Gavrinis

So on a somewhat blustery day we went on a boat trip (which Phil had to book in advance for us). Buy the way, meet Phil below

And our little boat

It is only a short journey across to the island of Gavrinis. This little island has a private nature reserve, but that isn't the reason to take the boat.

The attraction is this, a megalithic site. Now there is a similar site to this at Newgrange in Ireland of which I have heard, but this one was new to me. And very impressive too.

This is sort of a reconstruction. It is a tumulus so would once have been all covered by turf. And what you see has had to be put back together after excavation as was rather tumbledown. So, this is slight conjecture. It also was not an island when it was built, but sat on top of a hill with valleys below, now swallowed up by the Golfe de Morbihan.

The chap below gives you a sense of scale.

Inside is a burial chamber which we were allowed to enter in small groups with torches supplied. All the walls are carved with abstract markings. A serious undertaking. I asked the guide how long any of these huge wall panels were estimated to have taken to carve. About 8 months. That is a serious endeavour.

There are more stone age monuments around on other islands, such as this stone circle.

Back on the mainland we searched for somewhere to eat - not as easy a task as one might imagine. Most of the various village eateries seemed shut. But we eventually found a nice enough place

And then we tried to walk off our lunch with a potter around the coast, which is a very scenic one.

A lot of expensive holiday homes around here. there would be worse places to have one....