Locmariaquer Travel Guide

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These are wonderful stones magnificently setup and a nice boutique entrance for souvenirs, free parking next door.
You get here by
Road D 78, then follow "Site des mégalithes" or "Table des Marchand" and "Grand Menhir Brisé
the main one is by the side with the big parking lot next to it, but if you out on the road D78 and walk along it, you go around and see the other in between houses.

it includes as a whole, 3 sites dating from 6 500 years old, the Grand Menhir brisé, is a block of granite measuring 21 meters long and weighting 280 tons, the Tumulus Er-Grah is 140 meters long long. It was probably originally constructed in the 5C BC as a cairn , and the Dolmen de la Table des Marchand with several decorations;

as I said around this walking on the road you come to signs telling you to go to Mané-er-Hroeg and rural menhirs .This 100x60m oval mound is made up of 20,000m3 of stones. Surrounded by buildings and covered with scrub. There is crater on top with a 4x3m central burial chamber.

The coming from my town of Auray you hit first Mané-Lud mound . Located on what is almost the highest point in the peninsula, this is the only monument whose name was passed on to us by De Robien, under its French 18th century form Mont-Helleu. This can be related to the Breton term Uhelan ("higher up") but certainly not to "ashes" ludu (human ones of course!) as some morbid minds suggested. It is a large "carnacean barrow" 80m long, 50m wide and 5m high. In the centre, a round cairn hid a stone-built burial chamber, 2.25x1.25m, covered with corbelling.
It revealed the remains of two persons with only a few flints and pottery sherds.

All of them are a must to see here

some lexicon
Cairn: stone monument covering a burial place
Dolmen: chamber sometimes a burial passage bounded by horizontal stones
Gin; lifting apparatus with three beams forming triangular pyramid
megalith: large stone from Greek mega (big) and lithos (stones)
menhir: Breton word meaning large stone
monolith: work formed by single piece of rock
shield idols: framed representation of divinity
offset: projections from a vertical place
tumulus: an aritificial mound covering one or several tombs and made of mixture of stone and earth. depending on the proportions they can be call mounds (earth) or cairns (stones)

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The Créperie les Iles, a very nice ,and we were in a hurry because as it was close to 15H and you know here we respect the time. The folks were very friendly and invited us in, we realise they serve all day, and folks especially those waiting for the passenger boats to the islands do stop by at any time. There is no webpage but they are open every day from Easter to end of September, then open in October excpet the wednesdays and open during the all saints vacation ; closed from November to March. At main plaza, facing the harbor, 8 Place Dariorigum ,tel +33 (0) 2 97 57 35 79.

Favorite Dish: galette de jambon, fromage et champignons or ham cheese and mushrooms with a coupe des iles ice cream with flavors of coconut,and blackberries, and assorted other galettes and dessert for the family with coffee and a leffe blonde beer all for 97€ for five persons

This is our favorite store all over the region, here is the town before locmariaquer at St Philibert that has nice beaches too, but its on the road D28 towards locmariaquer. The store is a factory outlet that is there is a factory right behind the store

You have all they carry here, plus cafeteria and patisserie for all the Breton goodies, a must to stop by.

What to buy: cider,beer, wine,biscuits, fish canned goods, and decoration for the house and kitchen especially a must

What to pay: higher than your corner supermarket but you are buying tradition and best brands locally made. A can of tuna wont cost 1,50 euros but 4,50 but the brand is locally done, not industrially made.

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it was built in the roman style between 1082 and 1120 AD by the monks of Quimperlé.

The remains still visible today are the transept and the choir; on the facade there is the inscription in Latin “Hic Domus Dei” (here there is a house of God).

This exterior area show an archaic architecture with many roman cubiques, bricks, and mix with bricks of different positioning all dating from this period. The door is protected by a porch up front that the ceilings in wood wre taken down in 1988 that allows us to see an inscription in Latin “Haec Porta Coelli” (here is the door to heaven).

Near the southern door you find protruded in the walls a beautiful blessing in granite decorated with leaves and grapevine, dating from the 15C. The interior of the church show its roman architecture in the transept and the apse