Here it is mid-June and I’m still writing about May, but there you go. Sunday, the 26 of May, we were headed home to La Rochelle in the afternoon, but in the morning we had a chance to tour a bit of the southern edge of the Golfe du Morbihan, including the Château de Suscinio, which was so enormous I couldn’t manage to fit it into one photo. Plus, the sky was rather dreary and it was breezy and cool, so I didn’t spend a lot of time trying.  I promise you can find photos if you Google it.

The back section you see in the photo below houses an elaborate and creative exhibit devoted to the legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.

Turns out Bretagne has as much claim to the legends as Grand Bretagne has. This was news to me, probably because my main exposure to the legends was T. H. White’s The Once and Future King (which I loved) and Hollywood, including Disney.

Château de Suscinio was built to house various dukes of Brittany, and even housed Henry Tudor,  later King Henry VII of England, for a while, but I found these two characters in one of the rooms claiming to be the châtelain and châtelaine!  Although I’m not sure why they were not wearing  these fab red shoes.

Another story of ruin and restoration, this château at one point had been completely abandoned and was in the process of being dismantled, serving simply as a source of stone. It is still a work in progress, but what has been done is very impressive, with various interactive exhibits (obviously–see Pascale and Jacky above).  Well worth the price of admission.  Bonus: No creepy, crumbling, dark staircases.

Pascale made sure to buy a final Kouign Amann to have at home. And of course she had the ice cream, the whipped cream and the caramel sauce to go with it. No tiny Breton flag though. Somehow, we managed to eat it anyway!

Our four-day adventure in Bretagne was an amazing whirlwind of beauty and history, although I have to admit that my ability to accurately take in thousands of years of history and legend, all in French, remains moderate, at best. Still. I loved every minute of it. Many thanks to Pascale for all the careful planning, and to Jacky for all the nerve-wracking driving around a bazillion roundabouts, while the GPS only sometimes helped.  But what’s an adventure without a bit of losing your way?  It was fabulous and I’ll never forget it.