Advantages An amazing, mysterious place.
Disadvantages You cannot get near the stones.
Carnac, in Brittany, is one of the high places of megalithic culture. The great standing stone alignments are to Brittany what Stonehenge is to prehistoric England. I first visited this as a very young child and there is somewhere a picture of me sitting on a megalith aged about four. Nowadays though, a visit to Carnac is rather different, as the menhirs (a Breton word for standing stone) cannot be approached most of the time, due to the huge numbers of visitors to this site who had started to endanger the soil around the monuments.
The Morbihan area is particularly rich in megalithic structures, and around Carnac itself, there are many outstanding monuments to visit such as the amazing sculpted cairn
On to Carnac itself then. On the day of our visit, we decided to visit the museum of prehistory first. This is situated in the village. Interestingly, it was founded by a Scotsman, James Miln, back in 1881. The visit follows a chronological order from the Lower Paleolithic (600 000 BC) to the early Middle Ages and helps put some sort of context to a visit to the alignments. It offers explanations as to how menhirs might have been erected and how dolmens (two or more standing stones supporting a horizontal slab marking a tomb) were made, an extraordinary feat as the stones involved can be absolutely enormous. You can also see many objects belonging to the Neolithic, the era when the monument builders lived (5 000-2 000 BC) and get a sense of their daily life. On the whole I was very impressed with this museum and I felt it added to our subsequent visit of the monuments. My husband, who doesn't speak French, felt a little let down by the booklet in English he was given which was meant to facilitate his understanding of the exhibits, but which was so badly organised as to be practically useless. He did enjoy the visit all the same. My 15 year old son, who had elected to come with us rather than check out the market in the village, managed to do the whole visit without dying of boredom (just).
From one of the museum's windows, we noticed a strange looking hill with a chapel on top and learned that the 'hill' was in fact entirely manmade in the Lower Neolithic period (4500 BC) and was actually a tumulus. Unfortunately, this was closed for restoration and therefore we couldn't visit it, but we were able to marvel at the sheer size of this mound (125m long by 12m high or 410ftx38ft). From the top, we could take in a view of the whole surrounding area including the megaliths, the coast and the nearby islands, aided by the orientation table. We then drove out of the town, following the road signs.By now, we couldn't wait any longer to see the alignments. After all, this is an example of Western Europe's first ever architecture.
Attention, this is the first review from this author
Instead of giving a negative rating, consider:

Help this member by giving your advice

Report fraud (for example plagiarism) or other issue with the review to the Ciao support team
Add your comment
imogen49 21/10/2006 18:36
smcccc 18/10/2006 14:28
Well written interesting review...........: )
jayne30165 09/10/2006 00:58
shmental 08/10/2006 19:35
campbeltown 15/09/2006 13:18
It really is an amazing place.
|
From Carnac to Callanish: Prehistoric Stone Rows of Britain, Ireland and Brittany - Aubrey Burl Pages: 302, Hardcover, Yale University Press |
amazon marketplace books
|
Shipping: £2.80 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days |
|
Bradshaw's Handbook to Brittany: And Guide to Its Megalithic Monuments at Carnac and Elsewhere... Pages: 144, Paperback, Kessinger Publishing |
amazon marketplace books
|
Shipping: £2.80 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days |