Kiwanis Travel Adventure Series: Scotland to Provence Feb. 14

On Valentine’s Day, “Etched in Stone: Scotland to Provence” will be presented as part of the Kiwanis of La Cañada Travel Series.

From the Central Highlands of Scotland, through the heart of England and France, London and Paris, to the shores of the Mediterranean — Monty and Marsha Brown take armchair travelers on a tour of roads they have traveled during the past two decades, a spiritual journey that contemplates the many stone creation along the way, from pre-history to the present.

The film will be shown at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 14, in the auditorium at Flintridge Preparatory School on Crown Avenue at Foothill Boulevard in La Cañada. Preprogram entertainment featuring Tom Burrows piano melodies will begin at 7:10 pm. Tickets may be purchased at the door for $8.

This is an historic spiritual journey from Solway Firth on the Irish Sea in Scotland, to the North Sea coast of England, south through the Midlands, the West Country, and across the Channel to France. It encompasses Normandy and Brittany in the north through the redolent French countryside to romantic Provence on the Mediterranean Sea. Everywhere, stories and legends of the glorious past are written in stone: churches, castles, monuments, monoliths and other stone remnants.

In Scotland, visit Loch Lomond and Trosssachs National Park, the Lake of Menteith, Doune Castle where “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” was filmed; the ancient capital of Stirling, and Falkirk, where a modern wheel connects canals between Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Christianity arrived in Scotland and England, and spread outward and downward from these remote northern climes.

The film includes Dundrennan Abbey where Mary, Queen of Scots, spent her last night in Scotland before throwing herself on the mercy of her cousin, Elizabeth I; and the evocative red stone ruins of Sweetheart Abbey, surely the inspiration for Valentine’s Day.

The tour finishes in Provence — Cassis and Orange — where there are cave paintings, menhirs and Roman ruins. See Charleval and La Roque d’Anthéron, Provençal villages, Lamanoun caves and cliffs, pilgrimage at Lambesc, cathedral and town of Aix-en-Provence.

Learn about “Le petit train,” a tourist tradition in France, the Luberon mountain village of Gordes and the stone shepherds’ huts (Bories); castles, monsters and Tatarin’s House in Tarascon on the River Rhone, which leads to the shores of the Mediterranean.

There are many stops along the way: London and Paris; the English Lake District of poets and misty standing stones; the West Country of Glastonbury Abbey, magical musical Dartmoor. Carn Euny Ancient Village. Stonehenge. Northern France: Norman and Breton country churches and Benedictine Le Beq Hellouin monastery; Orbec and Debussy; Mont St. Michel and Le Dol de Bretagne; plinths and obelisks; the Cathedral of St. Tugdual at Treguier, and Cathedral at Coutances.

The proceeds from this travel film series helps fund the youth programs of the La Cañada Kiwanis Foundation.