Touring Guerande: Walking around a Medieval Granite Town in Brittany, France with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Touring Guérande: Walking around a Medieval Granite Town in Brittany, France with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

The Collégiale is named after Guérande’s patron saint Saint Aubin (St. Albin in English).  He was the Bishop of Angers.  The town legend says that when Guèrande was under siege by the Normans in the 9^th century, he sent a knight in shining armor astride a winged, white horse to save the town from pillagers.

After visiting the Collégiale St. Aubin, I walked around the town.  There were many pottery, painting, and regional products shops with cute to expensive souvenirs.  I liked the cider, sea salt, and sturdy dish souvenirs the best.

Guérande is an adorable tourist trap with most tourists being French, German, or English.  I was tempted to buy some chouchen, a Breton honey liqueur for my small cocktail cabinet at home.

I spent the rest of my time trying to look over stonewalls or peek through gates to see flowers and gardens.  One house had little hedges arranged in a square around a tree with flowers around it.  That was cute.

I did not know the names of all the flowers except for pink and lavender hortensias that grow well in Brittany with its morning fogs.

Ivy covered many homes and walls.  In fact, the vegetation was very lush and green.  The winters in Brittany are rainy.  Most homes in Brittany must look desolate in winter from the outside due to the rain and cold weather.

The homes are usually made of granite and other more malleable stone.  Steep, blue-gray roofs let the abundant winter rains fall off away from the homes.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Touring Guerande: Visiting Brittany, France's Sea Salt Town with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Touring Guerande: Visiting Brittany, France's Sea Salt Town with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Laurent and I set out for the July 14^th holiday (Bastille Day) weekend to spend time with his parents in Brittany in Western France.

I strapped Florence in her car seat, and we set out for Brittany.  I planned to spend my time writing and touring Brittany with my mother-in-law.

The first town we visited was the Breton town of Guérande.  This town has a wall around it and sits on top of a hill.  It is surrounded by salt drying beds.

Salt was and remains important to the area.  In the Middle Ages, Guérande had a monopoly on salt, which was traded for agricultural products from other regions.  Salt marshes in the South of France diminished Guérande’s control over salt prices.

Today canals bring salt water into a series of square reservoirs.  Each reservoir is shallower than the last one and allows workers to scrape off salt at the end.  Dry, hot weather creates the best production results.

I gleaned this wonderful information from my Michelin “green guide” for Brittany as I stood outside the church called the Collégiale St. Aubin (St. Albin’s in English).

St. Aubin was built in the 12^th and 13^th centuries.  The austere architecture is Romanesque and the more flamboyant decoration is Gothic.  I enjoyed visiting the church’s interior, because there was a rehearsal for an organ and trumpet concert going on.

My Michelin “green guide” said the Romanesque columns inside the church were decorated with scenes of torture, but they were so badly damaged that they failed to conjure any fright in me.

The columns are the only items that remained from the original church after it was destroyed by Louis d’Espagne in 1342.

The church decorations are definitely Gothic with three-petal flowers covering the interior and exterior alike.  The stained glass windows are recent.  Wars, ancient and modern, probably explain the absence of older glass windows.

The baptismal font seemed to be the oldest part of the church.  I guessed it must be the oldest part of any French church.

You have to keep the initiates coming in, if you are financing something over a century or two.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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