Steampunk, Carnac, and crepes - 3 November 19

First stop this morning was Les Machines de I'lle. Basically, it's Jules Verne's notebooks and ideas, come to life. This includes a 3 story tall steampunk elephant that carries up to 50 people for a stroll around the shipping yards. It's a weird combination of engineering and puppetry. Most the exhibit/show is in French so we didn't understand a ton, but it's still worth a visit.

Around the corner we stopped off for a coffee and the local Breton pastry, kouign amann a sort of sugary, buttery, laminated bread/croissant thing. This one was pretty pale but very tasty. My understanding is that they are supposed to be fairly dark - almost burnt looking.

Breakfast complete, we started on our trip to Carnac and ultimately on to Quimper. We picked our way to the seaside and drove through Porchinet. This sea side resort reminded me of a very cold looking Miami Beach from the 40s and 50s. We saw many kite and sail boarders taking advantage of the winds left over from the tropical storm that apparently blew through just south of us.

We arrived in Carnac just in time for the sprinkles to start again. We headed into the monolith visitors center to learn more about this area. Carnac is the largest monolithic collection in the world and pre-dates the pyramids. It's an amazing collection of stones and experts still aren't sure why it was built.

We spent the rest of the afternoon traipsing through the country side, taking in the amazing number and precision of these stone markers. We headed back to the car and were less than 800M from safety when the heavens opened and winds started howling. The winds were strong enough that at one point, Kris fully leaned into it and was almost blown over backwards. Amazingly, although the storm was intense, it had abated by the time we closed the distance to our car.

Breton sheep

A bit worse for wear, we piled into our trusty Pugeot and headed to Quimper. We checked into our hotel just outside the city limits and we're pretty sure we're the only ones here (Which is only a tiny bit creepy.) On the plus side, we did score the upgrade to the Junior Suite which is huge, so assuming we aren't murdered in our sleep, it's a steal!

We headed into the city for dinner at Creperie An Diskuiz. Breton is known for their buckwheat crepes and cider and we enjoyed both tonight. A humble little restaurant, but everything was amazing. Especially that they were able to turn out everything from this tiny little kitchen!

A galley style kitchen

Tomorrow we explore the seaside in all it's autumnal glory.