La Mer, le Canal & les Pyrénées

Lovely looking place! Will you have friends visit you at all while you are in France?

I hope you sent a photo of the cutlery draw and crockery cupboards to the owner of the previous AirBnB.
 
What a lovely place, I'm sure you both will be very comfortable and enjoy your stay. It was a very good find by you.
 
Lovely looking place! Will you have friends visit you at all while you are in France?

Yes we will.

I hope you sent a photo of the cutlery draw and crockery cupboards to the owner of the previous AirBnB.

I don't think I'll bother. We have already given some suggestions as to how the place could be improved but they were not received in the spirit they were given. On the airBnB site he commented I was "particularly picky" and that I was probably a "mystery guest" for a hotel chain.

You just can't help some people.
 
Yes we will.



I don't think I'll bother. We have already given some suggestions as to how the place could be improved but they were not received in the spirit they were given. On the airBnB site he commented I was "particularly picky" and that I was probably a "mystery guest" for a hotel chain.

You just can't help some people.
Why on earth would a mystery guest from a hotel chain be staying in an AirBnB - WTF
 
le Marché à Lorient

After the disappointment of the marché in St-Nazaire, we were pleased to find a quite decent marché in Lorient. It's not quite to the same standard as the one in La Rochelle but it's pretty good just the same. It's open every morning from around 7-30 AM to 1-00 PM and on Wednesdays and Sundays it extends into the carpark in front of the building.

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Port Louis

The name Lorient is a shortening of L'Orient (the Orient) and it was from here that the French East India Company operated during the 17th and 18th centuries, although initially the company operated from Port Louis on the opposite shore and closer to the entrance. You can take a ferry to Port Louis for the princely sum of EUR 1-50 or drive (about 25 minutes). We drove as we had the car and we were able to get around town easily. There is a fort (Citadelle) on the headland protecting the harbour entrance (about a 10 minute walk from the ferry terminal).

There are two museums housed in the Citadelle: the Musée de la Compagnie des Indes and the Musée National de la Marine. The village also has a number of eateries near the ferry wharf and within the village as well as some on the ocean beach.

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More submarines

As noted in earlier posts, Lorient was chosen by the German Navy as the site of one of its five WW2 U-boat bases in western France. In fact, Lorient was the largest and at its peak could house 30 U-boats under bomb-proof roofing.

When we were planning our trip we didn't set out to make a tour of the German U-boat bases in western France. It just so happened that when searching for suitable accommodation, La Rochelle, Saint-Nazaire and Lorient were where we found places that met our requirements and were within our budget.

So we visited the base in Lorient where there are three sets of submarine pens: K1, K2 & K3. Towards the end of the war two more sets of pens were under construction (4a & 4b) which were to be used for the latest type 21 U-boats which were too big for the existing pens. However, 4a & 4b were never completed. It's quite incredible to think that the K1, 2 & 3 pens were completed in less than 2 years (more than 500,000 cubic metres of reinforced concrete). (The "K" stands for Kéroman, the name of the peninsula on which the base is built.)

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Here is a photo of what remains of K4b:

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All but one of the pens in K1 and K2 were dry docks. The remaining pen was open to the sea at one end and the other end had a ramp/slipway. U-boats would enter the wet pen and be placed onto a cradle then retrieved from the water via the ramp. They were then manoeuvred into one of the dry pens for maintenance,

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This is a French submarine on the cradle between K1 and K2 through which you can take a tour.

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This was a slow process for U-boats that just needed to be refueled and re-armed so K3 was built with direct water access so the U-boats could be turned around quickly.

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Here is K3 looking from the other side of the inlet:

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K1 & K2 are now leased out to various marine-related businesses:

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However much of K3 is as it was during the war so we decided to do a tour. It's available in English once per week (curently 1130 on Tuesdays). Inside the base is similar to the one at St-Nazaire so I won't post more photos except for this one taken inside the roof. There is 3.5 metres of reinforced concrete under these people's shoes and beams about a metre thick above. At the beginning of the war bombs exploded on impact so the idea was that the bombs would hit the beams and explode, the force would dissipate along the hollow leaving the roof below undamaged. Towards the end of the war, the allies used delayed action bombs but these were also ineffective.

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The guide on this tour was very knowledgeable about the U-boat operations and we learnt some interesting facts:
  • During the war the Germans built 1,162 U-boats of which 785 were destroyed.
  • At the peak of production, Germany was launching one U-boat every 36 hours on average (about 20 per month) but they were loosing them just as quickly. As a result the maximum number of U-boats at any one time was around 250.
  • In May 1943 alone they lost 41 U-boats due to advances in radar technology and improved tactics by the British. After that, U-boat operations in the North Atlantic were temporarily withdrawn.
  • At the start of the war the average age of a U-boat commander was 38; by the end of the war this had fallen to 21.
  • The U-boats could only stay submerged for around 24 to 36 hours (depending on the model) so they would surface during the night to replenish their air and run the diesel motors to recharge their batteries for underwater operation.
Basically when you left port you were not expected to return; those that did were given a hero's welcome. One heavily decorated commander based at La Rochelle managed to return to port three times.

Despite heavy bombing by the allies, the U-boat base at Lorient remained almost totally undamaged and in December 1942, Churchill's was cabinet decided that if they couldn't destroy the submarine pens then they would destroy the town around it, thereby denying the Germans of workers and supplies. Leaflets were dropped to warn the residents to leave town and by mid-February 1943, 90% of the town had been destroyed.



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Shortly afterwards, the French Navy took over the submarine base and used it until 1997.
 
Rennes

We were on our way to meet a friend at the airport in Rennes and had an hour to spare so we had a quick look around the city. Rennes is the current capital of Brittany and looks like a very pleasant city. One of Rennes' claims to fame is that in 2002 it became the smallest city in the world to have a metro line (since replaced by Lausanne in 2008.

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Mont-Saint-Michel

Just over an hour north of Rennes is the Mont-Saint-Michel. My first visit to the Mont was in 2010 with +1 and as this is the first time since then that we have been reasonably close to the area we decided that we had to visit again. Mont-Saint-Michel is an abbey, a town and an island. It was declared an historic monument in 1862 and was world heritage listed in 1979. It is one of the most visited sites in France with over 2.5 million visitors a year.

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Back in 2010 there was a man-made causeway and you drove to a car park at the base of the island.

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Problem was that the causeway and car park were causing the bay to silt up and the Mont was no longer an island. An ingenious solution was implemented. The casueway and car park were removed and a bridge bulit in its place. A weir was built on the small river at the head of the bay and is filled at high tide. The gates on the weir are then closed to hold the water back while the tide falls. Once there is a sufficient head of water the gates are opened and the rush of outgoing water washes silt out to sea.

The photo above shows most of the cars that were there on that day back in 2010. Now there are at least 13 carparks, each of which holds around the same number of cars that were parked at the Mont when we visited back then. There are free shuttles buses between the carparks and the island. Parking costs vary from free after 6-30 PM outside of peak season (July and August) to EUR25 for 6-24 hours in peak season.

If you want to avoid the crowds go outside of school holidays and go early morning or late afternoon/evening.

This is what the Mont looks like now without the carpark:

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The main street seen from the ramparts....

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And during the middle of the day...

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And one of the side streets...

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St Michel:

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There are a few cars allowed to park near the basse of the Mont (residents, VIPs or Disabled?) but be careful where you park at low tide. After all, it does have one of the largest tidal ranges in the world...

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We visited Mont St Michel in 2013. We stayed in a hotel on the Mont, it was so lovely wandering around once the crowds had all gone home and the sun rising early on the morning. Before the hoards of tourists returned for the day.
Brings back lovely memories.
 
We visited Mont St Michel in 2013. We stayed in a hotel on the Mont, it was so lovely wandering around once the crowds had all gone home and the sun rising early on the morning. Before the hoards of tourists returned for the day.
Brings back lovely memories.

Yes we looked at staying on the Mont but the cheapest I could find was >$800 per night per room and we needed two rooms. I would love to stay on the Mont but not at those prices. Even the village of Beauvoir on the mainland was very pricey. In 2010 we stayed at the Mecure there and it was quite reasonable, not this time (current prices start from around $330 per room).

Instead we found a small 2 bedroom house at Pontorson, about ten minutes drive from the carparks, for $187.
 
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Maybe if I had booked earlier but we didn't know we would be going until a couple of weeks before. Ah well, perhaps next time.
Yes that’s the place! Our room was one of those front ones.
It was amazing to watch the massive tide coming in from the abbey. There was also a famous omelette place on the Mont too. We ate there.

Thanks for the memories 😊
 
Here is K3 looking from the other side of the inlet:

This was the topic of an 'abandoned engineering' TV episode. As you observed, it was built incredibly strongly.

Inside the Abbey at Mont-Saint-Michel

Just swoonsville ! Trying to visit next year. This also was the topic of a TV show, about the architecture and engineering of it. Remarkable.
 

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