Brittany - Carnac & Beyond

A morning in and around the fishing village of Locmariaquer awaits us. Megalithic monuments in the surrounding area include the Mané-Lud Carnac mound, a large and prominent passage tomb with a central burial at the entrance to the village; the passage-tomb of Mané Rutuel; and the giant fallen stone known as the Grand Menhir Brisé. When intact, the latter stone was over 20 metres high and weighed an incredible 280 tonnes. We end the day at the Table des Marchands, a passage grave with an exceptionally high burial chamber, capped with a huge, partly decorated stone.

We travel by boat to the island of Gavrinis in the Gulf of Morbihan, where we visit a large and important passage grave that was constructed around 3500. The stones of the passage and capstone of the tomb are decorated with symbolic and abstract designs in a virtuoso display of prehistoric art. We will also stop to view the stone circle of Er-Lannic on its islet before we return to Lamor Baden. One circle marches into the sea and the second has long since vanished beneath the waves. We end the day with a visit to the excellent Archaeological Museum in Vannes before returning to our hotel for the evening.

We visit various sites between Plouharnel and Erdeven, including Mané-Kerioned, a group of three dolmens, the impressive dolmen at Crucuno that is partly incorporated into a farmhouse, and also the passage graves of Mané-Groh and Rondossec. Continue to Carnac Prehistory Museum, the richest in the world for Megalithic culture and founded by the Scottish antiquary James Milns, who was the first (and last) to excavate extensively at Carnac. This museum contains a wonderful array of artefacts, including Alpine jade axes, some of the best-preserved jewellery and exquisitely knapped arrowheads.

Today is spent exploring the wonderful Megalithic sites of Carnac. The fantastic rows of stones, over 3,000 of them, run for over three kilometres across the Breton countryside. They are accompanied by tombs in the form of tumuli and dolmens (eroded stone-built tombs with capstones). There are four groups of alignments, three of which may once have formed a single conglomeration. We visit the rows at Le Menec and view the alignments of Kermario. After lunch, we explore the passage grave at Kercado and visit the menhir known as Le Géant du Manio. Along a forest trail, we find this giant in a clearing, standing over six metres high.

We delve into the Le Rocher passage tomb and then it’s on to explore the Arzon peninsula, on the south side of the Gulf of Morbihan, where we visit the Petit Mont Cairn. This extraordinary cairn has been much reconstructed, but is still a very impressive construction of about 4600 BC, with several phases of burial chambers. It was commandeered in 1943 to have a bunker – part of the Atlantic Wall – built into it. Ironically, the damage created revealed the very first dolmen chamber.