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Auray, StGoustan and the Quiberon peninsula

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Brittany-Morbihan-Auray, St.Goustan and the Quiberon peninsula.

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Introduction

Climate

Bretons

Music

Cuisine

History

Up northeast from Trinité sur Mer, lies AURAY, a fantastic departure point for sailing and cruises. It's an important place of the history of Brittany because it is here that Jean de Montfort won a battle against Charles de Blois to become duke of Bretagne.

Saint-Goustan

It is a cute and agreeable city, with attractive, old sections, especially the quarter of SAINT-GOUSTAN, (2 km from the Auray station), once one of the busiest little ports of Brittany, a pure picture book, with its cobbled square and old grey stone houses, brightened with mass of flowers. You can watch, standing on a medieval bridge, the twisting river between steep houses and ateliers where the captains lived in the 15th century. It's on the quays of Saint-Goustan that Benjamin Franklin landed in 1776 to seek French support for the American War of Independence. This area is very popular with the youth but not so recommendable when night falls, but during the day colourful parasols shade white tables at which tourists sit and write the inevitable postcards. In summer you can take a nice boat tour in the golfe du Morbihan. Don't forget to have a look at the schooner "Saint-Sauveur", a replica of a merchant's ship that transported mine wood to Wales and brought back coals for heating. It's now a museum.
Up here is the more down-to-earth Auray with its shops, market square and 17th century St. Gilda church, worth a visit. Another site, quite well known, is the probably most important shrine in Brittany, STE.ANNE D'AURAY. Be there on a 25 or 26th of July, when the great "pardon" pilgrims come from all over France to pray to the mother of Virgin Mary. Almost every week (from March until October) there is a parish pilgrimage dotted with "pardon" ceremonies from all of the dioceses of Brittany and elsewhere, and by different religious movements. Thousands of devout Catholics flood into the small town and join into the processions to the 19th century built basilica.

Let's now have a few words about the peninsula of QUIBERON, a 14 km strip of land that juts out from Carnac, so fragilely linked to the mainland that at some points the road is bordered on two sides by the pounding sea, with sheltered shallows to the east and such heavy winds that thorn-bushes are crooked-grown. This wild coast is called "La Cote Sauvage".
On the peninsula is the village of Quiberon, former little fishers village, now a lively bath resort with a few thalasso-theurapetical institutes. Vestiges of Quiberon's past are still to see in Port Maria,

Port Haliguen

where the sardines are landed and canned in nearby factories. Don't be lured by the cute looking fish restaurants. They are more tourist orientated and don't offer such good value.
PORT HALIGUEN is the eastern port of the Quiberon peninsula, a busy, modern yacht harbour.

Having a reputation of exceptionally healthy, heavily iodised air, there is a world famous Thalassotherapy Institute--one of the first in France-at the POINTE DU CONGUEL with a spectacular view on Belle-Ile and the two smaller islands of Houat and Hoedic.

Bibliography

Le Golfe du Morbihan , by Yvon Mauffret-A Breton Landscape , by Grenville Astill, (Wendy Davies (1998)-La grande histoire de Sainte-Anne d'Auray, by Patrick Huche-Historique et souvenirs de Quiberon, by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle- Vincey Joe at Quiberon
by Showell Style.

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