Once upon a time, there were forests... and trees... now there are climbing courses for adventurers who like to be acrobats.

From April to November, you can in the afternoon climb trees in a park in Rennes (when it is not school holidays, it is open Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday). Depending of the weather, of course ... Heavy rain and - du vent à décorner les boeufs - (wind that will dehorn cattle, as we say in French !) are usually day-offs!



Children can try with 2 (my girl was 3 ½ years and a friend 5 years ... they did the course for 2-4 years). Very quickly, kids are independent and climb alone. They can't fall as they are secured by a rope and an equipment including harness and carabiners ... They learn easily and do not get dizzy, those young climbers.

Several other outdoor courses are possible: for 5-8 years, one for 9-13 and then for over 14 years. The rates are on their website ...

Forêt adrénaline is a specialist... they're not only professionnals of tree-climbing, they are also designers of park adventure: they have already opened several parks in the area: one in Carnac in the 2000s ... one at Betton, 10 kms from Rennes.



Don't panic if you are "stuck" on your monkey bridge or if you're frightened by the zip line above the lake. Supervisors, professionals, will help you through.



Adrenalin Forest also offers corporate seminars, "unusual acrobatic exercices" (to test what you're able to do, you and your boss!). Or you can also check thanks to those flights between the trunks'crowns the team spirit of your company. ... You can also celebrate original birthday parties ... or whatever you like ...



In short, they are professionnals in recreational entertainment.

The park entrance is near the campsite Gayeulles... You can't miss it :there are lots of things hanging in the woods ...

One more thing ... Forests'lovers don't have to worry, those professionals are tree/true friends: they do everything to avoid damaging them (don't forget trees are their way of earning a living), or to hamper their growth (the trunks you climb on!). They try to limit their impact on nature and environment. That 's what they say!

Read this article in French : Grimper aux arbres à Rennes : le parcours aventure de Forêt adrénaline

Yes... in these unstable times, climate changes and warm worries, how to find the ecologically correct ?

With the Copenhagen summit, one is forced to wonder and to ask questions and to look all over, in front, below, above and on the sides to try to find an answer! Have you any tips to reduce your environmental impact, your carbon emissions?

Have you ever wondered what is your carbon footprint ? in CO2 ? in tonnes of carbon ? in greenhouse gas ? in carbon credits ? In other words, are you more methane? Or carbon dioxide?

Who do you think won the prize (carbon credits) from these competitors?

1 - Our first volunteer is a French, he has a good job in a big business, his house is heated with wood, he uses low consumption lamps and takes all morning his bike (10 miles to go and 10 return) to reach his workplace. 4 times a year he flights from Paris to New York ... for his work!

2 - Our second candidate is a 4 wheel vehicule Canadian driver. He lives on the coast. He goes hunting every weekend in a forest 30 kilometers from home. He has a wind turbine in his garden. And during the summer time, he likes to stay home and enjoy the sea... No need for vacation far away.

3 - The third competitor is a she : a hiker, a walker, retired, who abandoned her car long ago and only uses public transport to go around.
Vegetarian, she also stopped eating fish and buys only local products. She lives in an appartment with high isolation. Her delight is to hike in the Atlas of Morocco, in the Andes of South America ...

4 - Our fourth participant is a young American student. He has long forgotten the paper and handles all correspondence, invoices and other items through Internet.
He has no car, travels by bus or bicycle, depending. No more trips, he prefers to surf the net ... and pee (sic) in the shower. Only a small pleasure red bleeding meat .... once a day ....

5 – Fifth candidate: a young couple who lives in an old house. Far from a big city, they organize with their neighbors by carpooling to work. A small garden for vegetables, furniture made of recycled materials...They can not stand the cold and live in an apartment warm heated ... 25° ...

The results of the competition are as follows : consumption of carbon credits
- 250 kg of beef, 100 kg calf (candidate 4)
- 12 000 km of city car or 8500 miles per year with a four wheel vehicule (candidate 2)
- A year of fuel heating, 3 years of electric heating (candidate 5)
- A flight from Paris to New York (candidate 1 and 3)
Result: they all won the race ...

I did the test ... to calculate the ecological footprint for myself and family ...
It's easy to do, interesting and only takes a few minutes.
Currently the average footprint of a French is 4.9 hectares, 9.2 hectares for an American and 1.4 hectare for an African. The footprint for sustainable living all that well on this land is 2.1 hectares.

Read this article in French : Consommation de tonnes de carbone de C02 ou de gaz carbonique

Milky oyster's lovers should hurry... They' ll soon be a testimony of the past... Why ? Ask the oyster's farmers of Cancale, your usual market or even your favorite fishmonger online what you're eating !
Triploid oysters (also called wiht the poetic name of 4 seasons oysters), are a new variety of this mollusc. An singular oyster, born in the French laboratories (IFREMER) at the end of the 20th century... and almost invisible as it is written nowhere that you're in front of it ...

Explanation

Oysters have been a traditional meal for millenniums... Already during prehistoric times, coastal men enjoyed them ... (They were wild at the time). Romans settled in Britain loved them...10 centuries later, French King Louis XIV was fond of it.
Soon the overconsumption became a real problem... Fear of the disappearance of natural beds of oysters ... Already in the 19th century, rules were allowing the harvesting only during defined periods of the year (September to April). Then the idea of breeding... Napoleon III asked Victor Coste to study the oyster farms in Italy. He created the modern oyster farming. Today wild oysters are very rare. And in addition, they're transformed ...

The original species and the modified ones

Oysters are flat or hollow ... and... fragile ... The Belon oyster in Brittany is known abroad. Even though it has been threatened by the Portuguese oyster, rejected by a ship in the Gironde. It will be bred until an epizootic (epidemic) almost decimated it. Since then, the Japanese oyster did replace the hollow ... until the next illness ...
That's in real life...
In the lab, since the late 20th century, there is a new variety... the four seasons oyster ... Be careful not to confuse everything ... They are not Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) (but a story of chromosome!). Researchers made them sterile...
These so-called triploid oysters have two advantages: as they are sterile, they do not spawn, need less energy and therefore grow faster. You need almost 3 years to get an adult oyster, those ones need one year to be sold...
The second advantage is as they are sterile and they're never milky (too bad for my mom who loves them like that!).
If, you know the months with the letter R and the months without the letter R (May-August when most oysters are not eaten).... Well, this period corresponds to the breeding season, summer ... and during this period less oysters are eaten. With those ones, you can taste them throughout the year.

Defenders of the four seasons oysters will say that the fear of a new epidemic was the reason of this new variety. Sûrement... That' right, the Portuguese oyster have been destroyed in the 70's. And if the Japanese Oyster has the same problem... What will happen ?

And the consumer ...

As usual, we forgot to ask his opinion! Too bad for him! But never mind, research has done the same thing for the mussels! Never change a winning team!
And worse, we do not know what we eat ! No mention tell the customer if they're triploid. 15,000 to 20,000 tonnes are produced every year, 10 to 15% of the production is triploid.... (as it is explained in an article of the French newspaper Libération ).

Next time you'll buy oysters, you'll ask ? Does anyone know if they are still aphrodisiac, these new oysters ?

Read this article in French : Huitres triploides : ogm ou pas

Before my summer break, I invite you to a short stay in Brittany, in Finistère … the far West of France.
You love nature and want to stay in a nice green place... close to the coast... to enjoy long walks, to relax in a spa after a year of work... This little paradise,in the North Finistère is what you're looking for... every building has been constructed with natural materials (wood, stone, lime...). You can test classical bedrooms, or take a few nights in an green area in timber houses... A bed and a breakfast outside in a nice garden on a wood terrace ! The surrounding area is great, beautifully great ... This little nid Iroise may be an alternative for a relaxing weekend or a stop for sports holidays!



Yes sports! If you love heights, you want to climb the west facing walls of Brittany ... Yes, you're reading well... climbing in Small Britain ... Not in the Montagnes Noires (Black Mountains), no on the cliffs of the Finistère coast. No need immense height, no just in a very wild rock on the Pen Hir … Rocks in the wind! Very impressive, it seems (that's what they say, those who tried it)... Do'nt face it without a guide ...
That is why Face Ouest, at Camaret (the peninsula between Brest and Quimper!) offers guides that will attack the descent of the cliffs in order to better go back up. They'll help you ! And give you the material ! Pen Hir, that's climbing backwards, upside down...
An impressive and unforgettable moment from those who did it... And not leave to beginners or solitary "climbers" ! Even experienced climbers were surprised by the site! The sea is at your feet! Climbing enthusiasts, make an appointment for sensations!

Read this article in French : Idées vacances nature dans le Finistère

This is my last post before the holidays ... I make a large break in August. Meanwhile, I have found some nice ideas of original moments or unusual stays... I have not tried them... I'm waiting for your comments if you did... Feel free to share your point of view with us...

For those who love to eat French food... I heard of a restaurant ... like no other! ... In the south of Brittany, in the Morbihan departement a few miles north of Lorient, Guidel, to be precise, close to the church ....
The restaurant's name is Al pizza, but you do not eat usual and basic pizzas... No, you taste real entomologist cocktails .... You just need to book one week in advance (02 97 02 91 86) ... Just the time the chef needs to find its unusual proteins : fried crickets for appetizers (they have a good nutty flavor and are nicely crispy) pizza (with flour beetle) and as dessert chocolate stick insects or crickets! You became a gourmet... Like many foodies in Africa, South America or Asia ... Take your turn and the boss will tell you how he met the "ants" ... You'll leave happy, full with healthy food and a with a great experience! Bon appetit!



A different idea ... You are a fanatic player ... No, casinos do not thrill you, but the game tracks size ... The hostel l'auberge des voyajoueurs is a step of the game called search of dragon, a live treasure hunt (Residents and tourist offices will help you through).
You must, using a GPS and a travelguide seek the dragon. 88 steps in the Heritage of Brocéliande ... This country inland, in Brittany, borders the forest of the Knights of the Round Table, where the legends of King Arthur have happened! ...
If you want more... the hostel is a game paradise... This mythical place is full of players and games: first the hostel has a library of games : you can have fun with large wooden playground, games room or enjoy the outdoor playground. .. You can relax with balls, bet with playing cards, throwing dice, word games to try and pawn, test your skills with shuffleboard, bowling...
No, you prefer board games or the Wii ... No worry, they have everything ... for everyone, young and old, 7-77 years, gamers of today and yesterday, outdoor or indoor .... games for two people or much more ....
Happy holidays and remember to visit us again a little visit to tell us how it was.

Read this article in French : Idées pour une étape originale en Bretagne

In Brittany, south, you have a nice little sea called le golfe du Morbihan (Gulf of Morbihan) where it is really nice to cruise.
And if you like old stones and megaliths, you'll be amazed by the island of Gavrinis and its cairns.
Back a few centuries ago, when the cairn was erected, the landscape was quite different : the gulf and its 42 islands did not exist. No cruise in the sun... no 10 minutes boattrip from Larmor-Baden ... to reach the island of Gavrinis … Land replaced the sea. There was just a beautiful hill.

The island is today divided into two : one part is a private property (Council of Morbihan would have liked to purchased it but they had no money) ... Stars from Paris bought it : the farm and the dozen hectares of the island became the property of a ... Parisian .... The other tiny part is the cairn !



Back to the huge cairn ...
... It was probably part of a more important megalithic site ... Leaving the island, you will notice that the island in front of the cairn has standing stones (discovered when low tide). They are still standing! Even after billions of tides ! The builders of the Neolithic time were working really well !!!



The monument was built around 3500 BC: it is composed of a dolmen (stone table) covered by a mound of dry stone ... ie a long corridor with stone slabs that leads to a room ... it seems that the corridor is the longest in Brittany and the room is the smallest ...
And as always, my answers/questions are assumptions : no paper trail, no skeletons (Breton soil is too acidic), only ideas and imagination to understand those prehistoric people. We still can not explain these singularities ...
By cons, it seems that the corridor has been intentionally filled with stones at a time ... (the spirits did not want curious minds to destroy the place, they wanted to wait until humanity will be mature enough and concerned to "discover" this awesome vestige) ...

How did those heavy stones get there?
The assumptions are : a river had to pass near the hill Gavrinis ... stones weighing several tons have been brought by reverse flotation (the guide will explain) near the site and then rolled on logs. One of the stones of the dolmen, which is the "roof" ... corresponds to one of the broken menhir in Locmariaquer ...a huge stone over twenty meters broken into three parts ... (do not miss it !)



How do we know that our ancestors did use it as it is recovered ?
As the slab is turned towards the sky, we would never have known it... but fortunatly the cairn has been damaged... a crater at the summit was showing a part of this carved menhir … Therefore no seek of the missing piece of the table des marchants!

Another interesting detail : each stone is decorated with geometric patterns or designs ... A true team of professionnal sculptors and engravers have worked for hours to get this result: perfect lines, without corrections, with regular spaces between curves, precision work on a very hard stone (try to carve granite, you'll see!).
Presumably, the community that built the monument had artists among them !

In short, the history of the monument is exciting ... The site guides will reveal more secrets about the cairn.
You need to pay for the visit and it is only possible from April to November. Book before you go, it is often full... (same thing for accommodation, we had to drive far inland to find a place to sleep !).
For once, if crowds are passionate, there is nothing to complain about!



Read this article in French : Croisière dans le golfe et les îles : Gavrinis

This year, the Palais des Arts is celebrating its 20th anniversary ... and for this event it hosts part of the private collections of the François Pinault Foundation.

Do you know François Pinault ? He is THE famous Breton billionaire. Autodidact, art lover… and football fan ... He is the main sponsor of the foot ball team Stade Rennais.

So for its 20th birthday, Dinard has decided to expose the collections of this man… who usually shows them in Venice, yes, in Italy.

About 60 works by thirty artists * ...



Qui a peur des artistes ? Who is afraid of artists?

Not me, except when I look at the picture, it reminds me of Verdun (horrible battle of the 1st World War wtih thousands of deads), the soldier buried standing (alive?) ...
But everyone sees what he wants : I thought it was a commercial for Hunger in Africa ... someone said...

Annoying the poster? And the title?

What is art done for?

- To have fun ? (123 points)
- To ask questions ? (54321 points)
– To understand the world ? (393 points)
– To criticize it ? (3131 points)
– To be nice (333 points)
- To mess around ? (731 points)
- Do nothing ? (34536 points) -
- To laugh and have fun (0.333333333333)
- To be moral ? (321 points)
- To be green ? (369 points)
- What else ?
- To share (4.50 euros full price, the show last year was free)

If your score is 3 points or more, go ahead!

The exhibition shows contemporary art : portraits, contemporary art paintings, photography, photo-collages, drawings, video, sculpture, abstract works ... All art forms are represented ... Each room has a title ...for example-War Consumption Revolt.
Well, not easy to give my opinion. Jeff Wall bothers with the photo showing the ambush in Afghanistan. Further it is even more violent (the video ...). It is the same artist Adel Abdessemed who made the funny pictures on the opposite wall!
The most famous : la nona hora ((the ninth hour is the name for the prayer that is recited at the ninth hour of the day, usually around 3PM to commemorate the moment when Christ died on the Cross) by Maurizio Cattelan. The most famous or the one everybody talked about ? Write your comment for that work !

And next to it, nobody screamed at Damien Hirst, the greens don’t like contemporary art ? But I do not know anything about insects ...

In short, everyone has his reading and interpretation ... Make your own opinion ... because as François Pinault said and I translate : ... The art has led me to wonder more. To keep my eyes open on the world and its evolutions, to be more attentive to the change of the world ...

This summer, if you don’t have time to visit the Palazzo Grazzi museum or the new one at Punta della Dogana (Venice, Italy), where the rest of the collections are, or if you missed the exhibition in Moscow (a certain state of world), go to ... Dinard from 14 June to 13 September from 11 am to 19 pm and night (21h) on Friday.
Pictures are not allowed...

* Josef Albers, Dan Flavin, Agnes Martin, Lucio Fontana, Piero Manzoni, Lee Ufans, Pierre Soulages, Charles Matton, Takashi Murakami, Paul McCarthy, Yan Pei-Ming Martial Raysse, Ed Ruscha, Adel Abdessemed, Andreas Gursky, Barbara Kruger , Cindy Sherman, Jeff Wall, Jiechang Yang, Chen Zhen. Subodh Gupta, Mike Kelley, Bharti Kher, Takashi Murakami, Julie Mehretu, Luc Tuymans, Maurizio Cattelan, Paul Fryer, Damien Hirst, Claude Lêvêque, Yan Pei-Ming, Andres Serrano. Subodh Gupta, Mike Kelley, Bharti Kher, Takashi Murakami, Julie Mehretu, Luc Tuymans, Maurizio Cattelan, Paul Fryer, Damien Hirst, Claude Lévêque, Yan Pei-Ming, Andres Serrano.

You love flowers, you love trees, parks and gardens. Le Parc Floral de Haute Bretagne, I visited in springtime will please you. Even if its name is not very poetic, the place is nicer.



Located about ten miles from Fougères, the park created in the late nineteenth century welcomes you from March to November (Parc Floral de Haute Bretagne, La Foletiere - The Châtellier 35133 Tel: 02 99 95 48 32).

What I like in this tour is that the landscape changes all the time. Depending on the season you'll visit a garden with different colors, a different garden ..

- Spring corresponds to the blooming of camellias, daffodils... End of May, rhododendron's lovers will enjoy the 800 feet planted in the garden.
In summer, roses, hydrangeas, lilies and lotus color the park.
In the fall, asters and cyclamen and liquidambars finish the season.
Gardeners, choose your month!. Or take a subscription to come when you want.

Of course, many other varieties of plants, flowers and trees (whose name I don't know) grow in this garden and delight visitors.



In an hour and a half, you'll cross 25 acres of green paradise ... I went through bamboo forests (all colors), avenues of pink or rubbed magnolias ...
20 gardens are to discover and each has its specialty: gentian or camellias ... And everyone will find his pleasure.



Children (3 ½ years and 4) are a bit small to enjoy the flowers... They liked getting lost in the maze. Or loved to test the balance of the suspension bridge. It was too early in the season to feed the carnivorous plants ... Too bad.

A greenhouse offers to buy seedlings of plants that you have seen ...
The park also rent places for business or for weddings ... ... Or rooms in the Manor of Foletiere ... 5 nice rooms named... Renoir, Degas, Monet ...



... Everything is on their website ... And if you book early, it's cheaper ...



Read this article in French : visiter un jardin en Bretagne : le parc floral et ses chambres d'hôtes

Have you ever read Asterix and Obelix ? If you did, you surely know the menhirs Obelix is walking around with. Well, the dolmen of La Roche aux Fées was not done by Obelix but thanks to breton fairies…



The dolmen is at about 20 km east from Rennes, under old oaks in the country of the village Essé. Once you reach Essé just follow the signs to the megalith. It is open all year long and free.
The dolmen is one of the most impressive in France : 20 meters long , 4 meters wide and you can stand inside, it was build with about 40 stones, some of them weighing more than 40 tons… Yes,the people at that time were quite strong…



A dolmen is a breton word that means table of stones, it is a chamber made with upright stones and covered with large flat capstones for the roof.…. Quite simple no… This dolmen has a long corridor, a portico nicely cut



and at the end a room. Until the 50’s the megalithic monuments were seen as building done by the Celts (they arrived in Brittany in 600 BC) but we know now thanks to the Americans that discovered the Carbon-14 that it is much older, for this one around 3500 BC.
It did not look like that during the neolitic time, because it was probably recovered by a tumulus (mound of earth and little stones). Specialists still don’t know if it was a temple or a grave (dictionnaire du patrimoine breton d’Alain Croix).
Neolitic people were really strong when you know that the stones weight more than 40 tons and that they come from an area that is 4 kms away. (foret du Theil)
Neolitic time (in Brittany from -3500 to-1800 BC) correspond to the beginning of agriculture and breeding. Thanks to the domestication of plants, a new type of social organisation appears with a specialization of men and work. They begin to build those monuments. But to build them they need specialized workers : “ geologists ” that choosed the type of stones, “ architects ” that think and build the construction and "drivers" to transport the stones – we guess that they were using woodlogs to rool the stones - , and "astronomists" that decide in which direction the corridor will be.




The building is orientated Northwest-South South East but it is not fate. No, it is a solstice alignment. You should go there on a 21 december and you’ll see the sunrays penetrating the building just in its center. You said they were wearing beast skins…
But may be we’re wrong and the fairies did it. That explains its name (Roche aux Fées = fairies rock) , the legend says that the fairies carried the stones from Le Theil. They let some fall around (at Retiers la Pierre de Richebourg or at Janzé la Pierre des Fées). I ll tell you the legend another day…

To sum up, you have to visit the dolmen for three reasons :
- to quench your curiosity
- to do the same thing that neolitic men were doing on december 21st
- to be sure of your lover. Don’t trust meetic, and test your love at la Roche aux Fées (also called lovers’oracle). Take your love on a full moonnight. Count the stones. If you find the same number, go on and marry him or her. If you don’t… recount them…
Last thing : take care of the building. I want my grand,grand grandgrand children to see it...
Leaving the place you can taste nice local products, see you on the next post

Read it in French : Visite au pays de la Roche aux fées (Ille et Vilaine, Bretagne)