The rambling recipes & travels of a home baker

Day 5: Rennes to Carnac

Having walked through St. Malo in the evening (recall the little children running in the park), Ernie and I headed out to the town of Rennes to hit the weekly food market on Saturday.  As we have been doing, we stopped by the boulangerie to pick up something for the road.  Today it was a Kouign Amann, it’s a tasty sweet/salty/caramelized croissant dough rolled in a spiral and it was very good.  We have them in very few places at home, but they are in every boulangerie in Brittany.

It was about an hour drive to Rennes which is the capital of Brittany (which encompasses a few regions).  Rennes is a city of about 250,000 and very charming with a lively market on Saturday.  There are signs of its medieval past in the timber frame buildings that lean ever so slightly.

Ernie and I were lucky enough to hit Rennes on Saturday on a sunny day when sitting in one of the many places having coffee and our treats was just what we needed.  We’re lucky in Seattle to have so many markets, but this was just so large (it’s second largest to the one in Paris) and colorful.  Just look at the photos below:

From Rennes, we headed down to Carnac on the southern coast of Brittany.  Carnac is the site of several fields of prehistoric alignements of stones.  They still haven’t come up with a reason, but the wonder is that these were erected during the Neolithic era (between 4500 and 2000 BC.).  They are placed just so and in such order, it’s quite impressive.  However, it was my late afternoon crankiness that led to me just not being that excited and I’m sure others will cringe at my “stones in a field” statement, but it did feel that way at the end of the day.  I do recognize the feat of technology when they didn’t have any building techniques.  I think I just wish I knew the explanation…

Since we had crepes last night, Ernie requested seafood for dinner.  We drove to nearby La Trinite-sur-Mer, a small sailing town (there was some event there that day) and we found a great seafood joint, where we enjoyed a huge platter of fruit de mer – crab, shrimp, clams, oysters, winkles (small sea snails), and larger winkles (called something else I can’t recall).   The platter was delicious, messy and came with a vinegar with shallots sauce and some aioli.  The only thing that threw me were the clams which were raw….but I went with it and pretty much satisfied my shellfish ration for the half year.  Stesha, I think you might have gotten hives from walking into the place .

It was a long day, but it ended nicely at this place for dinner – Ern had a good point, it was a French tourist place.  Lots of french families sharing moules frites (mussels and fries) and plates of oysters.  I wish my parents and grandparents could have been there to enjoy.  They would have loved it.

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