Lannion

Archeological excavations and remains – standing stones, bronze and stone tools - attest to the presence of man in Lannion as far back as 11000 BCE. On a promontory overlooking the bay of Lannion, the Gauls built fortifications to defend a trade route; since then, the site has been continuously occupied.

Lannion is a large city of granite, half-timbered houses, and sloping streets. It was far from Kernevez and it was past noon, so I knew that after lunch, there wouldn’t be enough time to visit a city of this size. I decided that it would be best to have a closer look at all of the houses around the center of town and walk along the water which cut through it.

We had lunch there in a nice restaurant on the ground floor of a four-story, half-timbered building. The owner had kept the old cross beams, but the ceiling itself was new wood. The wall, where there had been a roman arch, had been cut through to construct a passage from the restaurant that occupied the angle of the street, and the bar and kitchen. We were seated next to the stairway that led to the cave. The prior owner had not realized that there was an arch when he cut through the wall. This owner at least preserved the remaining outline of the arch.

After lunch we walked along the Leguer River which runs through the center of the town. We watched the ducks and a boat slalom race, something I have never seen before. We crossed to an imposing building which turned out to be the Convent of Saint Anne. In the 17th century it was occupied by Augustinian nuns who were forced to abandon it at the Revolution; the nuns reoccupied it in 1805. Recently restored, it is now a mediatheque. Lovely gardens span the length of the grounds and border the river.


Lannion is set in a narrow valley so that the side streets are fairly steep. At the top of one hill is the church of Brelevenez, supposedly very beautiful. I wanted to see it, but there were 140 steps leading to it and that stopped me. I was reluctant to ask Christian to drive up, and I was tired; also, I knew it was late and we wanted to get to the beach while there was still some sun, so I gave up on the idea.

It was already late when we left Lannion to go to Tregastel and when we arrived, the sun was already quite low in the sky. Georges-Edouard wanted to go diving. It was not quite as warm as the previous week, but he went in the water anyway. I worried because there was no life guard and we could not see his snorkel, although he was not far away. He came out half an hour later because it was too dark to see underwater. Still, he was happy to have been in the water.The sun barely lit the rocks.