Brocéliande, La Forêt de Paimpont

It turned out that there was plenty to in Brittany besides eating turkey sandwiches & boozing in a damp tent with a yowling cat.

There was actually plenty of sightseeing to do.

Now, for those Arthurian legend reading, medieval sword fight movie watching, painfully uncool geeky types, we were in just the right place.

Since I am painfully uncool, I was actually in the perfect place to bask in my geekness.

The Paimpont Forest is stuffed with a ridiculous amount of mysterious, magical, medieval Merlin fun.

Before we ventured deep into the forest, we stopped to take a look at the Arbre d’Or.  (The Golden Tree).

I’m sure that you’re thinking that this is some type of mystical faerie magic at work, here.  But, you’d be wrong.  “The Gold of Brocéliande” is the work of a Parisian sculptor.  I know…not really as exciting, but tell me the last time that you stumbled upon something like this in the forest.  Yeah, that’s what I thought.

We drove a short distance up the road & jumped out of our rental car.  It didn’t take long for Olivier & Cat to get ready for the hike through the forest.

We only walked for a couple of minutes before we happened upon Merlin’s Tomb.  I’m sure that most people would be expecting something somewhat magnificent, or at least a bit tomb-like.  I was actually expecting something involving a magical portal, thunder, day suddenly turning dark as night & the beginnings of a time-travel adventure with an annoying yet plucky sidekick, but that never happened.

Instead, we saw this, um…rock…in a circle.

Actually, though – still pretty freaking cool, though the portal would have been nice.

We ventured along a little further until we reached The Fountain of Eternal Youth, which is actually rather hidden away & is said to be accessible only to those who are pure of heart.

I actually had to wait a few minutes to take this photo, as there were several other pure-hearted hikers having a photo shoot when we arrived.

Just across the path from the fountain, we found ourselves looking down on an area with several stacked & balanced stones.

We remained above the stones, even though people were permitted to walk among them.  We’re both a bit too clumsy to go mucking about in a place like that.

We continued on the path, looking at flowers, picking up falling acorns & expecting that we would loop back around to the car at any minute…

Ok, so the path was a little longer than we thought.  We had no idea that we were in the Val sans Retour.  Yeah, that’s right – the Valley of No Return.  Go ahead & laugh now.  I’ll wait.

Eventually, we found ourselves at a lake, the Pas de Houx.

It seemed like a good place to let Cat do a bit of exploration.

We had planned on our little stroll through the forest to be just that – a little stroll.  In the end, we were roaming around hungry, thirsty & searching for toilet paper by the time that we found civilization again.  Another hour, I’m sure that we would have gone completely Lord of the Flies.

Of course, I suppose it was still an easier day than what we would have gone through had that magical portal actually opened up.

 I have been Merlin wandering in the woods
Of a far country, where the winds waken
Unnatural voices, my mind broken
By a sudden acquaintance with man’s rage.

-“Taliesin” by R. S. Thomas

[tags]Broceliande, Paimpont Forest, Merlin, Bretagne, Brittany, France, fountain of eternal youth, Taliesin, golden tree, lake, Arthurian, legend, tomb, medieval, valley of no return, sightseeing[/tags]