Northwest France’s Celtic corner
Too often bypassed by all but vacationing French families and the savviest Brits in favor of crowded southern beaches, the northwestern French region of Brittany, or Bretagne, is an undertouristed historical and natural paradise, a welcome change from Mediterranean kitsch and hubbub. Brittany possesses more than one third of France?s total coastline, most of it in long, smooth, white sand, nearly uninhabited beaches; and yet this region has much more to offer than just sun and beautiful vistas.
Although incorporated into France for more than four hundred years, since the 1532 Act of Union, Brittany retains a strong Celtic culture of its own, with its own black and white flag, its own language, Breton?closely related to Welsh?and a peculiarly Breton culture. In addition to the regular holiday and harvest festivals common to provincial France, Bretons celebrate dozens of saints? days with pardons, ceremonial religious parade with Celtic music, prayers, traditional costumes, lace headdresses, and banners. As their name suggests, the reasons for this distinct identity lie across the Channel in Britain; during the Dark Ages, the Saxon invasion of Britain sent thousands of its original inhabitiants scurrying across the sea to Brittany in search of safety. These people brought with them their Celtic language, culture, and traditions?including legends about such early British folk heroes as King Arthur and Tristan, whom the Bretons now claim as their own.
