On the French side of my blog, I wrote a post about what it meant to be Breton in Brittany... But it is not really interesting for non French people...
So, I'll do it on my English side more worldwide : What does it mean to you being French? Lots of clichés, for sure... Same things about French manners ! How French man or lady act in society ?
Wide question !
Are you intested in learning more about the real way of life of a French or of a Breton... If you travel by car, you must cross Brittany, our small Britain. And you want to understand more about this wonderful place for sure...
By the way, as you probably know, Bretagne in French is either Britain or Brittany. Britain is for us the Great one (Grande Bretagne, Great Britain) and Brittany (Bretagne) is the French one. And Breton can be used for British and for Breton.
So, while travelling around, investigate the French way of life and the one of Brittany's people ! and compare ! French clichés for beginners ! !!!

About French table manners
French people like to remain at table for hours
If you don't sauce your dish with bread, you're out !
One hamburger is eaten while 9 baguette sandwich are tasted
365 cheeses on the French territory, one a day... with green salad !

The French way of life in the Breton cuisine
- Bretons feast in a creperie
- They buy only cauliflower "Prince of Brittany" (and produced in Brittany , not in Britain!)
- They enjoy oysters on the port of Cancale (and during good months ...)
- They only eat Plougastel strawberries ... (Plougastel is a city in the west of Brittany)

French feel French when
They speak loud
They criticize their administration
They strike all the time
The national sport : to steal tax

Bretons feel Breton when they ...
- dance in the Fest Noz! (fest noz is a breton word meaning night party where you dance to Breton music).
- swear that their grandmother wore a cap in the last century!
- punctuate every sentence with a Kenavo (thank you in breton language)!
- wear a sticker "A l'aise Breizh" on the car (means be confortable, man)

How French Parisians look at Bretons
- They wear wooden clogs
- They have discovered the frigde in the 2000's
- They're narrow minded,backward.... in short stubborn like a Breton
- Brittany, it is "province", there's nothing to do there...

How Breton look at Parisians
- Look how slow he is driving... Must be a Parisian on holydays...
- Look at those Parisians with their yellow raincoat and boots... Ah, Ah, Ah !
- Don't know how to eat pancakes : just two ingredients, more you won't taste the galette, ignorant !
- I do love Parisians ! No, no way, they're too arrogant and do not know anything about anything ...

See how the love story goes ! French unions are perfect !
I could go on (LOL) .... !!!! but I leave the pen! For Your opinion! About French manners, acting, speaking, eating...
And don't act wrongly now !

Want to visit a very famous French monument… the Mont Saint Michel… A really good idea for a cultural week end in Northern France.
Before getting there, do you want to play… with this little quiz …
And want to learn everything you always wanted to know about the rocky island ... practical informations and nice anecdotes, you’ll discover an unusual Mont Saint Michel.

1 - The residents of Mont Saint Michel are called:

- The Michelins
- The Montois
- The Miquelots

The residents of the Mount are called the Montois

2 - Tourists at Mont Saint Michel, how many ?

- 30 000 visitors per year
- 300 000
- 3 000 000

Over 3 million visitors a year (an average of more than 8000 per day!) And the number increases every year. It is one of the most visited sites in France after Paris. That reputation has centuries of life…Since the Middle Ages (12th), the pilgrims arrived to the Mount and stayed several days. Old houses (15th and 16th C) were inns or shops. The pilgrims left the abbey with souvenirs such as lead bulbs filled with sand.

3 - Le Mont Saint Michel and his daily life:

The Mount belongs to 3 families
There are about thirty residents
100 shops enliven the island

Actually 3 families share both the administration of the county and the shops. About 40 people live on the Mount. In short, 3 families, 300 businesses and 3 million visitors. The Mount loves the 3.



4 - Le Mont Saint Michel: his titles and awards
In your opinion, it

- listed as a historic monument
- is is one of the World Heritage List of UNESCO
- Belongs to the category "touristic city"
- Is one of the seven wonders of the world

The Mont is listed as a historical monument since 1874. Almost 100 years later, in 1979, it is an heritage of Unesco. In 2009, it is a touristic city that means that it has an accommodation capacity forlots of tourists and especially a particular legal regime in different areas (rest of the employees or beverage for example). It is a wonderful place but it is not one of the 7 wonders of the world.

5 - The origins of the cult of the Mont Saint Michel

- Druids started the cult there
- Ii is an angel who wanted the erection of the abbey
- It is a king of France who built it

It was a place where druids used to venerate their gods and also a tomb dedicated to the popular veneration, that's how the touristic guide Joanne presents it in its 1884 edition.


This is not an angel but an archangel ... says the legend. An archangel is a superior angel,he is above the angels and can act without God's permission. The Archangel Michael asked several times the bishop of Avranches to build a convent on the Mount .
And when in 709, he led the monks, a wonderful stamp indicated the place where the abbey had to be erected. A spring gushes too to provide drinkable water to the monks.

The Mount was attacked and destroyed several times in the Middle Ages. Philippe Auguste, a French King, attempted to conquer Normandy and asked his men to besiege it, they burnt it.The King rebuilt the abbey and fortress Tombelaine. It is the origin of the Wonder.

6 - What is la Merveille the Wonder as we call it in France?

- The whole Mount : village and religious buildings
- 3 floors of the monastery
- Part of the religious building

It is only the Northern part of the monastery dating from the 13th century.
It still includes 6 different spaces on 3 levels: 3 dining rooms one for the poors, at the bottom, one for prestigious people such as King and at last the monks' refectory. The other wing includes the cellar, the Knights' Hall and the cloister. All those religious buildings are a mixture of architectural styles: Pre-Romanesque, Romanesque and Gothic.

7 - Le Mont Saint Michel and its nicknames?

- It was called Tombelaine
- Saint Michel at the peril of the sea
- The Wonder

No, Tombelaine, another fortified rock of the bay, has also been the subject of numerous battles and conquests. It was also called Mont Tombe.

With the reputation of the pilgrimage which had an international success in the Middle Ages, the pilgrims had to cross the bay to visit the rock. It was and it is very dangerous : drownings, mudslides (quicksand) were and are very common ... even today, there are still dead ... You definetly need a guide to walk in the bay. And therefore it was called Saint Michel au péril de la Mer, St. Michel at the peril of the sea.

8 – The Mont Saint Michel and its nationalities:

- Independent?
- English
- Breton
- Norman

Independent! Even so, since a digue (1877) connects the island of Mont Saint Michel to the mainland, the silting of the bay goes on, the rock becomes an island just during high tides. Works are to be done to change the dam to allow the sea to flow into the bay (which should be less silt), and thereb yto give the Mount its independence of origin.

English ... Yes, during the 100 Years War in 1427, the English after a long siege took the site. The pilgrims continued to go to the abbey Mont Saint Michel with safe-conduct they paid to the enemy.

Breton ... In 1204, they besieged the rock, burnt it and eventually conquered it back but for very short time... Duguesclin, the famous friend of Joan of Arc was Breton. He was captain of the Mount and built a house (1366) for his wife Tiphaine (which can still be visited today).

Norman ... Well, yes,it is Norman. It is the Couesnon River, which is the border between the two regions ... Listen to the well known proverb:
The Couesnon in its madness
Put the Mount in Normandy
When the Couesnon will found the reason
The Mount will revert Breton.
All is not lost!

9 - The Mount and its functions.

- A very popular religious place in the Middle Ages
- A fortress
- A prison

The Mount was a religious place renowned in the Middle Ages.
But when the order of Saint Michel is created in 1469 by Louis XI, it is the beginning of a turning point. The knights of the Order multiply the celebrations, religious are appointed by kings, forgot to deal with the Mount and are just interested in profits. Decadence.
So much so that there is no more monastic life after the French Revolution and the monks will return there only in 1969.
In parallel to its religious life, the rock has been a fortress since its creation (8th century) or almost ...
The inhabitants took refuge on the Mont Saint Michel to escape the attacks of the Normans (understand Vikings) and have thus created the actual city.
Later fortifications are done against Bretons or against the English. You can follow the walkway on the many walls and defensive towers. The place has been a jail since the French Revolution.
If you visit the monastery, you will see a huge wooden wheel where 5 to 6 prisone sused to walk to bring food on top of the Mont Saint Michel. 10 - The Mount and its peculiarities

- There is only one entrance to go into the village
- There is a church outside the walls of the Mount
- There is only one street that goes through the island
- There is no drinking water on the Mount
- The train used to come to the rock
- there were windmills on the Mont Saint Michel
- The granite used in buildings comes from the Channel Islands

There is actually only one entrance to go into the Mont Saint Michel with 3 doors ...
There is only one street that actually goes to the abbey.
No drinking water for centuries except the fountain of Saint Aubertwhich is due, says the legend, to the will of the archangel. It is not located in the village but outside the walls.
You could take the train to Mont Saint Michel since 1901 and that for almost thirty years.
There was a windmill on the Mount. Yes, yes, they are mad those Normans ... Some granite used for the religious buildings come from Chausey ... the Channel island ...

So you’re conquered and want to run and visit it during your holidays. It’s worth it, believe me but… don’t do it in summertime, if you want to have a romantic short break… it is too crowded…the only street, you know suffers from pedestrian traffic (reall,y I've experienced it several times), queues for the tickets ... Speech guide are lost between the comments of Japanese tourists (many) and those of Italians, Spanish, English, German, Dutch…

Read this in French : Entre Bretagne et Normandie week-end insolite au Mont Saint Michel

Or everything you always wanted to know about the wind turbines .

What is a wind turbine?

It was once the wind god Aeolus, who wanted ... No, stop. Wind turbines are the new generation of the old windmills, used to grind grains or to produce oil. Or to extract water, for irrigation. Our modern mills do something different more virtual, they generate electricity.

Who invented them and why?

It is a Dane (end XIX th) who created the ancestor of the wind turbine.
And it was almost forgotten for about a century. Until, until the energy crises : oil in the 70s and now the desire to diversify energy supplies, the fight against climate change and greenhouse gases…
Nowadays the first countries that are using this energy are Germany (22000 MW), Spain, United States and India (6000 MW).

What about France?

France has a very good potential (the second in Europe), and they plan to install 17000 MW of windpower for 2015. The actual capacity is only 2500MW…
The governement insists on saying that France needs to develop the renewable energy sector to reach 20 % of final energy consumption in 2020.

And in Brittany?

The electric production covers only 5% of its needs. The Rance dam is the main producer thanks to tides. The tidal barrage produces the equivalent of one year's consumption of a city like Rennes (around 300 000 inhabitants).
Brittany could be an ideal place for horizontal-axis wind turbines (HAWT) ... it is quite difficult to find places where you don’t have any house at a sufficient perimeter (300 feet minimum).

Why is it so high a HAWT (horizontal-axis wind turbines)?

Because there is more wind up. The blades can be 15 meters long and the tower up to 100 meters.

Can it be installed anywhere?

There are plenty of conditions necessary to install a wind turbine :
a stable ground, a close electricity network (costs of connection to the main electricity network can be too expensive), a location with frequent and regular winds that blows in the same direction (the material does not like changes, nor winds too strong). In France, it can’t be located on a protected area or if homes are too close.
The site has to be accessible : it is not easy to transport the future wind turbines (which can reach 100 meters) and to install the blades or the tower (up to 100 meters) with no crane. !!!

And power ?

There are 4 types of turbines :
The big ones with a power of 350 KW, the middle one (between 36 to 350 KH).
The other two are for individuals, farms or businesses. the small wind turbine has a power ranging from 1 kW to 36 kW and the very small (1 kW) is used on recreational boats.
An example of consumption: a 100-watt bulb burning for 1 hour a day will consume in a year 36 kWh.

For maintenance ?

In new generations of wind turbines, there are elevators ... but when it does not work, it’s better not to forget the tools down, on the ground !

Against ? Why ?

Plenty of reasons:
The irregularity of the wind energy: it is not very reliable. Wind mills can only be associated with other energy supplies ...

Its storage : what happens when too much energy is produced ... We still don’t know how to store its overproduction.

Waves ... can affect TV reception.

And they are dangerous to bat ...

For it ?

Contrary to popular belief, wind turbines projects pay attention to birds : they avoid migration corridors and even studies from the French League for the Protection of Birds show that it is not worse than the city lights and other nuisances ...

Noise : the first generation were noisy and today the wind turbines respect strictly very specific standards about the decibels they emit. And it is one of the criterion that determines its location. The noise of a HAWT at 500 meters away from a house will be 35 decibels, which the equivalent of a whispered conversation.

The electricity produced does not degrade the quality of the air (no release of greenhouse gases or air pollution), does not pollute the water or the soil where it has been erected. A wind turbine lasts about 20 years.

France should accelerate the development of wind energy and produce in 2020 10% of its electrical consumption. It corresponds to the production of several nuclear reactors.

As for health is concerned, various studies do not indicate any health impact.
A green energy ...

And economically

The wind industry is work ... It is estimated that for an installed capacity of 10 000 MW in 2010, over 20 000 jobs were created in France.
Nationally, wind energy contributes to diversification and independence of the country.
For those who want to invest in France, you can rent your land to receive a wind turbine. You’ll get a rent for that.

Domestic wind turbines

A little one in your garden?
It provides electricity for the home but with some conditions:
- Its size (12m). In France, it is ok without building permits, but above, it requires one and the permission from neighbors.
- a garden (we do not recommend fixing it against a house because it vibrates a lot) but you do not fix it at more than 15 m from your house to avoid the loss of electricity.
And finally, they are not very efficient ... for now. But are perfect for farms, businesses who want to enhance their image of lovers of a friendly energy environment or for those who want to diversify their supplies of energy.

Read it in French : Eoliennes et développement durable : pour ou contre

If you’re bored during this Chrismas time, I’ve got something for you… Specially because the weather is really mild now in Brittany. You should harvest rose hips, but the good ones, the useful ones used for jam or itching powder…



The fruits of dog roses are usually used to make jam, syrup, liqueur or herbal tea. The fruit is an incredibly high source of Vitamin C (20 times more than lemon) and therefore really helpful for whom is suffering from a lack of vitamin C.
The dog rose produces an orange to red fruit, that looks like an olive. The fruits of the rose tree are round. You can harvest them as early as october, but the longer you wait, the sweeter they will be. They grow in hedges, coastlines… and at my neighbour’s…



And if you wait for the first frost, it will be easier to peel them…
Because that ‘s the main problem with rose hips… Inside the fruit, tiny fine hairs that are used as itching powder and if you don’t carefully remove them while making your jam… You’ll have an itching "posterieur"…



I’ll soon give you my jam recipe as soon as I've some time before me... It is long to peel... Till then, you can keep them in the freezer...

Read it in French : Le cynorrhodon en Bretagne : fruit du rosier ou de l'églantier

In France, November 11th is the Armistice Day, the end of the Great War. And Brittany was the region which losts the highest number of soldiers : one dead for 19 inhabitants (in France one dead for 29).



The memorial of Sainte Anne d’Auray (South Brittany, France) commemorates the Breton soldiers who fell in the First World War 1914- 1918. 240 000 names are written on the Monument -erected between 1922 and 1932-. But nowadays historians think that the loss were less important. Between 110 to 130 000 Bretons lost their lifes during the Great War in Brittany. 1,4 millions of soldiers died in France for 41 millions people (Brittany had then 2,5 millions inhabitants).


Explanation for the high losses in men in Brittany : in 1914 the Breton region was a seamen and farmers country. Most of its population was rural. And country people were sent on the frontline. Workers were kept for the factories. Lots of people in Brittany then did not always speak French. Some of the regiments were only breton because the recruting was then regional. So in some of the regiments orders were given in Breton language.

The War changed the way Breton people were living. Men were soldiers and women were alone in the farms and had to work hard in the fields : the troops had to be resupplyed. Cities were even cultivating public gardens such as the jardin du Thabor in Rennes.

A Breton writer Roger Vercel wrote a famous novel in 1934 with his Great War memories : Capitaine Conan. It is a famous movie now Captain Conan (from B.Tavernier in 1996).

Read it in French : Les Bretons et la première guerre mondiale

As I live near by a canal, I do often walk on the banks and in autumn it is time for harvesting chestnuts, the one edible. Make sure you’re not bringing home conkers, that won’t do for my nice chocolate chesnuts recipe (next post).



Even though they can be both called chestnuts, they are not the same.



1 - Conkers
The fruit of the conker tree (or horse-chestnut) is alone in its capsule, it is bigger, round and has a beige scar. The fruit of the conker tree is not edible, even for animals. It can be used for medicinal goals. or some other things...



2 - Chestnuts
The sweet chestnut is not alone in its capsule, they are two or three. The fruit has a pear shape and a small tuft The bur is very prickly. When green, it is not ripe enough. Wait till it’s brownish to eat them.



The Romans brought the chestnuts back in Europe from Asia Minor. It was nice for the empty stomachs during the hard winter time. It was then food for poor people. It was not considered as a good flour because it is no good to make bread as it does not rise.

Time have changed. Now in Ardeche it has an AOC (French Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée equivalent Protected Geographic Indication) and is quite nice for people who suffer from gluten allergy.

Once you picked them, read my next post to make my chocolate chestnut cake.



Read it in French : Chataignes ou marrons : quels fruits pour un gâteau ?

1 –The biggest menhir in Brittany weights 30 metric tons ?
It weights much more. Menhir is a breton word : men means stone and hir means long. If you know the French Obélix, it is the stone he is carrying around. The biggest in Brittany lies in Locmariaquer (Morbihan) it used to be 21 meters (more than 65 ft) long but it is broken and lays down on the floor. It weights more than 300 metric tons.




2 – A dolmen is a circle of different stones ?
You’re wrong. A dolmen is a « stonetable » in breton language, that means upright stones that are carrying a roofstone. Dolmen are really often without roof and have misceallanous architectures : the passageway is short to long, it has one to many chambers that are round, rectangular… La Roche aux Fées (Essé, Ille et Vilaine) is a nice one. During the neolitic time, it was probably covered by earth and stones forming a barrow.



3- And what is a cromlech or a cairn ?
A cromlech is a circle of standing stones.
A cairn is a dolmen,( the stonetable I was talking about earlier), but covered by a barrow. It is hidden by an earthen mound and it looks like a small mountain. Barnenez and Gavrinis are two famous breton exemples. Here you can see the tumulus (barrow) of Dissignac close to Saint Nazaire, (Loire Atlantique).



All these buildings have been erected at several periods, some of the stones were carved with symbols. They probably have had different goals, but we don’t know for what. Some were graves, may be some others were temples but we can only guess, the stones could have religious functions, astronomical functions,... We also don’t know why our megalith builders destroyed them (menhir brisé de Locmariaquer). When Christianity begins to appear in Brittany, the stones are already used for pagan rituals, and the Church doesn’t like it. They try to christanize it and carved christian cross or others christian symbols on it.



4 – Were the Egyptian pyramides already built when our ancestors were carrying their menhirs.
Well, some of the breton buildings are much older. We know it surely since the 50’s when carbon 14 was found. And we finally discover that they are really old. The neolithic men built the megalitic buildings between – 5000 and – 2000 BC. Our Egyptian friends began their pyramids around - 3000 when our Bretons are megalith specialists. The megalith time lasted 3000 years. And the buildings done are quite different : short corridors, long corridors, square, circular chambers…



5 - Menhirs , dolmens and other megalithic buildings were built by
- a Celts
- b Druids

a – During the XVIIIth century when the “scientists” began to look at those strange constructions, they thought that the Celts built them. We know now thanks to Carbon 14 that they are much older as Celts arrived in Brittany around 500 BC.
b – Caesar wrote about the druids in their stonetemples but they just used it and did not built it.


6 – In Brittany we say that Pantagruel, and his friends let menhirs everywhere ?

May be you don’t know who is Pantagruel. he is a hero of a book from Rabelais, a French writer from the XVI th century. He is part of the French folklore. Pantagruel, a jovial fellow, is a giant with an enormous appetite, and he is good-humoured.
He is the one who left a tooth in Saint Suliac (menhir de Saint Suliac, Ille et Vilaine). He took a gravelout of his shoe and let it fall in Fort Lalatte,another one in Cap Frehel ...


7 – Others say that the fairies did it !!!
They actually did the dolmen called la Roche aux Fées, that explains its name fairyrock. Look at the work they’ve done with the stones !!!



We don’t have any written signs for this civilization and archeologists guess every time they discover something new. They think now that the settled agricultural communities, that erected the buildings, were quite organized. They probably had a leader and asked the other communities around to help them to built the monument. So the monument was a common work : it needed the help of geologists (stones were not choosen at random and were often extracted far from the place where they wanted to build the monument), engineers for the architecture, astronomists to position the building…they did not need mason as the building are done without mortar.
Some experiences have been done to try to carry the stones : in 1979 at Stonehenge, about hundred men succeded in towing a 32 metric tons stone, supported by logs and using vegetal ropes.
To extract the stones, they probably were introducing small pieces of wood in the crevices of the blocks, and swollen with water, it did fissure the block. What a job!!!


8 – The megalithic architecture was born in Brittany ?
No, it was not but the alignments of Carnac are a famous place because of his high number of stones ( about 3000 and specialists guess that they were much more, may be 10 000). You can see megaliths in many other places in the world, close to us in Corsica, in Sardinia, Malta, Majorca… but also in Asia or South America.


9 – There are just 5 to 10% menhirs left in Brittany ?
Yes, that’s right. During the XIXth century, the “learned society” wanted to study the past and were carrying out excavations. These excavations were destructives because they were just dismantling the sites and razed it after. And also for many centuries, people used the stones to build their houses, later to do the roads. They did not care of culture and inheritage at that time.


10 – Why don’t we find bones under breton stones ?

Well, because the dogs came first !!! Some of them were burial chambers and you find no bones because the soil in Brittany is acid and « eat » the bones. Flints, pottery, pearls,arrows…were found in the megalithic constructions.


11 – What were those stones used for ?
We can only guess, they must have had a religious purpose. Standing stones may be calendars, markers of territory … Dolmens or cairns were burials sites…

Read it in French : Menhirs, dolmens, cromlechs et autres cairns en Bretagne : testez vos connaissances,

Rohan is a famous name in Brittany, even now one of the deputee of Brittany is a Rohan. It was one of the three most important family of the Duchy of Brittany. Among others they have built the castle of Josselin ( a really nice town to visit) and helped William the Conqueror in 1066 when he crossed the Channel.
Rohan is also the name of a small village in Morbihan, there is no remain of one of their castle in Rohan except a chapel (Chapelle de Bonne Encontre). This small town is located at 10 kms south of Loudéac, about 20 kms east of Pontivy, on the canal of Nantes to Brest.
If you walk along the canal de Nantes à Brest and you’re lucky, you’ll find a mile-stone where the old name of Pontivy is written ; that is … Napoléonville. If you find it, tell me because I’m still looking for it… Why Napoléonville ? you know the french Emperor Louis Napoléon Bonaparte (1769-1821) who was defeated at Waterloo and had to exile in the island of Saint Helena where he died. Well, when he was emperor, he decided to convert Pontivy, a small city that agreed with the ideas of the French Revolution in a conservative Brittany into a military centre. Pontivy had a strategical position, located in the middle of Brittany and betwenn Brest and Rennes, it was the best place to control the region. In 1804 he called it Napoléonville. It changed names several times after that, it took also the name of Bourbonville and recovered its name Pontivy in 1870.

Read it in French : Rohan