For those who have been privy to participate in one of our meetups or are members of our whatsapp group, the term "Rock art" is synonymous with our dear community member Samuel. I always wondered where his infatuation with rock art came from. For me (and I would argue this is a majority opinion) rock art is rarely if ever endearing. Mostly, rock art shows how much mankind has evolved and how humble our beginnings were.

Well, if I had grown up at one of the truly great rock art sites, I may have a different opinion. Samuel is from Bretagne in the vicinity of Carnac. He must have spent quite a few school trips in the stone fields around Carnac studying the standing stones (menhirs). And it's hard not to fall in love with the place when you do.

In the morning, I had come from Nantes. After a short, unmemorable stop at the museum in Carnac, I set out to hike around the site. I must have misread the scale on the map they had given me, as what was intended to be a one, maybe two hour hike turned into a lengthy hike into the countryside. But with all the great fields of menhirs, it was hard to say stop, so I continued.

The most amazing part to me was just how huge the place is. Even a single field would warrant inscription and it's field upon field upon field... Amazing!

OUV

No doubt: Inscribe. As rock art/prehistoric sites go this is the best you can do. Even on a trip where I had visited the Loire Valley the day prior and would see Mont St Michel the next day, this site stood out.

The question is just how large the inscribed area should be. The information material I received at the Carnac museum pointed me to additional rock art sites on islands and further down the coast. Samuel is probably your guy if you want to have a detailed discussion here.

And to pick up from Hubert: Malta and Newgrange are both way smaller. This is distinct.

Getting There

By now, it should go without saying if you read a review by me on France: Public transport in France sucks. To get from Nantes to Carnac I had to wake my cousin's husband at 6.00h to drop me off at the train station in time. The only viable train connection was at 6:45h from Nantes. The next connection was in the afternoon. Please keep in mind that the train connected the major town of Nantes with Quimper, the major town in western Bretagne.

I left the train in Aurey where I waited there one hour for the bus to Carnac. On my return, I took the bus back to Aurey and then continued by TGV to Rennes where I stayed for the night. The next day I visited Mont St Michel.

While You Are There

After my visit I stayed at the beach in Carnac and it was lovely. The towns I passed had more of a British feel (I was reminded of Cornwall) than French. I think I would enjoy spending more time in the Bretagne.

I tried to continue to Quiberon, but due to the hours spend exploring the huge site I wasn't able to. A year prior I had seen a movie on the town and was curious.