Tour of Hennessey's

The tour begins with a ride across the Charente in this boat

--just a bit of French flourish that a bridge could not provide;

incidentally, I was joined on the tour by two others, both

French, but they graciously consented for the tour to be

entirely in English, for my benefit

But, before the tour, at Vicki's suggestion, urging even, I

tasted the "Paradis" blend, the best normal people can buy,

$700 a 70cl bottle; well, the tasting was only 19 euros; and

worth it! Hey, you have to establish standards...

Stills, where grapes go in and eau-de-vie comes out

Barrels of fun; cognac, like scotch, is largely about the wood

and the aging; and blending...unlike single malt scotch

In the "paradis" section of the warehouses, whey they keep

the treasures, going back to 1830; 1947 was a good year for

many reasons, and several barrels remain

Row after row of barrels, dozens of warehouses; Hennessey's

does about 41% of the market; the scent is, um, intoxicating

So, there we were, parked on a quiet street right outside the

door to Hennessey world headquarters, on the Charente,

swans ambling by; we decided to have dinner and then spend

the night

Vicki's delicious galette complet and Normandie cidre; I

already had had my quota of cognac

End of a pretty good day

Museum of the Arts of Cognac

While I awaited my Hennessey's tour and tasting, I visited the Museum of the 
Arts of Cognac (the beverage, man), which is a superb collection of historic 
artifacts, high-tech,and high-touch displays, art, and marketing history

Ancient press

Some wonderful cognac-related paintings

Pleasant surroundings for high-tech presentations

And some savvy displays about how the stuff has been 
marketed over the years

Cognac City

As we departed Brittany and entered the Loire Atlantique and

then the Charente, Vicki astutely surmised that the city of

Cognac might have something to do with one of my other

favorite beverages, cognac, and that it might indeed hold

some attraction for me. She is so thoughtful. Although I was

initially skeptical--hey, you can't just naively assume the

name has anything to do with it--we re-routed for Cognac,

and there, to my pleasant surprise, as we entered the city,

emerged the warehouses of Remy Martin, Courvosier,

Martell, Camus, and, greatest of all, Hennessey. We booked

a tour for me later in the afternoon and then set about briefly

exploring the old city.

A city of cream-colored limestone, a bit

monochrome for me, but nonetheless beautiful;

incidentally, the minute you leave Brittany

into the Loire Atlantique the roof-tops

consistently change to tile!

Hey, he had 3 inches on either side!

Shopping district, Cognac

Indoor market

Interior of an office building, lawyers and

real estate offices

Vicki made me take this picture...$112 underwear, typical

of what we see in France; would nicely match the ass-less

chaps we saw in San Francisco

Part of the old castle and city wall

Portal trowers

Paleosite

From La Rochelle we headed back east a bit, and, on the way,

saw signs for something called "Paleosite." It turned out to

be closed for the season (I think), but is a park/attraction

around some recently discovered limestone caves with

Neanderthal remains. Amusing. Next time, maybe. Above

is a roundabout near the attraction.

"Paleosite"

One of the caves

"Our Founder"--apparently went native himself

La Rochelle

The next day we made it as far as LaRochelle,

on the coast, a beautiful and historic port city,

said to be France's finest; we spent the day

exploring the old city, the night at the Vieux

de Port aire; above, the city's old clock tower

and portal

Covered arcades all over the old town

Cobblestones from Canada, ballast from

ships returning from Quebec

Hotel de Ville

Tower

One of the medieval towers guarding the port

Light house, said to be the oldest still-

functioning on the Atlantic

Other tower

Lucon

December 2 began our leisurely drive south; after shopping stops in various places, we got as far as the town of Lucon and the aire there right in the middle of town. It was the time of the full moon, so, just to be extra careful, we parked outside the Gendarmerie, under the calvaire, within site of the cathedral spire...

 Afternoon snack from LeClerc's; dieting in France is tres difficile!

Cathedral in Lucon

The Gendarmerie

The calvaire and full moon...

Shellfishing at Locmariaquer

We awoke December 2 to the sound of cars arriving and people heading for the beach at sunrise (which is pretty late in these parts). What we initially assumed was the early morning sunrise yoga practice at Pierre Plats turned out to be scores of people in Wellies with rakes and buckets and claws, walking and wading out into the tidal flats to gather mussels, clams, and oysters. Alas, we left our clam digging gear back in Montana!


Shellfishing

Scores of people

Gleaners of the Sea...the whole village it seemed like....

A whole basket of oysters!

Pierre Plats

At the end of the Locmariaquer peninsula, out on the sand dunes, just a few feet from the sea, is the unusually large and curved Pierre Plats passage grave. After exploring, we spent the night at an aire right next to it.

Moi, there, at the entrance

Carvings on interior stones

Ditto

Double ditto

From the other end you can see the curve; also the nice menhir

marking the place

Locmariaquer

Locmariaquer is the next peninsula around, 10-15 miles by
road from Carnac; it has its own cluster of major, incredible
sites; above, a hundred meters or so away, is the Grand
Menhir of Brise, some twenty meters in length; it is not
known whether it ever stood, although both medieval and
18th century sources indicate it did; it is surely the largest
of menhirs, whether standing or not, and was moved to
Locmariquer from a quarry 3 miles or so distant...imagine
the size of the trees/rollers it would have taken (and felling
such trees with stone tools) to move this puppy...calculated
to be about 280 tons

The Grand Menhir from the entrance to the Table of Merchants;
the Table of Merchants is of great interest by itself; it is now
known that the "table" itself was part of a smilarly large menhir
that was taken down and broken up...one piece went to the
Merchants Table, one to the Er Grah tumulus (see below),
another to be the roof of Gavrinis (greatest of all these places),
3 miles away in the (now) Gulf of Morbihan; and a fourth piece
is missing

Inside the Table of Merchants

One of the side pillars in the Table of Merchants

The head piece in the Table, about 8 feet tall, carved
beautifully in shepherds' crooks (animal husbandry
being one of the hallmarks of the neolithic)

Same shot, different lighting

The ceiling of the Table of Merchants, that is, the table itself,

with its exquisitely carved 4 foot hafted axe; this is a piece

of the aforementioned chopped-up menhir

Hardly a stone's throw away from all this is

the now-uncovered tumulus of Er Grah,

unkown until quite recently; it is a 130 foot

long tumulus, with a single grave...

somebody important; and another piece of

the chopped-up menhir

Me, by pieces #2 and #3 of the Grand Menhir; it is fascinating

to imagine that the menhir culture actually predated the

tumulus and passage grave culture, that the latter had no use

for the former, all this five, six, seven thousand years ago