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France is a popular destination for motorcyclists, including me. For some odd reason, though, foreign riders seem to ignore Brittany. The locals know better and so do I, now that I have discovered the place. A friend of mine lives in Redon and when I visited him, I had my eyes opened to the beauty of the Armorican peninsula that reaches out into the Atlantic from the northern coast of France.
We were standing on an oak-lined ridge overlooking the river Vilaine which runs through gentle water meadows filled with luscious-looking grass. Campbell was explaining to me why the Norse sailors who brought their ships up the river would have decided to settle here. While they weren’t all Vikings – many were traders in freight-carrying knarrs rather than dragon ships – they were all quite happy to dispossess the locals and settle where the land looked good for their herds.
Breton rivers often have towpaths which are rideable. Photo: The Bear
It’s important to remember that even the Norse who went viking did not just go for plunder and slaves. They were also looking for land, and being herdsmen above all they would have found the meadows of the Vilaine very much to their taste. Back home, some of their properties were so steep that they had to tie their children on with ropes while they played. This is not a myth. Like their brothers who settled on the coast further east and gave their name to the land – Normandy, or the land of the northmen – they established settlements, but they did not overpower the culture of the local Celtic population.
Those Celts had themselves been invaders, displaced from Cornwall, Devon and Wales by of the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons who took advantage of the collapse of the Roman Empire to invade the British Isles. Their large-scale migration swamped the Gallic population and its menhir-erecting culture (remember Obelix? You can still find his work in Brittany) on the Armorican peninsula to establish a Brythonic society. It was this culture that managed to withstand repeated incursions by the Norse, and more or less incorporated them into its ranks.
King Erispoe united Brittany in 851, and it more or less maintained its independence through various vicissitudes until the union with France in 1532. Its fortunes changed with the times, and in the latter part of the 19th Century, Brittany suffered the same pattern of emigration as other rural lands. It remains agricultural and fairly thinly settled to this day, although there are industrial cities on the coast.
The giant “Bridge of Normandy” at Le Havre is toll free for motorcycles. Photo: The Bear
Bretons have a way of asserting what remains of their independence. In 2014, Breton activists destroyed hundreds of highway speed cameras and other enforcement constructions in their successful campaign to have a tax on the transport of agricultural products abolished. A tough crowd, you may think, but in fact Bretons are hospitable and friendly to a fault. An elderly couple once opened their supposedly closed – as in closed down, for good – hotel for me because I was having trouble finding somewhere to stay for the night.
Unfortunately this is about the closest you can get to Mont-St-Michel with a bike. Photo: The Bear
This was an informative occasion, actually. I had intended to go and see Mont-St-Michel, the futuristic-looking but ancient towering settlement on its island in Le Manche, what the British call the English Channel. I arrived to find that I would have to park the bike and take a bus over to the island. It was afternoon, so I thought I’d try to find somewhere to stay nearby and visit the mount in the morning to have a bit more time there. It was the off season, so I had expected to find a room without too much trouble. My mistake. Everything was booked out and I was almost expecting to have to continue on to St-Malo until those kind people accommodated me.
An important reminder. If you are anywhere near a major tourist attraction of some kind anywhere in Europe, not just France, expect crowding of the attraction itself as well as accommodation and even dining opportunities at any time. This coming year I hope to write about some places for you that can easily take over from well-known ones for a visit, without the crowding.
A typical back road in Brittany invites motorcycling. Photo: The Bear
And this is where Brittany comes into its own. From its double row of mountains (well, hills) to its lush river valleys and coastlines – rugged in the north, gentle in the south and west – it is one of the few parts of France that both offers wonderful scenery and empty roads. Do keep in mind that the French authorities have replaced those radar cameras destroyed by the Bretons! If you’re at Le Mans for the racing or just on the road in France, include Brittany in your plans.
When you do need accommodation in relatively touristy places, such as the northern coast, the best option is to ask the local tourist office to find a place for you. The service is universally free in Europe (as far as I know) and saves endless riding around looking for “vacant” signs.
This fake fairytale palace is where they make Benedictine. Photo: The Bear
Mind you, there are always touristy places that deserve a visit anyway. One of these is the small town of Fécamp in Normandy on your way to Brittany. In 1863, Alexandre Le Grand developed a recipe for an herbal liqueur from old medicinal recipes from a religious foundation. To market it, he made up a story of it having been developed by monks at the Benedictine Abbey of Fécamp, and built the most amazing (in the true sense of the word) fairytale distillery to produce it. A tour of the premises and some sampling is fun, but you could even just admire the buildings.
Finally, where did the “real” Asterix, Obelix and the druid Getafix live? Most archaeologists point to the present-day village of Erquy on the northern coast facing Cornwall. Apparently René Goscinny, the creator of Asterix the Gaul, knew the village well.
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