The dragon slayer

One of our lovely lazy days was spent visiting the Isle de Batz, a short boat ride from Roscoff. This Isle is famous for its unspoilt character. Its peace and serenity soaks into your bones as you climb the little port street curving around the boat-strewn Baie de Kernoc'h.

In days long past it was not all quiet on the island of Batz. Legend has it that Batz was once beset by a dragon. Luckily a young holy man named Pol, who arrived on the island from the mainland, had miraculously cured several islanders who were deaf, paralysed and mute, so was the obvious choice 

Dressed in his full ceremonial regalia and accompanied by a warrior Pol set off to the island's distant shores to slay the dragon. But there was hardly a need. So overcome by Pol's mesmerising presence was the dragon, that he meekly succumbed. And in one version of the tale Pol simply lay his stole around the dragon's bowed neck like a rein, led it to the rocky shore, and ordered him into the foaming seas. He went, never to be seen again. 

We found the spot, Trou de Serpent, on the wild west coast where legend has it the dragon disappeared. All around is soft spongy grass, covered in pretty pink flowers, quite idyllic now. Atop the next hill overlooking the sea sits a remote stone hut, moody in its setting, a likely resting place for Pol and his warrior after their legendary tussle with the dragon. 

Like Pol we found a quite spot, just under the 19th century lighthouse where we rested our weary bones and ate a memorable Breton crepe luncheon accompanied by delicious cider served in small round ceramic mugs. Utterly delicious and cool. 

As the clouds above blew hither and yon, locals, on their hands and knees in their vegetable plot, were pulling potatoes from the ground by hand. Some five hundred folk live on Batz year round and most of these now work the land growing potatoes and cauliflower. Ile de Batz potatoes are sought after and sold at the marche in Paris.

As we wound our way back to the ferry we could see the thousand year old ruins of the Chapelle Ste-Anne silhouetted against the sky in the east, the patron saint of the island's fishermen, for whom a pardon, a pilgrimage, is held here among the ruins, every July. 

ts foundations, it is believed, may have been built over the site of the monastery that Pol built after slaying his dragon. Pol found peace here, too, it seems.

Trou de Serpent, Isle de Batz

The tide is out in the Baie de Kernoc'h

Soft grass and flowers where Pol met the dragon

Remote cottage on Isle de Batz

Potatoes headed for Paris markets 

Chapelle Saint Anne 

Crepe and cider for lunch

It's not easy being green

While we were in Brittany some of the beaches were covered with a spongy green that we thought initially must be a soft marshy grass growing across the sand. We explored, only to discover it was deposits of argues verte, sea lettuce or seaweed. Or kelp. 

When times are right, as now, when the temperatures are mild and the seas slow, shallow and incubator-warm, when there is nitrogen and phosphorus present, conditions are prime for the appearance and rapid growth of sea lettuce. Tons of it.

At places it lies over the sand as thick and mounded as green rocks and is often called the 'green tide'.  

When conditions are wrong, when temperatures rise and the seaweed dries out, crusts up, decomposes, and is disturbed, it can be lethal. People and animals have died from the ammonia and hydrogen sulphide that is released when the beds are turned in its toxic state. 

Since prehistoric times seaweed has been used as a fuel, then it was hand-harvested along the Brittany coast. Over time gatherers loaded their horse drawn carts with it, as they carried it off as a free fertiliser -- given its high potassium content. Harvesters dried it out, lay it on the sand, then burned it in long shallow stone-ovens along the beaches. 

Even Napolean found it incredibly useful. Iodine as an antiseptic had not long been discovered, and when his wars were being waged there was a need for large quantities of antiseptic for injuries. So Napolean found it beneficial to build factories in Brittany to extract iodine from the harvested seaweed. Some 25 tons of seaweed were needed to make just 15kg of iodine. 

Machines have taken over and now move masses of it by the ton. Seaweed is now used in all sorts of applications including glass manufacture, face masks in beauty therapy, as a setting agent in food technology such as desserts, jellies and custards, and even as a jell in toothpaste. 

Some 80,000 tons of seaweed are collected from the coast of Brittany each year and over 500 people are employed in its collection and associated industries.

It has been called the 'green gold of Brittany', and given how much there is, that is not surprising.

'Green tide' at Saint Michel sur Greves

Thick sea lettuce 

Harvesting Brittany's sea lettuce

Gnarled sea creatures

When we are not sightseeing we are hunting down markets. One stop, this week, was Cancale. Here, in days long past, Louis XIV regularly sent his minions to collect these delicious Cancale oysters from the sea to serve at his dining table at Versailles. 

We parked just above the harbour, where at low tide, the oyster beds spread out in long strands across the sea floor. At this high tide, the locals had had enough of tourists parking in front of their sea view and moved us on, so when next we saw oysters next it was at a cafe in St Malo.

Bretagne is all about seafood: to such an extent we traipsed off to Paimpol to the fish market on Tuesday and bought up these gnarly old spider crabs that had been swimming together happily only this morning. 

We bought them and took them home where we anguished about killing them mercifully but after a glass of fortifying wine we had them immersed in salted water without any pain. We hope. 

The shelling and dressing took a team of four nearly an hour. Not easy. 

But the flavour -- fine filaments of fresh crab on crostini drizzled with lemon -- was worth the effort.

Thank you, sea gods.

Stone ladies of Cancale, washing the oyster catch

Cancale oysters - fit for a king

Spider crabs in Lannion market

Dressed spider crabs for dinner

Venelles and lanterns

Some places in Bretagne have, about them, an air of romance.  Morlaix is such a place.  Its prominent church has spires rising straight out of a fairytale. 

Overhead a graceful granite viaduct rises so high above the town it casts arched shadows over the many pretty half timbered houses beneath it. 

A walk along the second level of the grand viaduct reveals arch after disappearing arch leading off onto viewing platforms, perfect for peering from on high over the overhanging facades of the pretty town.   

Winding down the narrow pedestrian venelles to St Matthew's church we came upon an unexpected and ancient 14c treasure of the French Church, the statue of Our Lady of the Sea, which when closed shows Mary suckling Jesus, but when opened reveals a triptych of scenes from the life of Christ.  So small and and so very precious.  

One of the flower ladies decorating the altar went to great trouble to seek out sufficient light, first by candle, then by lamp, to enable us to take our photos.  So kind.  

On we went to one of the definitive historic homes in Morlaix:  Duchess Anne's house: remarkable in so many ways.  Its living space rises high and tall overhead, topped with glass which allows in light as if a lit lantern had been placed in the rafters, creating a unique architectural feature specific to this town which has been called the 'lantern house' effect.  

The entire living space is suffused with a soft glow.

Morlaix's romantic features don't stop there. Oak steps set into a bulge in the back wall are pegged all the way up and around an exquisitely carved central wooden post, rising three floors.  

At each level a little pont-alee, a charming wooden balcony bridge, joins the back rooms to the front of the house, allowing for easy connections.  Carved saints and secular figures decorate each level and it is all so utterly charming.  

It is so easy to imagine a time when the streets of Morlaix was rich with prosperous merchants and captains of the sea.    

Morlaix

Graceful granite viaduct overlooks Morlaix

Arch after disappearing arch

Our Lady of the Sea

Lantern feature

Pont-alee, wooden balcony bridge

Like scotch thistle

Once, many decades ago, we ate globe artichokes with hollandaise as a first course at a dinner party in Canada. Ever since then I have wanted to try that dish again, but we see them so rarely in Australia that by the time I am ready to buy them they have, again, disappeared from the shelves.

As the white asparagus stocks slowly begin to deplete in Bretagne, globe artichokes appear to be popping out all over. 

We first noticed new fields of spiky root cuttings all in a soft grey green as we were driving by. We wondered what the crop was until we shortly found mature fields of richly rounded globe artichokes. If left unharvested these globe artichokes develop a purple flower making then look like a large scotch thistle -- which makes sense, since an artichoke is a variation on a thistle. 

Salivating we bought some, took them home and trimmed the root stems, the tops and spiky outer leaves; then cooked them, slowly boiling in acidulated water. 

We dipped the outer leaves in fresh buttery hollandaise, eating down to the choke. The feathery choke we removed with a spoon, then polished off the last bit of the delicious heart that was left. 

Globe artichokes in Bretagne

Trimming the artichoke

Simmered slowly

Simply delicious 

Alive, alive o-oh!

Locquirec waterfront on the coast of Brittany is like something Monet might have painted: shadowy figures against a back drop of soft misty sea, bending, gently teasing les coques--cockles, out of the shifting sands. Gleaners of the sea.

Unlike along the Thames where they dredge these little fellows by sucking them out of the sand using huge vacuum pumps, the local Bretagne folk treat these little bivalves gently using just a rake. They can fill a plastic bucket in no time. Free. From beneath beautiful Breton sands. When the tides are out. Using simple tools from the back shed.

A delightful old man on the beach explained to me in effusive expressive French (which I only partially understood and, then, only because of the context) that when he gathered les coques he had to wash them in litres et litres (et litres!) of salty sea water, getting rid of the sand. Then he liked to steam them open and dress them with garlic oil.

 I longed to join them.

Locquirec in Monet colours

Demain or Dimanche

South we then head for two months exchange in Brittany, a thousand kilometres over lovely little river ferries that bridge the Netherlands dike roads, bumping over pot-holed rustic roads through Belgium, and averting our eyes as we pass the endless tragic war graves of the Somme.

On to the two and half acre property in Rugugen in rural Brittany where we are staying for a two month stint after a fabulous local welcome from our new Bretagne friends, who are exchanging with us in Australia and are off on a plane in the morning. 

We had wonderful day with them showing us the local sights all around including an extended drool at their local traditional charcuterie in Ploumilliau just a couple of kilometres from home where we bought everything to make lunch.  The shop is filled with slices of rolled and roti meats and heavily peppered and spiced sauccisons and fat stuffed tomatoes, an amazing little place wafting with deliciousness.

One of the owners is famous for her cooking classes. We must see if we will be able to follow them, and perhaps book a session. Then on we go to check out where the best farmer markets are and the best restaurants in the region.

Brittany is famous as the place Parisiennes come for summers. In our first week we were to see many houses along the coast shuttered, waiting for them. Sometimes even the paths leading to the front doors showed long spells of being left untramelled.

For our first Sunday lunch we turned up at one recommended place bursting at the seams--always a good sign!--but where there was no room for us, so we attempted to make a reservation for next Sunday, tho' we're not sure if they understood it to be for 'demain' (tomorrow) or 'Dimanche' (Sunday). We will know next Sunday*.

Sundays are clearly busy for dining out but luckily we found a lone table in the next village for lunch and tucked into snails, shrimp, seafood and a sweet layered dessert.

PS:*Again, the next Sunday the 'reservation' that we thought we had made face to face still had not registered as such. Whatever we said was not what they thought we said. Yet again, we ate well down the road in an ad hoc place: fresh oysters dripping with tart lemon, lamb with roasted garlic and vegetables in glossy gravy; vinaigrette lettuce leaves served with a huge cheese platter and glazed strawberry pastries topped off with an espresso.

All tossed back with a soft red. Yum!

PPS: We finally made it to this restaurant. On our very last Sunday in Brittany. The food was sublime and details of the meal are in a later blog: a sublime long table Sunday lunch. All of the guests, bar us and one other, were locals. They all wanted to learn our story and how we had found our way to this tucked-away restaurant in this tiny village, on this particular Sunday.  

Lovely creperie in Lannion

Ollivier, our local deli in Ploumilliau

Filled with deliciousness

Our five bedroomed home in Rugugen

Shuttered Parisienne summer home