Bretagne: Land of Welcome!

“In Brittany people are slow to warm to you.”  “The Bretons are a reserved people who are sometimes seen as cold—at first—but who, once they feel sure of you, will welcome you into their hearts.”  Or so many Bretons have told us about themselves.  We have now been in Finistère, the westernmost department (like a county) in Brittany, for 2-1/2 weeks, and we haven’t felt a whiff of a cold breeze.  There is warmth everywhere we turn, in connections already-made in past years which are becoming true friendships, and in new encounters and acquaintances and the conversations which happen every day.

It began the day of our arrival, greeted at the Brest airport after a long 17+ hours of travel by the bright face & enthusiastic welcome of Marie-Louise.  We had met M-L and Alain her husband for a brief 2 hours last summer, interested in a possible future home exchange with them.  They opened their home in Landerneau to us for the first 2 days of our Adventure, feeding us and housing us and setting the tone of gracious hospitality and warm welcome for all that has followed.  M-L helped us pick up our car, and thanks to her we have  French cell phone plans.  (To open an account with one of the major cell service providers—rather than the kind of service we bought last year at a big-box store, which had poor coverage out here in the wild west of France—you have to have a French bank account.  Which we don’t, yet.  And we will face challenges opening a bank account, because to do so you have to have proof of address, like a utility bill.  And to have an address, whether to buy a home or rent an apartment, you have to have a bank account.  This is what we call a vicious circle, or a catch-22, and what the French call a boucle, which means “curl.”). M-L added us to her cell phone plan until we can establish our own!

A couple days later we celebrated our 2-year anniversary of friendship with Gwenael, whom we call our “Breton Godfather.”  In 2016 we were looking to re-visit the South of France, and it is due to his out-of-the-blue proposal to exchange homes with him that we first visited Brittany.  And fell in love—a coup de foudre, like a lightning strike, love at first sight.  We had a lovely lunch in his garden where it all began, and learned more about Breton identity and the Breton language and the struggles with the government to retain it and teach it.  Gwenael, a native Breton and fluent in the language, teaches history & geography in a high school, in Spanish, and is fighting for permission to teach in Breton!  He showed us around some more of his favorite towns and beaches on the south coast of Finistère…as we continue to gather information and listen for that whisper of place that will call to us and say, this is where you want to be…

A few days later we moved on to the Crozon Peninsula, wondering if that might be the part of Finistère that calls to us.  A week in Françoise’s AirBnB apartment, with a view over the Bay of Douarnenez and a 2-minute walk to the beach, gave us a chance to finally begin to REST after the past 3 months of labor, sorting and clearing and cleaning and letting go and ticking off tasks on a checklist.  (Kathleen had 5 nights of packing anxiety nightmares—finally “un-packing” all the built-up stress!).  The Crozon is rugged coastline, reaching out into the Atlantic from the western edge of Finistère, with a wild and searing beauty punctuated by stretches of clean soft sand beaches.

It makes for an unforgettable visit—but probably not the place for our home, isolated, far from medical facilities (one must think of these things…), and pretty much dead during the off-season.  Yet what a welcome!  We had some lovely connections with 3 artists in Camaret-sur-Mer, at the western tip of the Crozon.  (One of them has a corner of works in his gallery for “pay-what-you-will,” a fascinating experiment that draws in people who normally can’t afford to buy art works…and bargain-hunters…and children wanting to buy a gift for their parents!). And Françoise, a professor of music who is lively and sociable, took an interest in us and we in her, and we shared an evening of conversation & laughter, and ended our week in Crozon gifted with a bottle of champagne and an invitation to stay with her in her flat in Paris!

One place in Crozon particularly captured our hearts:  Landévennec, a village on the Aulne River estuary as it meanders into the deep long harbor of Brest (the Rade of Brest).  On this sheltered site surrounded by wooded hillsides, the Breton St. Guénolé founded the first monastery in Bretagne in the 5th century, modeled after the Celtic monastic tradition.  At the request of the Carolingian emperor, the abbey became Benedictine in the 9th century, was destroyed by Vikings a few decades later, rebuilt several times after raids by the Normans and others, and finally fell definitively during the French Revolution (as was the fate of many churches throughout France, the power of the Church being intertwined with the power of the monarchy).  We visited the picturesque ruins, the engrossing museum attached to the old abbey, and the new Benedictine monastery founded 65 years ago on the hillside above the old.  There is a peace that envelops the entire village, a quiet beauty far different from the breathtaking views along the Crozon coast, but equally enticing.

Abbaye St. Guénolé

Community having been important to us our whole lives, we have abandoned Kathleen’s original notion of moving progressively down the Finistère coast from north to south, exploring each micro-region in a somewhat methodical manner.  Better to follow connections we make with people here!  Thus we were thrilled to accept an invitation from our “Breton Godmother,”  Emmanuelle (who traveled to Seattle w/Gwenael in 2016), crossing the whole of Brittany from West to East (a 3-hour drive) to spend several days with her in her restored 1812 stone home in a tiny rural hamlet near Bain-de-Bretagne, south of Rennes.  We spent a day at the annual Festival of Photography, which takes over the entire charming village of La Gacilly for the entire summer, with 30 immersive outdoor exhibitions mounting large photos around the theme of La Terre—inviting people to think about the fragility of our planet and its future.

We visited La Roche aux Fées, a megalithic dolmen dating back 4,500 years, which was used as a burial site or “passage tomb” by our prehistoric ancestors.  It was originally built up into a tumulus like the site at Newgrange in Ireland, covered with earth and smaller stones.

Emmanuelle works in and teaches marketing and product development, AND runs a bed-and-breakfast at her home.  She is intelligent and good-humored, reflective and engaged in world and local events.  And she is terrific cook who learned to make crêpes from her mother, and gave us a lesson!  We are delighted and privileged to deepen our friendship with her! 

Oh, and in that first week after our arrival we were also welcomed by the Tour de France as it came through the small town of Cast (where we gathered with lots of families come to cheer on the cyclists), and by the French soccer team winning first the semifinals and then the World Cup Championship!

But the most amazing gift we have saved to tell you about last:  The ideal apartment has dropped into our laps, and only days into our life here!  Evelyne is a warm and lovely woman in whose AirBnB we stayed for a week last year in Quimper.  It was a perfect location, in the hyper-centre of the historic heart of Quimper, 80 steps from the doors of the Cathedral.  During that week we visited over an apéritif, in Evelyne’s own apartment one floor below the AirBnB rental, and she drove us to the airport.  We stayed in touch a bit over the winter and spring.  Two days after our arrival, she sent an email saying that she wished to welcome us to Bretagne, and also, by the way, “I’ve bought a house in Pont-l’Abbé and I’m putting my two apartments up for sale.”  Her apartments went on the market that very day, we visited her 2 days later, and we’re now, already, beginning the process of buying her apartment!

The timing is amazing.  The fact is that Kathleen wanted to book plane tickets for a week or so later than we did, to make sure that the sale of our home in Seattle had time to close.  But John insisted on leaving no later than we did, and since he is usually so amenable and rarely makes demands, Kathleen conceded to his request.  At some level did he know that there was a reason to arrive when we did?  For if we had come the following week, Evelyne’s apartment would already be under contract, so desirable is the location and the home itself.  In fact she gave us a few days to think about it and held it in priority for us, while still showing it to other buyers—2 of whom continue to phone her to see if it is back on the market!

We will share more about the apartment and the lovely Evelyne in another post, as this is already too long (we hope future posts will be shorter and more frequent!).  Mainly we want to share now how magical it all feels, how this opportunity as well as all of the time since we arrived seems to confirm our decision to take on this new Adventure.  We feel blessed on this path, and held and carried with great beneficence.

Watch this video for a sight-and-sound experience of how we are feeling welcomed in Bretagne!