Language, Max Jacob, and Flowers

Sunday, May 12, 2013  Max Jacob, Fine Art, and Flowers

This is our last touring day in France.  Tomorrow we take the TGV train to CDG airport, and Tuesday we fly home.

Bretons have their own language, derived from Celtic, which is on all of the road signs:

 

Supposedly, significant numbers of children study the Breton language in school, a reversal of a trend to eliminate it from public life. 

We began today thinking we were going to go to the fabulous chateau I mentioned yesterday, but discovered (fortunately before we left) that it doesn’t open for the season until June 1.  So we began our day visiting one of the few things open on Sunday morning, the Fine Arts Museum, where we finally learned a considerable amount about Max Jacob, a man whose name is honored in many places here in Quimper (including a bridge—you can see the sign at the bottom of the above photo).  According to Wikipedia:

After spending his childhood in Quimper, Brittany, France, he enrolled in the Paris Colonial School, which he left in 1897 for an artistic career. He was one of the first friends Pablo Picasso made in Paris. They met in the summer of 1901, and it was Jacob who helped the young artist learn French.^[1] Later, on the Boulevard Voltaire, he shared a room with Picasso,^[2] who remained a lifelong friend (and was included in his artwork Three Musicians). Jacob introduced him to Guillaume Apollinaire, who in turn introduced Picasso to Georges Braque. He would become close friends with Jean Cocteau, Jean Hugo, Christopher Wood and Amedeo Modigliani, who painted his portrait in 1916. He also befriended and encouraged the artist Romanin, otherwise known as French politician and future Resistance leader Jean Moulin. Moulin's famous nom de guerre Max is presumed to be selected in honor of Jacob.

Jacob, who had Jewish origins, claimed to have had a vision of Christ in 1909, and converted to Catholicism.

Max Jacob is regarded as an important link between the symbolists and the surrealists, as can be seen in his prose poems Le cornet à dés (The Dice Box, 1917 - the 1948 Gallimard edition was illustrated by Jean Hugo) and in his paintings, exhibitions of which were held in New York City in 1930 and 1938.

His writings include the novel Saint Matorel (1911), the verses Le laboratoire central (1921), and Le défense de Tartuffe (1919), which expounds his philosophical and religious attitudes.

What this bio does not say is that despite his conversion to Christianity, to the Nazis he was a Jew and he died of pneumonia in a concentration camp waiting to be sent to Auschwitz (where he surely would have died).  The museum has an extensive exhibit about him, his paintings, paintings of him by very famous artists, and other material.  Here are two settings of his writing to music by Francis Poulenc:

 

After lunch we went to a garden recommended by our hosts at the B&B.  The Parc de Boutiguery is a 20 hectare (50 acre) garden which is open only a few days a year, on the weekends in spring.  Just about all the flowers are rhododendrons and azaleas, with a few other flowering trees and bushes.  We met the man whose work it is, one Chritian de la Sablière, who is an amateur, not a trained botanist, but has created literally hundreds of rhododendron and azalea hybrids.  His friend, who is the president of the French Rhododendron Society (I never knew there was such a thing) translated as we spoke and learned about him and the garden.  It is truly enormous, a labor of love, and clearly not designed by a professional garden designer, as there is a jumble of everything everywhere.  But it is astonishing:

 

Here is the largest rhododendron I’ve ever seen:

 

And here the largest Azalea:

 

Here are wisteria on a cottage on the property:

 

And here is a Breton scarecrow:

 

We walked in an astonishing azalea labarynth:

 

 

Well, unless there’s some adventure on the way home to write about, that’s the end of the last post of the blog.  I’m looking forward to the TGV train, and our flight to JFK is on an Airbus A-380, the giant double-decker plane.  This plane, believe it or not, is certified to carry 853 people in the tightest all-coach configuration.  Air France configures it to hold “only” 538.  We’ll see how they manage that on the ground and in the air.  Thanks to all who sent notes!

Victor

Concarneau, Pont-Aven and Celtic Music

May 11, 2013 Concarneau, Pont-Aven and Celtic music

A really busy day today.  After an early breakfast we left for the small port town of Concarneau, a bit southeast of Quimper on the Breton Atlantic coast.  Here we visited Ville Close, a medieval fortress-islet:

 

A word about weather to explain the next picture.  Every day is a mixture of sunshine, clouds, misty (almost Irish) wetness in the air, and a few minutes of rain here and there which doesn’t last.  The changes occur every 10 or 15 minutes!  It’s truly astonishing.  The profusion of beautiful flowers and the fertility of the land must be at least in part to this combination.  There’s also a fair amount of wind.  So you can imagine the seeds of things flying around, grabbing a perch where they can, and growing because there is constant moisture.  Look at this, which is typical, on the walls of Concarneau:

 

Today the islet is a mixture of tourist shops and galleries.  We came across a performance of Breton music and it’s really easy to hear the Celtic origins.  Note the bowing of a triangular string instrument:

 

We then drove to some of the remote coast to see and feel the Atlantic air, and had lunch in a tiny town on the coast.  After lunch we drove to the absolutely gorgeous little town of Pont-Aven, a haven for artists including Gaugin.  Everywhere you look there is a beautiful view, such as:

 

 

This is the exact site where Gaugin painted one of his canvases, and there is a reproduction of that canvas on a post at the spot.  There is an abundance of art galleries to visit (and buy from) here.  The public WC is stone and hangs over the river.  I hope the plumbing is carried elsewhere!  Note the WC sign on the side of the building:

 

On the way back we toured the Manoir de Kerazan, a lovely old home where there just happened to be an antiques show happening:

 

Tomorrow the Chateau de Keriolet which Fodor’s calls a “fairy-tale neo-Gothic extravaganza” and museums.

Quimper faience, Kodak and crepes

Friday, May 10, 2013 Quimper

In some ways, at least for Joyce, today was the end of a pilgrimage, and it wasn’t what we came for.

The museum dedicated to Quimper faience (pottery) is adjacent to the factory where the pottery is made.  According to the web site and guide books, tours are offered three times a day, the first at 11:00 AM, Monday through Friday.  We’re here four nights and three days (five days and four nights in travel agent terms).  As Wednesday and Thursday were holidays and the weekend begins tomorrow, today was the only day we had to see the production.

We arrived at the museum at 10:00, its opening time.  It’s small but has an astonishing collection of historical Quimper pottery.  The subjects range all over the place, and many artists are featured in the collection.  Among the more interesting pieces (at least to us) was this depiction of the death of Emile Zola (of J’Accuse fame during the Dreyfus affair).  The word “depotoir” translates as garbage dump or the like.

 There are gorgeous large pieces:

 

After seeing the museum we went around the corner to the factory/store.  Asked about the tour?  The factory is not operating today.  Yes, hit by the five-day weekend as I’ve outlined before.  Of course the shop is open:

 

We wandered this lovely city for most of the day, and came across an interesting building.  In this city of stone buildings, where everything matches, this art-deco (?) building with a giant “KODAK” on it was shuttered tightly.  It’s sort of amusing to try to make a story out of this, but ultimately, whatever the story is, it’s sad.

 

Of course there’s yet another fabulous Gothic cathedral here with an especially impressive organ:

 

 

Finally, there are small gardens everywhere which are beautifully cared for.  In this one, a poor soul with terrible kyphosis, obviously from osteoporosis due to his smoking, is getting a lecture:

 

There are creperies everywhere, and tonight we had a typical Breton crepe dinner.  I had a salmon and chive crepe and Joyce had an onion and mushroom crepe.  The dinner crepes (called galettes) are made of salted buckwheat and are wonderful.  Typically, you follow the galette with a dessert crepe, which is made with flour and butter.  Joyce had a flaming orange marmalade, grand marnier and chocolate crepe, and I had a sautéed banana and chocolate ice cream crepe.  All I can say is “Wow”.

Tomorrow off to the nearby towns of Concarneau and Pont-Aven.

Brittany North to South

Thursday, May 9, 2013 Brittany north to south

This was a driving day with some sightseeing.  We began on the Channel Coast and from Trebeurden, where we spent the night, drove to the Sentier des Douaniers, a long seaside footpath along the “pink” granite walls of stone rising from the sea:

 

The stone changes color with the light, but it never looked pink to me.  We picked a small road route marked on the Michelin map as being beautiful to traverse Brittany to the Atlantic coast, ending up in Quimper.  Now I had the holiday days wrong.  Yesterday was the WW II memorial.  Today is a bank holiday and tomorrow is the “work day” on which no one works.  Everything was closed today.  As we traveled through central Brittany, there was nowhere to buy gas.  All the stations were closed for the holiday.  There were a few places where the pumps were open, however, for use with credit cards.  We tried a couple and couldn’t get my cards to work.  It was getting bad.  Finally, at one of the “closed” gas stations, I asked a motorcyclist who had just filled up to help me.  I thought I was doing something wrong with my card or the machine at the pump.  He looked at my card and said it was the problem.  All over Europe they have “smart” cards with a chip in them.  That kind of card is necessary to use the gas station machines.  Of course in the USA we have no smart cards.  Fortunately I had cash, and he very kindly offered to put our gas on his card and take cash from me.  We would have been in deep trouble if we had not found such a kind person.

The road was lovely, passing through picturesque and beautiful Breton towns.  But they were buttoned up tightly.  There was nowhere to eat.  Not a single creperie, not a bakery to buy bread or baked goods, no markets, nothing.  Finally, in a small town, a bit after 2:00 we found a restaurant with lights on and people eating.  We went in and they had closed the kitchen and were about to close up.  We used the bathroom there and left, and ate energy bars we carry for just those occasions.  Ugh.  American energy bars in France for lunch.

Our final four days in Brittany are at a lovely B&B just outside of Quimper.  It is owned and run by a couple who have had it in their family for many generations.  They don’t know how many!  He had been in finance in Paris, their children are grown and gone, and he was fed up with the rat race.  This had been their vacation home, and they moved here and fixed it up as a B&B.  Here’s the front entrance:

 

And here’s the back:

 

The property is enormous, and fronts the Oder River.  Our room is large and lovely and has a giant fireplace:

 

Tomorrow is a work day (supposedly).  We plan to tour the Quimper faience factory and museum, and more.

The Channel Coast of Brittany

Wednesday, May 8, 2013  The Breton coast

Today we left the Mont St-Michel area and drove west along the Channel Coast of Brittany.  The architecture has changed dramatically from Normandy to Brittany—no more half-timbered houses (what we call Tudor) but now stone and more stone:

 

 

 

Diving along the coast we came to the small village of St. Benoit des Ondes where we came across multiple advertisements for Antiquites and Brocante (which means “flea” in French). 

 

The market is being held on a Wednesday as today is a holiday—recognizing the end of WW II.  It seems Friday is some other holiday, and everyone takes Thursday off between the two holidays, resulting in a national 5-day weekend.  It sounds a little like our national 4-day weekend at Thanksgiving, although one proprietor told us they have a number of these in France.  I don’t know.  Anyway, finding this market necessitated an hour plus-long stop, but resulted in no finds.  According to Joyce, that treasure is always at the next vendor, or maybe the one after, or the one….  You get the picture.

 

The coast here is very dramatic with bluffs, multiple small offshore islands, and wind. 

 

We stopped at two small resort towns across an estuary from each other, which were packed with people celebrating the very long weekend.  One is the walled town of St. Malo, the other very interesting one is Dinard where the British came in large numbers in the 19^th century to “take the cure” at the seaside. They built astonishing and lavish Belle Epoch villas which still remain:

 

We wound our way west, and are staying the night in the lovely town of Trebeurdin which we’ll explore tomorrow before setting off south for Quimper.

Mont St-Michel

Tuesday, May 7, 2013; Mont St-Michel

This is an astonishing place to visit; the third most visited place in France (after the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre).  It is both a religious building and a fort, built over a span of 500 years, starting in 1017 and ending in 1521.  It was “a political football” in the words of Fodor’s, and to understand it you need to understand the history of England, Normandy, Brittany, and the Franks.  Suffice it to say, it is a most impressive structure.

The countryside here is flat as a pancake, so that as you approach the Mont it rises out of the distance above the farmland:

 

 

 

Currently it is surrounded completely by water only twice a month when the tides are the highest, but the sand of the flats surrounding the mountain are treacherous and, supposedly, tourists have died in quicksand and because of the inrushing tidal bore which is among the highest in the world.  Currently you park in a vast sea of parking on the mainland and take a shuttle over a causeway to the base of the mountain.  There is a small village at the base of the mountain which contains tourist shops, restaurants and a couple of hotels.

 

You then begin to climb and climb and climb.  And climb.  At the top, as you look out, it is easy to see why it was impossible to attack this place.  It was never done successfully.  We were there at low tide, and In the photo below there is a group of tourists on the sand being led on a sand tour (which we did not take).

 

The rooms are amazing.  All of the stone for the construction was brought to the site from a quarry miles away, by boat.  There is a beautiful church, and the bell in the tower is rung by hand using the rope you can see hanging down:

 

While we were there they tolled noon, and went on tolling for about ten minutes.  There has been a Dominican monastery here for almost 1000 years, and the history is fascinating.  They are a contemplative order, and the story of their self-sacrifice and piety is not understandable to me.  Here are the monks and nuns at Mass:

 

The Mont has a wonderful audio guide which we took, and it was about 2 ½ hours to go through the whole thing.  Here’s the cloister:

 

We then had a late lunch and shopped some at the tourist stores on the way down.  Tomorrow on to the Brittany coast.

 

Impressionists, Calvados and Camembert

Sunday-Monday, May 5-6, 2013, Impressionists, Calvados and Camembert

We devoted Sunday to the Museum of Fine Arts in Rouen, and, as with all museums when you try to pack the visit into a short time, we couldn’t do it justice.  There were two parts we knew we wanted to see—first, the permanent collection, and second, the temporary exhibit of 100 major impressionist paintings from all over the world.  We spent the morning in the permanent exhibit which has a very large number of painting (and some sculpture) from the 18^th and 19^th centuries as well as a small permanent impressionist exhibit.  Amazingly, there were no objections to non-flash photography!  Witness fabulous Monet and Renoir:

 

 

 

After lunch at the museum we went to the spectacular temporary impressionist exhibit and lingered there.  Wandered Rouen, had a great dinner, and left this morning for Mont St. Michel.  We eschewed highways, and drove small roads, aiming first for a visit to a Calvados making facility.

Calvados is an apple cider based brandy.  The production is very much like wine-making with two distillations thrown in.  The process goes back centuries, and the buildings at the plant do too:

 

 

 

Just as with wine, some Calvados is aged many years in barrels, and the older it is the more valuable. Some distillers create vintages (but not all). 

 

 

 The distillery itself looks like a Willie Wonka creation:

 

 

They have some non-PC barrel taps:

 

The Calvados darkens as it ages:

 

After a tour of the production facility we had a tasting which was delightful, but boy, that stuff is powerful—70% alcohol!  We had lunch at the restaurant at the Calvados distillery and then left for the tiny town of Camembert, to visit the Maison du Camembert which is a museum dedicated to that one cheese.

 

More than anyone wants to know about Camembert cheese, and after the museum and the videos, a cheese tasting of multiple different Camemberts.  There is a difference!

We then drove (again avoiding the superhighways, winding through beautiful small Norman towns) to the small town of Ducey and we’ll stay here two nights, devoting the day tomorrow to a visit to Mont St. Michel.

 More when there’s more to say.