. None of these calming measures felt artificial or annoying. It felt light years ahead of what we see in our part of Italy. The only traffic control on our beloved Via Pignolo is us screaming and waving at cars going too fast. For the parts of the city we walk in Bergamo, we wish they could implement some of what we saw and experienced in France to slow drivers down.
When going countryside to town to countryside we often saw town’s name signal that we were "entering” and "leaving” that town. So far, so normal. But every so often (1 out of every 15 town?) we noticed that the sign of the town was bolted on upside down. Huh? We thought at first that it was a mistake. But then it became frequent enough that we started asking questions.
It turns out the flipped town names are a form of symbolic protest. The movement began in Tarn, Occitanie, and spread nationwide, with Brittany and parts of northern France having the most flipped signs. The upside-down signs represent how farmers feel their world has been turned on its head: rising fuel costs, delayed EU subsidies, increased bureaucracy among other complaints.
Maybe we should flip some Bergamo’s signs to protest lack of traffic calming measures.
Country and town
We had three big drives on our trip. One from Beauvais to Honfleur (~ 170 km), one from Honfleur to Douarnenez (~ 430 km), and one from Douarnenez back to Beauvais (~ 630 km). We saw a lot of beautiful countryside.
We saw a lot of fields of grain, often mowed and punctuated with round hale bales. Those bales against a blue sky never tire us for photos. We drove through countryside that seamlessly led us to a small town. Pass by the granite-block church with its lichen blotches, and we were back in the country.
The flow from outside town to inside town – and we are talking of smaller towns here – was smooth and thoughtful. Road design prompts drivers to slow down. Traffic calming measures included speed humps and bumps and tables (doubling as pedestrian crossings), chicanes and lane shifts, and pinch points. None of these calming measures felt artificial or annoying. It felt light years ahead of what we see in our part of Italy. The only traffic control on our beloved Via Pignolo is us screaming and waving at cars going too fast. For the parts of the city we walk in Bergamo, we wish they could implement some of what we saw and experienced in France to slow drivers down.
When going countryside to town to countryside we often saw town’s name signal that we were "entering” and "leaving” that town. So far, so normal. But every so often (1 out of every 15 town?) we noticed that the sign of the town was bolted on upside down. Huh? We thought at first that it was a mistake. But then it became frequent enough that we started asking questions.
It turns out the flipped town names are a form of symbolic protest. The movement began in Tarn, Occitanie, and spread nationwide, with Brittany and parts of northern France having the most flipped signs. The upside-down signs represent how farmers feel their world has been turned on its head: rising fuel costs, delayed EU subsidies, increased bureaucracy among other complaints.
Maybe we should flip some Bergamo’s signs to protest lack of traffic calming measures.
Two upside down signs in Brittany, a calvaire (cross), and a facade in Douarnenez.
Honfleur was lively during our visit, thanks to Bastille Day weekend. Even so, the bustle felt contained, and by the next morning, the town had exhaled back to its usual rhythm. Douarnenez, by contrast, seemed to operate on an entirely different frequency—quieter, slower, and decidedly not fussy.
The beaches along Brittany’s Bay of Douarnenez caught us off guard. Huge stretches of sand, with few people. At least the few beaches we saw had no rows of umbrellas, no blaring Euro-disco music, just open sand and water. It was refreshing to see.
(There were a few beaches nearer to Douarnenez that were busier with families. They are easier to get to, have more facilities, and usually a lifeguard. That makes sense.)
Driving in and around Douarnenez was effortless. The village still felt authentic as a working harbor. Parking was easy, restaurants available with reservations, and the mood unhurried.
Back here in Lombardy, it’s a pretty sure bet that budget airlines like Ryanair have contributed to the volume of tourists we currently see in Bergamo. And it’s not just that numbers increase, but the type of tourist changes and quality of life is impacted for locals.
For example, the energy in Bergamo’s upper city is this these days: people wandering around with large plastic cups of orange spritz dragging their luggage over on cobblestones of the decumanus maximus. It’s dynamic, but sometimes we miss the quieter days. It raises questions about how tourism can shape a place—and how places shape the traveler in return.
But what does dragging luggage around with a spritz have to do with type of tourist we mentioned? We assert that the tourists of recent years spend less time visiting more time passing through. From our observations, these visitors are likely spending just one night and not eating out. We’ve been behind them in the checkout at a supermarket getting sandwiches and food instead of eating in a restaurant or other local establishments.
Then there is the quality of life for the people living in Bergamo. After spending our first few years in Bergamo in a palazzo with several Airbnbs (some illegal), we can say it sucks for the non-tourist. Plus, when you start hearing about and meeting people who can’t get an apartment in the city because many apartments are Airbnbs, it makes you think twice about finding a balance. (We are using Airbnb in the generalized sense to represent any short-term rental or holiday lodging.) When one establishment we used to frequent shuffled their menu to accommodate eastern European taste buds and removed our favorite item, we felt a little miffed. This is getting personal.
Slow tourism
Honfleur was lively during our visit, thanks to Bastille Day weekend. Even so, the bustle felt contained, and by the next morning, the town had exhaled back to its usual rhythm. Douarnenez, by contrast, seemed to operate on an entirely different frequency—quieter, slower, and decidedly not fussy.
The beaches along Brittany’s Bay of Douarnenez caught us off guard. Huge stretches of sand, with few people. At least the few beaches we saw had no rows of umbrellas, no blaring Euro-disco music, just open sand and water. It was refreshing to see.
(There were a few beaches nearer to Douarnenez that were busier with families. They are easier to get to, have more facilities, and usually a lifeguard. That makes sense.)
Driving in and around Douarnenez was effortless. The village still felt authentic as a working harbor. Parking was easy, restaurants available with reservations, and the mood unhurried.
Back here in Lombardy, it’s a pretty sure bet that budget airlines like Ryanair have contributed to the volume of tourists we currently see in Bergamo. And it’s not just that numbers increase, but the type of tourist changes and quality of life is impacted for locals.
For example, the energy in Bergamo’s upper city is this these days: people wandering around with large plastic cups of orange spritz dragging their luggage over on cobblestones of the decumanus maximus. It’s dynamic, but sometimes we miss the quieter days. It raises questions about how tourism can shape a place—and how places shape the traveler in return.
But what does dragging luggage around with a spritz have to do with type of tourist we mentioned? We assert that the tourists of recent years spend less time visiting more time passing through. From our observations, these visitors are likely spending just one night and not eating out. We’ve been behind them in the checkout at a supermarket getting sandwiches and food instead of eating in a restaurant or other local establishments.
Then there is the quality of life for the people living in Bergamo. After spending our first few years in Bergamo in a palazzo with several Airbnbs (some illegal), we can say it sucks for the non-tourist. Plus, when you start hearing about and meeting people who can’t get an apartment in the city because many apartments are Airbnbs, it makes you think twice about finding a balance. (We are using Airbnb in the generalized sense to represent any short-term rental or holiday lodging.) When one establishment we used to frequent shuffled their menu to accommodate eastern European taste buds and removed our favorite item, we felt a little miffed. This is getting personal.
So, we were talking about France here, right....
Ah yes, a place like Douarnenez seems to have resisted this degree of frenetic tourism. We didn’t see luggage being dragged or one spritz being consumed! Maybe Douarnenez is not discovered or not a desirable destination. But we wonder if it something else may be going on. To get to Douarnenez and similar towns in Brittany, it asks more of the traveler: more time, more intention. The people we saw there seemed to be there for more than for more than one night. In that case, that extra intention is more a net positive to the vibe of a place, right? We kind of think so. More slow tourism please. A pace dictated not by flight schedules, but by the seasons and tides.
Bottom row Brittany: Plage de la Baie des Trépassés - Plogoff, France, Le Vorlen port - Near Port du Raz, Port Rhu - Douarnenez.
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