La Roche aux Fees

This morning we checked out of our hotel in Vannes and started to make our way in the direction of Paris for our departure.  BTW—the Olympic torch was passing through Vannes later in the day.  Also, if any of you are familiar with the show “Escape to the Chateau”, we were in that general area of France.  Very beautiful!

Our morning stop was at La Roche aux Fées.  It was named the Fairies’ Rock because it was believed that fairies had built it in one night.  It is a Neolithic dolmen, or gallery grave that is 19.5 meters long, 6 meters wide and 4 meters tall.  It is made up of about 48 stones totaling 500 tons of shale with the largest stone weighing 45 tons, all hauled from 4 km away.   It was built between 3000 and 2500 B.C. and is the largest in France and the best preserved dolmen in Europe.  The entrance is aligned with the Winter Solstice Sunrise.

La Roche aux Fées is situated in a very beautiful park like setting with picnic tables, and is a very family friendly place.  Anyone is free to climb all over the dolmen, as it is practically indestructible! 

From what I understand, multiple burials are placed in a dolmen over sometimes hundreds of years.  The body is left outside until the flesh is gone, and then the bones are placed there.  That is not the end of it, as the bones can be taken out from time to time for what I am assuming are ceremonies, and they are also occasionally rearranged inside.  The dolmen that I have pendulum tested on this trip all had no energy.  This was the exception, as the pendulum swung vigorously clockwise inside it.  Why this was, I do not know.  Was this because of the stone that was used, the location, or the spirits of the dead that may have been lingering there?  The whole placed had a kind of fun and elevated energy.

Next to the dolmen was a very old and gnarly tree.  Just for kicks, I decided to put my hands on it to see if I could get anything.  Wow!  The energy was so active, and the tree was vitally alive, even on the dead part where I had my hands.  It communicated that it was a village, and played host to many beings.  I suspected that it meant that these beings were not only the local insects and birds, but perhaps spirit beings as well.  Maybe some of these were the notorious fairies! 

What a lovely interlude as we made our way to the last stop on this trip, the town of Chartres.

Carnac and Gavrinis

Carnac is an area near Vannes on the Atlantic coast of Brittany.  It has many attractions, but the most significant one is the Carnac alignments, which was our next destination.  At this huge Neolithic site are located about 3000 menhirs, standing stones, arranged in rows covering an area of 200 square kilometers in 3 separate sections.  This is the largest field of standing stones in the world.  Impressive indeed! 

This day started out cloudy and somewhat misty.  Because of time constraints, we were only able to walk around the monuments of the section called Le Menec.  Our guide said that all 3 segments were pretty much the same.  If you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all, supposedly.  I would have liked to spend the whole day there and seen everything! 

The menhirs are made of local granite, and in fact, we saw plenty of granite outcroppings on the ground.

The alignments were constructed from about 4500 B. C. to 3300 B. C., which makes the whole site older than Stonehenge.  No one knows who built the Carnac alignments, and for what purpose.  It certainly is a magical place. 

The sheep were expected to keep the grass and weeds under control, but I saw that they were more interested in walking on the pathways!

After a nice lunch, we headed off to Lamor-Baden to take a boat to the island of Gavrinis to visit the very impressive tumulus that is there.  The weather had cleared up nicely.  It was a sort of wacky afternoon, as our guides got into a heated discussion with the boat company, and once we got to the island, it looked like all of the caretakers and guides on site were teenagers!  On top of that, the explanation that was given by one of the teenagers before we walked to the actual tumulus was all in French.

The Gavrinis tomb was built around 4200-4000 B. C., and is shaped like a squat step pyramid.  The remarkable thing about this site is the fabulous megalithic rock art that covers the inside surfaces.  There was even a rumor floating about that the French government was thinking about closing down the site for preservation purposes and constructing and exact replica elsewhere.

We were only allowed 5 people at a time inside for a quick visit.  That was a rush.  No matter, since the weather had become sunny and warm, and it was nice just to be outside.  We were given flashlights and instructed not to touch the walls.  I was lucky to get a few good shots of the magnificent ancient artwork.

Upon coming out of the tomb, I took time to admire the clouds streaming overhead. 

Locmariaquer

 

This day started out with a tour of the medieval walled city of Vannes, where we would spend 3 nights.  We were now on the Atlantic side of Brittany.  

After lunch in the quaint town of Locmariaquer, it was off to visit a very important megalithic site.  This is the third place on the trip where my pendulum swung vigorously clockwise!

First we saw the Er-Grah tumulus passage grave constructed around 3300 B. C.  It has been restored, but no access is allowed.  I had a circular swing of the pendulum on the sidewalk there.

As we moved on to the next spot, the pendulum moved backwards and forwards, indicating that we were walking on an energetic pathway. 

Next we went to the broken Le Grand Menhir Brise.  This is fascinating!  This menhir was quarried from several kilometers away and erected here around 4700 B. C.  That makes it much older than Stonehenge.   Originally it weighed 330 tons and stood 67.6’ high, making it the largest megalith erected in Europe.    Around 4000 B. C. it fell over and broke into 4 pieces.  It is assumed that the cause was an earth quake.   Again, how did they move this massive stone, and who moved it?  No one knows.

It was originally at the beginning of a lineup of 18 other megaliths that decreased in size as they went to the opposite end.  It is also assumed that these megaliths were removed over the years to be used in other Paleolithic building projects.   The 18 locations where they once stood have been marked with stone circles as above and below.

So this is where I got the biggest swing of the pendulum.  Clearly I was standing on sacred ground.  The people who erected this menhir must have known that.  Going through the massive effort to quarry and move this stone was very important to them.  The Le Grand Menhir Brise was also covered with rock carvings which have eroded away with time.

Our last stop was the Table des Marchands dolmen.  This was certainly a burial site.  Built in 3300 B. C., it was restored to its original form in 1993.

A dolmen is created by standing up 2 or more megaliths opposite each other and then putting a capstone on top, thus creating a box like chamber.  They may or may not be covered by a mound of dirt.  The other explanation is that after the upright stones are placed, the whole thing is covered by dirt.  A large megalith is dragged up the resulting hill to a position on top of the parallel massive stones, and the earth is removed from underneath the cap stone creating a chamber.  I find it interesting that many of the restored ones have been covered with dirt and even a layer of small rocks on top of that, whereas many other dolmen are devoid of any soil covering.

Whereas I found a strong energy flow at the Grand Menhir Brise, there was no energy here.  That is common with other tombs that I checked on this trip.   What was interesting here was the fabulous rock art inside the dolmen.  This had to be created while the stones were still out in the light.  To make photography easier, lights were installed inside the dolmen.

We had the evening free back in Vannes, so I did some shopping and stopped at a local market for some snacks.  I even bought a few French macarons at a local bakery.  French macarons in France.  You can’t beat that!