A Farmhouse in Brittany

For most tourists, the primary attraction of Brittany is the ocean. After all, the Celts who settled here in the 6th century BC named the area Armor--”country near the sea”--and its more than 600 miles of coastline are among the most beautiful in the world.

But Brittany is also one of the most varied and exotic regions in France--a large peninsula jutting into the Atlantic Ocean, occupying the entire northwest corner of the country. The moors and forests that once dominated the region have mostly given way to both pastures and neglect, but Brittany remains a land where an ancient language and even more ancient monuments survive amid the combined splendors of jagged, wind-swept coastlines, bucolic farmland and gently rolling hills covered with a purple carpet of heather. Small towns and villages--some incongruously modern, others with cobblestone streets and old, timbered homes--dot the rural countryside.

Conquered by Caesar in 56 AD and ruled by Romans for four centuries, Brittany was settled anew by Celts from Britain in the late 5th century; their Breton language--which resembles Welsh far more than French--is still spoken by many here. Their duchy of Brittany became a part of France in the 16th century. It remains a wonderland of Arthurian myth and legend--of Merlin the sorcerer, of Wagner’s tragic lovers Tristan and Isolde, of King Arthur’s quest for the Holy Grail.

Having first visited Brittany in 1978, I returned with my family late last summer knowing that its many appeals would probably satisfy everyone’s needs. My wife, Lucy, wanted a beach vacation, and I, as always, wanted to go some place where I could enjoy eating in excellent restaurants. But we knew that our then 6-year-old son Lucas would be happiest if there was at least one other child along.

So we proposed a joint vacation with Lucy’s college roommate and her husband, and their two children--which meant we’d be eight in all, counting our longtime child-care person, Ludin; we quickly agreed that renting a house made more sense than staying in hotels. Not only would it be much cheaper but a house--with a kitchen and a yard--would give us maximum freedom, flexibility and comfort.

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Several months before our late summer visit, we queried half a dozen rental agencies in France and the United States. We got several promising leads, but before we could act on them, a French acquaintance found an agency in Brittany. He sent information and pictures on two houses that he thought met our criteria. One seemed perfect: a 17th century stone farmhouse on a tiny road with only cows for neighbors.

We were especially pleased with the price: $1,200 for two weeks. That figured out to about $43 per night per family, an astonishing bargain, and one typical of the region, which is far less costly than Provence or the Riviera. It was ideal for someone, like me, who wants to spend his francs on food, not lodging. Indeed, one of my major criteria was that the house be within a 45-minute drive of the six restaurants I most wanted to eat at, including Le Bretagne, a restaurant in the small town of Questembert, where 18 years earlier I first discovered just how enjoyable fine dining can be.

Our French “finder”--a chef himself--did a great job. Only one restaurant was a longer drive than 45 minutes, and it turned out to be the best discovery of the entire vacation.

We began our Brittany tour at the region’s northeastern-most edge, adjacent to Normandy, staying in a hotel and visiting one of France’s most familiar sites, the 8th century monastery Le Mont-St.-Michel. The abbey rises from the sea on its own island, connected to the mainland by shifting sandbanks that sometimes disappear altogether at high tide. (During our guided tour we were told several times of people who had wandered into the shallow waters at low tide, never to be seen again.)

According to legend, construction on the abbey began after the archangel Michael (St. Michel) appeared in a vision to a local bishop. The abbey was built, rebuilt and expanded over the centuries in Romanesque, Gothic and flamboyant styles. It has been a destination for religious pilgrims for more than 1,000 years. Although the narrow, winding street leading up to the abbey is crowded with tourist shops--and tourists--year-round, the site remains well worth the trip.

We also visited the charming port towns of St.-Malo and Cancale, the latter being home to a highly regarded restaurant--the Maison de Bricourt--that I’d been eager to try for several years. Lucy and I ate there twice, but while the restaurant had hotel rooms on the premises, we decided to stay about 10 minutes away at a much less expensive but decidedly pleasant hotel called Tirel-Guerin, where Lucas and Ludin enjoyed frolicking in the swimming pool every evening before dinner.

After three days here, we drove our rental car about three hours southwest to our rented farmhouse, located between the village of Plumergat and the small town of Ste.-Anne-d’Auray. The nearest city, 10 minutes away, was Auray, where we could find everything we needed, including a good wine store, the International Herald Tribune, a marvelous open-air market and a large, double-decker carousel for the children.

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We arrived in the early afternoon, after stopping for a picnic lunch in the imposing shadow of the 14th century Josselin castle, and our friends arrived a couple of hours later. Chris and Larry were immediately as delighted as we were with the house. It On the ground floor, we found a large living room/dining room area, a kitchen and a laundry room; upstairs were three bedrooms and two bathrooms. We decided that Ludin and the three kids would sleep in the one bedroom above the kitchen, adjacent to one bathroom--a bit crowded, perhaps, but they all seemed quite pleased with the cozy arrangement. The two adult couples slept in the other two bedrooms--both large, up a separate staircase, with good sunlight and a bathroom between.

The house had modern plumbing--including a dishwasher and washing machine--good-sized front yards and backyards, an outdoor grill, patio furniture and a Ping-Pong table from which Lucas and 9-year-old Nick liberated the paddles and balls for daily, imaginary baseball games.

The landlady, Annick Herve, lived in a separate house on the property and was both gracious and nonintrusive. She gave us some homemade cre^pes (thin pancakes that are one of Brittany’s oldest and best-known specialties), several guidebooks to the area and, on a night when we invited her over for a drink, a bottle of champagne.

Our daily routine was quite relaxed. I was usually the first one up each morning--l-o-n-g after the nearby cocks had crowed--and once I’d returned from the two-minute drive into Plumergat with croissants, we enjoyed a very leisurely breakfast, often outdoors. (Although Brittany winters are cold, summers tend to be mild, rarely much over 80 degrees.) Then we’d plan our daily sightseeing excursions.

High on all our lists were the megaliths (“great stones” in Greek), giant slabs of rock, many of them dating back almost 7,000 years, that are scattered throughout the area.

Much larger and more numerous than the megaliths at Stonehenge, they are “one of archeology’s most enduring mysteries . . . [posing] as many tantalizing unanswered questions as the pyramids,” in the words of Even Hadingham, a British archeologist.

Like the pyramids, many megaliths are thought to have housed or marked tombs, and the biggest and best of them are near the beach towns of Carnac and Locmariaquer, all within 20 or 30 minutes’ drive from our house. The Grand Menhir brise, sometimes called “the Fairy Stone,” sits just outside Locmariaquer. Now shattered into four huge blocks by some massive, unknown force, it once stood 67 feet tall and weighted 340 tons. (At Stonehenge, the largest megaliths are 29 feet and 50 tons.)

One day, after spending a few hours walking among the stones and into a couple of caves, we passed the rest of the afternoon on a small beach nearby. We sampled various other beaches in the area on other days, usually on the spur of the moment. (We always kept towels and swimsuits in the trunks of our two rental cars.) We also visited some of the nearby towns and villages, all short, easy drives from our house: We strolled through the old port city of Vannes, took a miniature train for a ride around the port of Auray and toured the fishing village of La Trinite-sur-Mer.

But our most pleasurable excursions came on the water. We took boat trips to two islands, the exquisite I^le aux Moines (population 617) and the larger Belle-I^le (“Beautiful Island”), where we played and swam on a broad, sandy beach and looked out at the Atlantic from a lighthouse on a rocky promontory. We also spent two hours on a boat tour of the Morbihan Gulf, where we glided among jewel-like islands, where we took turns fantasizing about which of the mansions visible from our boat we would most like to buy.

For lunch we sometimes picnicked in our front yard or at secene spots along the way, eating the roast chicken, sausages, bread, fruit and cheese that we bought from various shops we passed while sightseeing. Other days, we ate at casual cafes and relatively inexpensive bistros that featured regional specialties--crepes, mussels and omelets among them.

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For dinner, we went to the restaurants where I’d made reservations months ahead. We feasted on regional specialties--lobster and langoustines and local lamb--and we drank white wines from the nearby Loire Valley and red wine from Burgundy and Bordeaux. Some nights, all eight of us went out together; some nights, the kids stayed home with Ludin (and, a couple of times, with Chris and Larry as well) and ate pasta or pizza or leftovers from lunch.

We ate twice at my 1978 discovery, Le Bretagne, where one night the sensational meal cooked by chef Georges Paineau included lobster in a ragout of black truffles and red wine, veal kidneys wrapped in bacon and served in a sauce of shallots, mustard and Port, and a dense chocolate fondant in a caramel/citron sauce.

The only dinners that approached this one in overall excellence were the two we had at the restaurant that required the longest drive--an hour and 15 minutes each way. The restaurant is the Ferme du Letty, about 10 yards from the beach just outside the small town of Benodet, near the westernmost point of the Brittany peninsula.

The Ferme (small farm) is run by a 33-year-old chef, Jean-Marie Guilbault, and his father, formerly a barman at the posh Hotel Crillon in Paris. The restaurant’s lamb, raised on the algae and salt marsh nearby, was unlike any other I’ve ever seen or tasted. It was a pale pink, almost like veal, but with a velvety, almost creamy texture and a rich, not-quite-gamy flavor.

Lucy and I enjoyed our dinner there so much that when we returned, we all but insisted that Chris and Larry come with us the second time. Perhaps the only dinner they enjoyed more was the one we had near the end of our vacation, in our rented house. It was their daughter Emma’s 5th birthday, and we all spent part of the afternoon shopping in the open-air market. Lucy and Chris made langoustines and leg of lamb with roast potatoes, and I bought a nice white Burgundy and an even nicer red Burgundy. We had bread and cheese and fruit and, of course, a birthday cake.

When it came time to say a tearful goodbye--to Brittany and to each other--all of us vowed to do this again, together. And Larry reminded us that he had “dibs” on a particular seaside mansion we’d spotted the previous afternoon on our boat tour of the gulf.

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GUIDEBOOK: Brittany Bound

Getting there: Air France and AOM French Airlines fly nonstop from LAX to Paris; American, USAir and United have direct flights involving one stop but no change of planes. A price war at press time had fares sinking dramatically; check airlines for current information.

From Paris, rent a car and drive west to Brittany or take a high-speed (TGV) train from the Gare Montparnasse to Rennes or Vannes.

Renting a house: We rented from Annick Herve, in Plumergat (telephone/fax 011-33-2-9756-1436), who has three units attached like a row house to rent individually or collectively from April through October. Rates range from $450 to $700 per week in high season (July and August) and from $275 to $500 a week in April, May, June, September and October. Several agencies also have rental homes available in Brittany; among them: Villas International, 605 Market St., San Francisco, CA 94105; tel. (415) 281-0910, fax (415) 281-0919; At Home Abroad, 405 E. 56th St., New York, NY 10022, tel. (212) 421-9165, fax (212) 752-1591; and the French Experience, 370 Lexington Ave., Suite 812, New York, NY 10017; tel. (212) 986-1115, fax (212) 986-3808.

Where to eat: Maison de Bricourt in Cancale (local tel. 9989-6476); Le Bretagne in Questembert (local tel. 9726-1112; Ferme du Letty in Benodet (local tel. 9857-0127); Regis Mahe in Vannes (local tel. 9742-6141); Patrick Jeffroy in Plounerin (local tel. 9638-6180).

For more information: French Government Tourist Office, 9454 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 715, Beverly Hills, CA 90212; tel. (310) 271-6665. In Britanny, the Office de Tourisme, 1 Rue Thiers, Vannes; tel. 011-33-2-9747-2434, fax 011-33-2-9747-2949.