We're moving steadily south through France, have left Brittany and are now in Pays de Loire, staying tonight at the mouth of the Loire river at it's entrance to the Atlantic Ocean at St Nazaire.
In three days we've stayed at three Aires: Locmariaquer, only a short drive from Carnac (47°33'26.2"N 2°56'56.4"W) and out on a very scenic peninsular next to the beach with some interesting neolithic burial mounds and standing stones; Guerande, a fabulous medievil walled town and close to amazing salt flats (47°20'02.9"N 2°25'16.2"W); and St Nazaire, probably best known for it's WWII submarine base (47°16'44.9"N 2°12'14.8"W).
The fallen 20m stone in 4 pieces
After experiencing the surreal landscape of the 3000 plus standing stones at Carnac, we drove for less than an hour out and down a little peninsular to stop at another free Aire, this one next to the beach (but the sand bank prevented us having a view!) and just by a neolithic burial site. It's apparently hugely popular during the summer, but the very cold temperatures kept the crowds away, although there were still quite a few people about.
Inside the rebuilt Neolithic tomb, complete with lights
We set up Big Ted for the night, took a walk along the beach to see if we could collect any mussels (sadly no, even after seeing someone come back with a bag full- they must know a secret place!) and visit the neolithic burial site (about 30m away). There's another important neolithic site less than 1.5m away by Locmariaquer town, with a 20m fallen standing stone (contradiction in terms I know) that fell by unknown forces (earthquake possibly) and broke into four pieces, plus a couple of burial tombs, so we set off to see those. The fallen stone was interesting, but the burial tombs had been remade, having been just a few standing stones with a stone top before.
Here's what it looks like now....
Now I don't know about this, on the one hand you can see how it might have looked (but who knows?), complete with lights inside that rotate in colour, but on the other hand you're looking at someone's recent work using stones that were lying around. Should it have been left as it was? I don't know. Included in the entrance price was a video explaining the site, how they had excavated it, what they had found and how they had rebuilt it.
And here's what it looked like before restoraation
All very interesting, the 20m standing stone was brought from at least 10km away and weighs over 300 tonnes, not bad for Neolithic man 7000 years ago! Despite lots of experts, the summary of it all is that they really don't have a clue what it's all about, the language is that the site hasn't yet revealed it's secrets.
Our campsite at Locmariaquer. we're on the left, sea is to the right, sandbank in between
Saw this wild cat in a field, complete with mask!
On the next day (Tuesday 30th) we set off towards Guerande. Actually we were heading straight to St Nazaire as the Aire at Guerande didn't sound very exciting and Jackie wasn't that keen on the salt flats. I, on the other hand was, so we compromised by saying we would take a detour round Guerande and take a 'D' road (equivalent of a 'B' road in the UK, right through the salt flats and then on to St Nazaire.
The white blobs are oysters, loads of them, but very difficult to remove
I had difficulty finding a route on the SatNav as our size of vehicle and weight were too much for the roads. In the end I found a route to a town called Sallie which took us along the D road but then returning the same way as 3.5T maximum weight barred our way (we are 4.2T). I looked at it on Google satellite view and although it looked really interesting there were a few tight turns. Lets see how we feel in the morning I thought, so after a pleasant, but cold walk along the seafront at Locmariaquer in bright morning sunshine we set off, stopping at the huge supermarket on the edge of Guerande to stock up with a few things, just before going on the thin road to Sallie.
Lovely Guerande, complete with water filled moat
After debating what to do, we parked in the free Aire, which wasn't so bad, and walked into Guerande. What a great place it was! The fortifications round it were almost fully intact and the moat was at least half full of water, the first time I have seen water in a moat round what looked like a castle. Inside it was full of old cobbled streets, shops and great churches, the only downside is that everything was closed for lunch until 2:00pm and it was only 1:00pm. Even the ramparts were closed. We went to walk downhill to the salt flats, but it was a long way so we returned to the campsite, got the bikes, stopped at the tourist office to get a map and headed off in warmish afternoon sunshine.
One of the entrances into Guerande town
How interesting, they have been extracting salt from here since Roman times, it's virtually at sea level so is a huge salt water marsh that, over the years, has been divided off into pools that are themselves divided up, then dried in the sun until only salt (and mud) remains. The visitor centre were selling salt in various forms from road salt to salt mills for the table. We didn't buy any but it was tempting. When we arrived at the visitor centre we realised it was on the 'D' road I had originally planned to drive down in Big Ted and, on looking at it I was really quite pleased we had decided not to drive it. It was OK in a car, but not in Big Ted!
A typical street in Guerande
We didn't go on the 45 minute guided walk as we could see what was going on so hopped back on the bikes for an uphill (but not too demanding) cycle back. By this time we had decided to stay the night as Jackie had spied a pizza take-away shop that offered any type and any size for €7.99 on a Tuesday, so that was dinner sorted! We prepared garlic bread and I set off on my bike before sunset at about 5:50pm, but unfortunately they didn't open for the evening until 6:30pm. A quick faff to try to organise lights on my bike (headtorch for the front light) and I set off again in the dark, negotiating rush hour traffic and quickly cooling temperatures, getting back with a still hot pizza for wine, pizza and garlic bread - fabulous!
One of the salt production beds near Guerande
This is a Google Map view of a bit of the salt flats (including that road!)
So this morning we were up and on our way for the incredibly long 30 minute drive to St Nazaire (we did say we weren't going to do long journeys in a day and, so far we haven't!), stopping off at Lidl for a few things (the car parks are smaller, but we managed to find a spot in the corner for Big Ted so he didn't stick out too much) and arriving at the Aire at about 11:00am, in time to hook up to electric (what a novelty, we haven't done that for a while - but we have had to pay to stay here, for the first time in a while, but only €7.75) and head off to explore the docks.
We saw this and thought of little Sooty cat in Birmingham
The Aire is in an industrial area, right by the working docks and two minutes walk to the old German wartime submarine base and scene of one of the most daring raids by British commandos in 1942. I knew about this and had it on my definite list to see. Whilst housesitting we watched a very good documentary by Jeremy Clarkson (yes, really!) called 'The Greatest Raid of All' and it really is. It's on Youtube and last 58 minutes and it is so worth watching. You can see it here by clicking play on the view below.
It's possible to spend loads of money having guided talks, visiting museums, a submarine (done similar one's before), a cruise liner dockyard and even an Airbus assembly area. We didn't do any of those, we walked all round and over the concrete submarine base (the roof is 8.6m thick to prevent enemy (that's us!) bombs penetrating), even walking into the submarine pens, all for free.
The huge, old German WWII submarine base at St Nazaire
The Tourist Information gave us a map and marked things to see, none of which cost any money. We walked round the dockyard stopping at the memorial to Operation Chariot, the British commando raid on 28th March 1942 (I need say no more about it if you've watched the Youtube documentary above), over one of the entrance locks to the Bassin de Saint-Naizaire (currently under refurbishment) and up onto another German concrete buildings offering a panoramic view of the submarine base one side and the lock gate entrance to the dry dock that was the subject of the commando raid.
One of the submarine pens
The memorial to Operation Chariot commando raid
We were standing on top of the building next to the site of a huge gun overlooking the lock and had to marvel at the audacity of the commandos who managed to sail an old destroyer packed with explosives under the noses of all the Germans and crashed it into the lock, blowing it up and disabling the dry dock so necessary for German activities in the Atlantic, not only for the rest of the war, but until five years after. Also from this panoramic spot was a bit of art. Standing in a specific place on the roof it was possible to line up bits of paint of various buildings both near and far to form a pattern. Here's a photo of it. Away from this spot the bits of paint on the buildings were meaningless and, what was painted as a curve appeared straight from the viewpoint. Quite amazing.
The plaque on the memorial
The names of the fallen
Our walk took us further along the dock to the actual dry dock (which was full of water!) and we could see the two lock gates at either end and the dock itself that, at the time, was the largest dry dock in Europe and intended to be used by the Germans to repair ships like the huge Tirpitz after operations against the British in the Atlantic. Taking the dry dock out meant the Tirpitz never entered the Atlantic, staying around Norway for the duration of the war, until it was finally sunk by the RAF in a Fiord in Norway.
Here's that photo of the artwork. The red triangles are painted on buildings far and wide and they only appear complete from this spot
There's the lock that was rammed, all beneath the guns on the left
We returned further through the docks, over a swing bridge near the submarine base and back to Big Ted. What a fabulous day! Of course the tourist board promote St Nazaire for many other things other than it's wartime role, th is a neolithic burial mound nearby that we went to look at, they have very good beaches and shops apparentlyere and also a number of other monuments including one commemorating the abolishment of slavery (which we saw) and and American monument. We could have spent a lot longer here (and spent a lot more money), but we are very happy with what we've seen. Very, very pleased we came.
The dry dock (currently full of water). The lock in the distance was the one rammed
Another photo taken from the Wikipedia site. This one shows the remains of HMS Campbeltown in the dry dock after it exploded and was swept into the dock by the rushing water. The dock has been blocked off at both ends and remained out of action for the rest of the war
The Neolithic dolmen in the centre of St Nazaire. This would originally have been under an earth mound and is the remains of a burial tomb, now surrounded by city houses
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