Table of Contents for this Episode
Categories: French Châteaux, Normandy & Brittany
Discussed in this Episode
- Château de Suscinio
- Île d'Arz
- Gulf of Morbihan
- Vannes
- Port du Logeo
- Port Navalo
- Île aux Moines
- Saint-Gildas-de-Rhuys
- Saint-Gildas Abbey
- Tidal Mill (Île d'Arz)
- Le Bourg (Île d'Arz)
- Crêperies (Île d'Arz)
- Glenan Sailing School
- Breton spritz (drink)
- Oyster farms (near Île d'Arz)
580 A vacation in southern Brittany with Elyse (Jan 11)
[00:00:15] Introduction and Vacation Overview
Annie Sargent: This is Join Us in France, episode 580, cinq cent quatre-vingts.
Annie Sargent: Bonjour, I’m Annie Sargent and Join Us in France is the podcast where we take a conversational journey through the beauty, culture, and flavors of France.
[00:00:29] Today on the podcast
Annie Sargent: Today, I bring you a conversation with Elyse Rivin, who takes us to southern Brittany’s hidden treasures, the majestic Chateau of Suscinio, a 1,000-year-old castle with royal secrets, and the serene Isle of D’Arz, where pirates, sailors, and megaliths tell stories of the sea.
Annie Sargent: Discover why this coastal paradise is perfect for history lovers and families alike, all in one unforgettable day.
[00:00:57] Podcast supporters
Annie Sargent: This podcast runs on chocolatine, coffee, and the generosity of listeners like you, whether you book an itinerary consult, take one of my VoiceMap tours, join me for a day trip in my electric car around the Southwest of France, or support the show on Patreon, you keep this whole adventure going, and I am deeply grateful.
Annie Sargent: If you’d like to support the podcast and skip the ads this year, you’ll find the link in the show notes, and all my tours and services are at JoinUsinFrance.com/Boutique. And merci.
[00:01:32] Magazine segment
Annie Sargent: For the magazine part of the podcast, after my chat with Elyse today, I’ll discuss an email I received from a listener who got fined on the train and did not enjoy the experience.
Annie Sargent: You need to know about the rules, or this may happen to you as well. And I’ll also discuss an interesting experiment in mustard production that reveals a lot about where food production is headed in France.
Annie Sargent: If you want the edited transcripts, all the links, and none of the frantic note-taking, head to JoinUsinFrance.com/Episodes.
Annie Sargent: Everything is organized there by months and by category as well, and if you like a calm, useful recap delivered to your inbox, that’s what the newsletter is for. You can sign up at JoinUsinFrance.com/Newsletter.
Annie Sargent: Oh, and if you’re curious about the tours, consults, and other things I cook up, that’s all neatly parked at my JoinUsinFrance.com/Boutique.
[00:02:44] A Vacation in southern Brittany with Elyse
Annie Sargent: Bonjour, Elyse.
Elyse Rivin: Bonjour, Annie.
Annie Sargent: We have a fun conversation today about your vacation. You just came home from vacation.
Elyse Rivin: A vacation? Well, yeah. It was a vacation. It was a vacation because I was in cool weather, I was near the Atlantic Coast, I was very far from the Southwest of France, and it was very delightful. It was very delightful, yeah.
Annie Sargent: Yes, yes. The weather seems to suit you. The summer weather suits you better there.
Elyse Rivin: Yes, if I could do the opposite of what in the States used to be called the… what was it called, the people who go down to Florida in the summertime? There’s a term for that.
Elyse Rivin: Yeah, they’re snow something? The snowbirds. Snowbirds. Snowbirds. Yeah, I would be a, like, Brittany northern snowbird. You know, in the summertime, take me away from the heat, you know?
Annie Sargent: Exactly, exactly.
[00:03:41] Exploring Brittany: Vannes and the Gulf of Morbihan
Elyse Rivin: It’s very beautiful there. And of course, for those who have never been to Brittany, Brittany is very, very big. It’s a huge region. It’s not a department. It’s an enormous region. And I spend a few weeks every summer, or have been spending a few weeks in many, many years in the summertime in a part of Brittany that’s really the southern part of Brittany, on the southern coast. It’s near the City of Vannes, which is the largest city of the Department of the Morbihan, which is the department that we go to. And most of the time, it centers around the gulf that is there, the gulf, and it’s a huge gulf called the Gulf of Morbihan, which is filled with islands and which has lots of gorgeous little villages and old houses, all along the edge of it, the extreme edge.
Elyse Rivin: And it has lots of things to see. There’s actually a lot to see. There are things that are prehistorical, part of the Druids civilization and all of that. There are fishing villages. There’s lots to eat.
Elyse Rivin: And this time, we decided to do something we’d done before but in the past, a long time ago, and so it was a wonderful surprise to go back there. And we went to see the chateau. There’s a wonderful, majestic ducal chateau, right near where we stay, and the chateau is called Suscinio.
Annie Sargent: Right, I’ve actually heard of it. So this one is pretty famous.
Elyse Rivin: It’s the second residence of the Dukes of Brittany from the inception of the Dukes of Brittany.
Elyse Rivin: The origins of the castle go back almost 1,000 years. But what is really, and this time what was really fun, was that in the last 10-15 years, the department has invested a huge amounts of money to not only restore certain aspects of the architecture, but make the inside very, very beautiful and interesting to visit with or without children.
Annie Sargent: Very cool.
[00:05:41] Visiting the Island of Arz
Annie Sargent: So you did this Suscinio Castle, and you also went to an island, Island of Arz.
Elyse Rivin: Island of Arz. And if you’re a local, because we took a boat cruise to go there, there are several ways of going to this island. It’s the second-largest island in the gulf. The largest is the Ile aux Moines, the Isle of Monks. It’s right next to it, actually. It’s very close.
Elyse Rivin: But if you come from where we were, which is the southern part of this gulf, you have to go to a small town at the very tip of the peninsula called the Port Navalo, and there, they have excursion boats that take you to the island two or three times a day. if you have an interest in visiting this island you can go from Vannes, which is a very beautiful small city, and there, they have shuttles that go every 20, 30 minutes all day long, and it’s a 10, 15-minute ride. It’s much closer to Vannes, which is on the northern side of the gulf. But we decided, and we meaning me, my husband, and the entire collection of family that was there, which included four childrenages between three and a half and 14, and six adults, we decided that we’re going to make it a day trip and do an excursion leaving from Portd’Enavalot and spend pretty much almost a whole day on the island, which is what we did.
Annie Sargent: Wow, that’s quite the clan.
Elyse Rivin: Yes. And interestingly enough, because the… everybody basically did their thing. So some of us walked, some of us biked, you can rent a bicycle as soon as you get off the boat. A couple of people took the little shuttle bus, because there is one too, but I’ll go into details about itafter I talk about the Castle of Suscinio.
Elyse Rivin: But it was actually a lovely, lovely adventure to do for a full day.
Elyse Rivin: And lots of people go there. It is very popular. It has a wintertime population of approximately they announced, about 270 people. There was a small elementary school actually that is still functioning on the island.
Elyse Rivin: But in the summer, there are so many… 70% of the homes there are owned by people who live somewhere else in Brittany or a little further away, but mostly people actually who live in Brittany. And so in the summer, it’s 10 times as many. It’s the local population is almost 3,000, and then you have, of course, thousands of people who come as day trippers to see the various things you can see on the island. It’s a popular place to go to.
Annie Sargent: Very cool.
[00:08:11] The Majestic Chateau of Suscinio
Annie Sargent: So let’s talk about the Chateau of Suscinio first.
Elyse Rivin: Okay. So the Chateau Suscinio is a magnificent… it’s really quite astounding. It’s a real fortified feudal castle with a moat that is really a moat. It has water in it because they renovated to the extent of including putting water back into the moat, so… And has ducks and swans in the moat, and little boats that go around it.
Elyse Rivin: It has seven towers, two enormous courtyards, and of course, the entire thing is built out of the local stone, which is a kind of granite. So it has this very majestic imposing quality to it. And in the last 25 years, they’ve done all this work to restore the ramparts, to restore the towers. My husband and all of his family, they have been going to this part of Brittany for ages and ages and ages. They remember it when it was still half in ruin.
Annie Sargent: Oh, wow. So it was half in ruin at some point.
Elyse Rivin: It was half, yeah.
[00:09:14] Historical Significance and Restoration of Suscinio
Elyse Rivin: And in fact, I was doing some research to find out more about the actual history of it, because there’s a lot of things that I didn’t know about it, and it turns out that it was really pretty much a ruin until the end of the 1960s. They started just touching it up, fixing it up a little bit to make it visitable in the 1970s.
Elyse Rivin: So it’s really in the last 50 years, but now they’ve really done its incredible job. And one of the reasons why is because it turns out that it was actually the second most important castle for the Dukes of Brittany.
Annie Sargent: Okay. Yeah, seems like a very large chateau, so it must have been important.
Elyse Rivin: It was. So of course, the most important one is the one in Nantes, which was the official formal residence. But believe it or not, this one was started in the year 1028. Ugh, 1000… You know, it’s a thousand years old. Sometimes, you know, you look at these stones and you go, "Really?" Now, in the last five, six years doing archeological digging, and they’re discovering things that go back even further. So all the local people are all excited about it because it’s going to bring in even more information and more tourists probably. But it goes back to the time when Brittany, which was, of course, for a very long time a separate kingdom, it was not a part of France, and the dukes of Brittany were very important.
Elyse Rivin: There were two branches of the family, just like you have in England, happened in France and happened… And half of them were loyal to the English kings because they’re very close by, you know, they can wave to each other, and half of them were loyal to the French kings. And that apparently was one of the reasons why the castle was built. But it went from the English side, when it was originally built as a primitive fortified castle, it was part of the territory that was controlled… the coastline was actually controlled by the English.
Elyse Rivin: And then at some point, you know, it’s hard to keep track of all these to be really honest, one of the daughters of one of the dukes of Brittany, about 100, 150 years later was married off to a French prince, and they of course claimed it. And one of the outcomes of all of this going back and forth was that they actually worked on the castle. So the castle benefited from the fact that there was this rivalry because they made the castle bigger each time. They wanted to make it more fortified, and they wanted to make it more imposing. And each side would decide, "Okay, this is going to make it so nobody can attack it." And then they would go back to the other side and they would add a little bit more, which is why it wound up with seven towers and two courtyards and this huge moat all the way around it.
Annie Sargent: Very cool. That sounds fabulous. So how far is… This is not on the island, right?
Elyse Rivin: No. This is on the mainland, but it’s on a stretch that’s a peninsula. The peninsula is called the Presqu’ile de Rhuys. And if you have any idea of the southern part of Brittany, you have the city of Vannes, which is really on the northern edge of the Gulf of Morbihan. And if you take a drive, you basically go around down to the southern part of the gulf, and you go onto this little… This stretch that’s this presqu’ile, and that is where the castle is.
Annie Sargent: All right. Yes. And Huizh is R-U-I-Z?
Elyse Rivin: Huizh… No. It’s R-H-U-Y-S.
Annie Sargent: Oh, I’m glad I asked.
Elyse Rivin: Yes. It’s a word from Breton. It’s a Gaelic word. The Suscinio was built where it is exactly because it is strategically placed castle. So when you walk out of the castle or as you… As part of the visit to the castle, you can visit the marshland that is right there. I mean, it’s right next to… It’s with, like a half a mile away. You have a bird sanctuary, you have marshland, and you have the beach. It’s really on the coast. And one of the reasons for that was to make sure that if it was contro-… when eventually, of course, it was taken as part of the French kingdom, to make sure that the English did not invade.
Elyse Rivin: But prior to that, it was simply because of pirates and because of shipping, because one of the ways it made a lot of money and became very rich as even a castle was by the shipping of merchandise out from the area where the land is very rich. And that was one of the reasons it was coveted by both sides, both by the English and by the French.
Elyse Rivin: And it eventually, of course, entered into the realm of what is now France, when one of the daughters, Anne of Britania, Anne of Brittany, was married off to a son of a king who became a king, she became a widow and then married his brother.
Elyse Rivin: And that, from that point on, it became a part of the kingdom of France.
Annie Sargent: Very cool.
Elyse Rivin: Just a couple of anecdotes, but this is the kind of research that always I find so much fun to read about, Francis I, who was king in the 1500s, he was a big ladies’ man, and he had lots and lots of different mistresses. And when they were retired, he would give them presents. And so the Suscinio became the present of one of his ex-mistresses.
Annie Sargent: Hmm.
Elyse Rivin: It literally is like, it becomes their present, that they can do what they want with it. So I don’t know the name of this particular mistress, but then his son, when she died, his son who was Henry II, his famous mistress was Diane de Poitiers, someone we’ve talked about a bit, who was his mistress for a very, very long time. When she was getting older, he gave her the property, and told her she could do what she wanted. She already had Chenonceau in the Loire Valley and a whole bunch of other things.
Elyse Rivin: And what did she do? These are the kinds of stories that I find amazing. She handed it over to her daughter, who decided to give it to somebody else, and literally, they lost track of who owned it after a while.
Elyse Rivin: It became one of those castles. And the reason that all these people wanted it, it basically, this is what happened up until the time of the French Revolution. By the time of the French Revolution, it was falling apart because the people that were given this castle wanted it not because this was the ideal place for them to spend their summer vacations, but because the land was very rich, and because it was very good farmland. And because with the castle, they had the right to take the land,use the products that were produced by all the farmers in the region because they were part of royalty.
Elyse Rivin: And so little by little what happened was the region became poor. It wasn’t at the beginning. And as it became poor, none of the royals wanted it anymore because it didn’t bring them any money.
Annie Sargent: Yeah, I think Brittany was, for a long, long time, one of the poorest regions of France and one of the reasons why they used buckwheat, because buckwheat is one of these crops that comes back, whether you do something or not, it just comes back, and it can live in very difficult weather circumstances.Very harsh kind of weather. And that’s why they ate a lot more buckwheat in Brittany than we did in the rest of France.
Elyse Rivin: Exactly. And this time, for the first time in my life, I saw a field of buckwheat.
Annie Sargent: Aha.
Elyse Rivin: It’s a low-growing plant with little white flowers.
Annie Sargent: Nice. Nice. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one. We don’t grow this around the Southwest.
Elyse Rivin: No. I don’t know if it has to do with the difference in climate or what, but yes, indeed, that is one of the reasons. The interesting thing about the castle, before I talk about what you can actually do inside, is that at the time of the French Revolution, because it was basically left there and abandoned, it was like nobody wanted it anymore, it was sold off as state property.
Annie Sargent: Okay. State meaning the French state?
Elyse Rivin: Meaning the French, exactly, that the government could take it, confiscate it, and sell it to whoever they wanted to. And they sold it to somebody, to this guy, who in turn sold it to somebody else as a kind of speculation. But the person he sold it to was a local viscount, because of course there were some royals who managed to survive the French Revolution and were already in the 19th century by this time. And he bought it because of a certain nostalgia. And he was the first one to try and bring it back to life. And it was thanks to him that it was turned into a national monument in the middle of the 19th century.
Annie Sargent: How interesting. Do you know where the name came from? Because-
Elyse Rivin: No.
Annie Sargent: … Suscinio, it’s not a common French word or name.
Elyse Rivin: No. And in fact if you look it up, with the different research I was doing, they don’t know what the origins are.
Annie Sargent: Okay.
Elyse Rivin: They don’t know if it … It’s not like it was a word in Gaelic that could be translated or something. They think it might have been, but the name is mysterious.
Annie Sargent: To us anyway, it is.
Elyse Rivin: To us anyway. Yeah. To us anyway.
Annie Sargent: Yes.
Elyse Rivin: So here we have this castle which has gone through all of these reincarnations basically, and then of course was pretty much in bad shape until the second half of the 20th century. And now, thanks to all of this reinvestment and also I think a certain investment in bringing back historical things to this part of Brittany,it was a delight.
Elyse Rivin: This is my third visit, by the way, to the chateau. And the first one was my first visit to the area. I have no memory of that visit whatsoever. The second visit was about 17 years ago. And I just remember going up a lot of stairs.
Annie Sargent: Right, that’s a chateau for you, yeah.
Elyse Rivin: That’s a chateau for you. And this time, it was absolutely a wonderful, wonderful visit. And so, whoever is responsible for all this, thank you. Thank you very, very much.
Annie Sargent: Right. It’s very true that in between the two world wars and after the two world wars, France really didn’t have that kind of cash to keep up with all the chateaus and the churches and all that.
Annie Sargent: And so it took a long time, and there are a lot of areas in France where locals have decided to restore places, and it costs an awful lot of money, and time, and dedication-
Elyse Rivin: Yes.
Annie Sargent: … to bring places like that back to life. And sometimes, very big groups of Americans actually participate in this sort of renovation, and donate money, and all that, and that’s always very much appreciated.
Elyse Rivin: Yes, it certainly is.
[00:19:40] Family Adventures at the Chateau
Elyse Rivin: So we went, I went with my husband and a little grandchild of five and a half years old.
Annie Sargent: What’s his name?
Elyse Rivin: Edgar.
Annie Sargent: Edgar. Oh, that’s a nice name.
Elyse Rivin: Edgar. Yeah, Edgar, who was promised that… I mean, you know, getting a five and a half year old to go to a castle is not the easiest thing in the world. We told him that there would be a lot of activities for him. It was a bit, a little bit of a stretch, but there were activities for him. Thank goodness, you know.
Elyse Rivin: But, he was impressed by the castle, and he’s really into things like that. I was impressed by the castle, I have to say. When you come up to it now, there’s a tiny little village. The village is teeny, teeny but gorgeous. It’s all made out of the beautiful brown granite that, that’s the stone of the area. It’s very well taken care of. There’s a big parking area. There are two restaurants where you can eat and have crepes, which of course is the local to-go-for food no matter what. It’s very well organized. The admission for an adult is 12 euros. It’s… I think it was for six, six and a half for, very generously, children between the ages of 10 and 17, and nothing for any child under 10.
Annie Sargent: All right. So that’s cheap, yeah.
Elyse Rivin: Which is very nice. So the way it’s organized is that there is an itinerary inside. First you go to one section of the castle, and then you come out in the courtyard, and then you go across to another part, and the second part is devoted to Arthur and the legends of Arthur and the Round Table.
Annie Sargent: Oh, nice, nice.
Elyse Rivin: We spent more time actually in the first part, and it’s really well done. And there is an elevator for those people who need to have one because there are three or four floors, and otherwise, you go up these beautiful ancient staircases. The way they’ve done it is that they’ve made it really interesting so that each room, it has good explanations of what the room was used for, and some of them are furnished with some things. The room that impressed Edgar the most, interestingly enough, was the dining hall.
Annie Sargent: Yes, yes. He likes to eat, that boy?
Elyse Rivin: He likes to eat, but something about the fact that there was these two tables that were each one about 15 feet long with fake food, you know. He l… No, actually, it’s because he likes to eat meat, you know, so they had fake roasted pig and fake chickens and all of this kind of stuff, with the plates and everything. I mean, it really was very well done. And they have a projection of actors in full costume doing things, and that, they had everywhere. It was really, really well done. So it comes alive to you because you have the…
Annie Sargent: Oh, that’s nice. When you take the tour, they have movies playing inside of the walls to show you what it was like before.
Elyse Rivin: Yes. And they even have… We didn’t do it, but you can download the whole visit onto your phone and listen to it as you walk around, in English, Spanish, Breton, and French.
Annie Sargent: Breton. I love it.
Elyse Rivin: So if you know how to speak Gaelic with the h- and all those h’s then you can listen to it too. So yes, there’s a lot of that kind of animated action with actors projections on the wall.
Annie Sargent: There was one room, I actually found fascinating, with what they call an arbalète, now I can’t remember the word in English. Arbalète?
Elyse Rivin: An arbalète isthe arrow, the bow and arrow that’s very sophisticated.
Annie Sargent: Yeah, yeah. It’s like a… It has more power because there’s an assist. There’s some sort of strength.
Elyse Rivin: I can’t remember the word in English.
Elyse Rivin: Anyway, they have this room with a collection of them. You know, some of them have these magnificent pieces of wood with inlay of nacre, of inlay of stones and silver, and all of these things. It was absolutely fabulous. There was a whole collection of them. There’s a room with costumes, and people can try the costumes on, and the children can try the costumes on. And so Edgar was looking forward to that, but he was a little bit disappointed because there was nothing really for someone that size. He was just a little too small to fit into any of the costumes. And somebody put a helmet on his head, and it looked like it would take up half of his body. But he was so cute because he was… But they… It was really beautiful. They have uncovered some of the original tiles from the floor and some of the original woodwork, and they’ve made a display so that you can see what the decorations looked like over the centuries. And it’s just really, really well done.
Elyse Rivin: You can go into all of the rooms. You can see where the latrines were because they did indeed have them. They had a room that had beautiful pieces of furniture that were left, pieces of ceramic tiles, everything. It’s a wonderful visit. It really is. And because there’s one room that has interactive things that are good for children, that was fabulous. Because it was for everybody of all ages. There were games. There were things you had to figure out how to put together and stuff like that. Having visited lots of castles and lots of places like that, I must say I was really impressed.
Annie Sargent: So it’s one of the better ones.
Elyse Rivin: It’s one of the better ones, and… they have, in the summertime, a whole series of activities outside because they have the grounds. Now, it’s a huge … It has, the domain originally 2,600 hectare.
Annie Sargent: Oh, wow, that’s big, yeah.
Elyse Rivin: That’s huge, okay? So, of course, it’s not that big anymore, but it has these huge grounds. I mean, that’s what? That’s like 7,000 acres or something … I don’t know. It’s a huge amount at the beginning. That’s why it was so coveted. But it is now still big enough so that they have outdoor activities. They have a place where, for both children and adults, you can shoot … Ah, an arbalète, okay.
Annie Sargent: It says crossbow.
Elyse Rivin: Crossbow. There, thank you. Thank you. Crossbow. And you can learn how to use one actually. Then they have stands where you see how they made certain foods and things like that. And everybody’s dressed in costume.
Annie Sargent: Nice.
Elyse Rivin: Everybody’s in a medieval costume, and they have a light and sound show at night in the summertime, that’s about Arthur and the Round Table.
Elyse Rivin: And you can also use the admission to go into the preserve where the birds are, and the marshland and everything else. So it’s really a nice visit to do.
Annie Sargent: Right, so it would take a whole day to really enjoy this if you want to go to the marshland and see the bird preserve and all that. Reserve?
Elyse Rivin: If you want to do that, I would say it’s a good half-day visit. And if you want to add a little bit of a beach day and a little bit of the bird thing and do everything, yes, because they even have animators who give you talks inside if you want to listen to them and things like that. I would say it’s a minimum a nice half-day visit, you know?
Annie Sargent: Very good. Sounds, sounds like a fun place.
Elyse Rivin: It’s a fun place, and I was really … I was glad. We really had a great time there, you know?
Annie Sargent: Yes. And I’m glad your grandson got to test it.
Elyse Rivin: And he got to test it. And he got to test the, he got to test the crossbow, but what the … If you’re under six or seven … No, I think it’s seven. They give you this baby thing, you know?
Annie Sargent: Yes.
Elyse Rivin: It doesn’t really work very well because it just has a little rubber tip on it, and you know, it can only go from me to you, you know, that kind of thing. But he was watching with envy all of these adults who were using these big ones, you know, like that, and I thought-
Annie Sargent: Eh, it’s motivation to grow up.
Elyse Rivin: There you are. Yeah, like, "When I am big," you know? There you are.
Elyse Rivin: Anyway, so that is … If you are in that area, if you’re going to vacation in and around Vannes, do do a visit to Suscinio. It’s really great.
Annie Sargent: Fantastic.
(Mid-roll ad spot)
[00:27:09] Exploring the Island of Arz
Annie Sargent: All right, let’s talk about the Island of Arz.
Elyse Rivin: The Island of Arz, which … Now, we did it as an excursion, so we were on a boat that takes you to Île aux Moines, which is the isle next door to it, and Arz. And so you have somebody who’s giving a bit of a explanation of things in the gulf and the other islands. And to my surprise, I did not hear the Z pronounced when they were saying it.
Annie Sargent: Ah, well, you never know in French. So is the Isle of… L’Île d’Arz.
Elyse Rivin: I got the impression that it was because it’s a word from Gaelic, that it was like Arztt, and there was like a thhh that comes off at the end but you don’t really know what the sound is, you know? Arz. We called it Arz and nobody bothered us, so there you are. You know? We’ll call it Arz.
Annie Sargent: All right. All right.
Elyse Rivin: It’s a charming place to visit, and I really enjoyed the day we spent there. The weather was varied. We had a little bit of sun, a little bit of cloud. This was not hot summer weather at all.
[00:28:11] Tidal Activities and Coastal Walks
Elyse Rivin: When we arrived, it was low tide. Now, the Gulf of Morbihan is a gulf that has a very strong tidal activity, which means that there are times of the day that all of the coastline and all the beaches are either completely covered or completely exposed.
Annie Sargent: Okay, yeah.
Elyse Rivin: And it’s famous for being an area that had very strong tides twice a day. So it was interesting because in the time we spent there, it went from low tide to when we were eventually leaving to high tide again, which makes it interesting to see what happens to the coastline when you do that. The island is not that big. You can walk the entire perimeter of the island. There are paths that do that, purposely set up for people, and the entire perimeter is 18 kilometers.
Annie Sargent: Okay, so if you’re a fast walker, you could do that in a day.
Elyse Rivin: Easily do it in a day. We did, I figured out that I did about four kilometers on one section of coast, and I did that in, I think, a little more than an hour.
Annie Sargent: Right.
Elyse Rivin: It’s easy walking. That is, I mean, it’s nature walking. But part of it is paved and part of it is not, but the trails and the paths are very, very well taken care of.
Elyse Rivin: And you also have several roads, paved roads, there are cars on the island because people do come from Vannes with a car, and of course there are people who not only live there but there are people who spend the summer there, and so some of the … There aren’t that many cars but there are some cars. So you can do it.
Elyse Rivin: They encourage you to either walk or to rent a bicycle, and the bicycle rental is inexpensive, and it’s right when you get off the boat.
Annie Sargent: Right, right.
Elyse Rivin: So it’s really easy. And there were both regular bicycles, electric bicycles. There were bicycles with little things for a child in the back. There’s lots and lots of bicycles. The island is not completely flat. It’s got a little bit of a hill. The main village on it is called Le Bourg, B-O-U-R-G.
Annie Sargent: Nice, nice.
Elyse Rivin: And it’s up on the top of a hill that’s basically … I have a photo that I’ll give you that we can post with it to see the map of the island, but it’s pretty much in the center of the island. So it goes up a little bit. It’s a bit of a hill. And that is, there are two other tiny, tiny little villages.
[00:30:36] Historical Sites and Megaliths
Elyse Rivin: But the main one is the Bourg, which is where there’s a very beautiful medieval church that goes back to the 13th century. Typical Church of Brittany with the granite exterior and very beautiful broken arch made out of wood, sealing on the inside. There are two or three places on the island where there megaliths and dolmen, which goes back, of course, to the ancient prehistoric part of the whole Brittany, with its megaliths and its dolmen.
Elyse Rivin: And a circle of stones. Stonehenge, of course, is the most famous example, but it is not the only example of what is called a cremlech. And I got the "heugh" right, yeah.
Annie Sargent: A what?
Elyse Rivin: A cremlech. A cremlech is the word in Brittany for a circle of upright stones.
Annie Sargent: A cremlech.
Elyse Rivin: A cremlech, yeah.
Annie Sargent: Hang on, hang on, hang on. Cremleh or cremlech?
Elyse Rivin: With M- L-E-C-H at the end, but you have to heugh it. You have to guttural it.
Annie Sargent: How would you spell that?
Elyse Rivin: C-R-E-M-L-E-C-H.
Annie Sargent: Okay. Cremlech.
Elyse Rivin: Basically, the entire region of Brittany has things like this. I think everybody knows that. But in this particular area of the Gulf of Morbihan and everything, there are two or three islands that are covered with things like this. And what scientists know is that when they were built, I don’t think built is the right word, I guess assembled is more the correct word, the water level was much lower.
Annie Sargent: Ah.
Elyse Rivin: Because these were placed on several different islands to be seen at all times. And now, there are a couple of these islands where they’re only seen at low tide.
Annie Sargent: Oh, I see. Yeah.
Elyse Rivin: Like the Grotte du Cosquer in Marseille, which, of course, was once actually land and not under the sea.
Elyse Rivin: So you have various little spots on the island where you can find these things. There’s a very beautiful primitive fountain in one spot made out of stone. Lots of … It’s a nature visit with a little bit of history attached, because the church is really beautiful and interesting to see. It belonged to an abbey.
[00:32:47] Monastic Influence and Fertile Lands
Elyse Rivin: And one of the things about the history of the island is that it was, of course, inhabited as most of these islands were a long, long time ago. But starting basically in the Middle Ages when the area of Brittany became Christianized, it was Christianized by the Irish.
Annie Sargent: Oh, okay. Well, that makes sense. I mean, same language, right? Or something.
Elyse Rivin: Yeah, and they came across. I don’t know how they managed to skip England or they went and circumvented England, I don’t really know. But it is a fact that there were different monks that were from Ireland that came to this part of Brittany and proselytized, and one of them wasa man who became a saint, Saint Gildas. Saint Gildas. And he’s famous in this region for having created a monastery, not far from Suscinio on the mainland. So in this section of that peninsula, there’s a little village called Saint-Gildase de Rhuys, which is actually a beautiful tiny little village, and there’s still the abbey there, which still has, believe it or not, some monks who actually live there. And it still functions as a bit of a monastery.
Elyse Rivin: And apparently, when that area was being Christianized, they sent monks out to all the islands to whatever tiny the population there was on each island to Christianize them. And so, the Island of Arz came under the influence of this particular monastery of Saint Gildas. And by the middle of the Middle Ages when there were the Dukes of Brittany and all of that, one of the dukes, who obviously must have been pretty pious, he decided to give… I love all these people who give things away, you know. "Hey, I think I’ll give you a castle for your birthday." That’s pretty cool, you know.
Annie Sargent: "I’m not using it anymore. You can have it."
Elyse Rivin: Yeah. "I’m not using it anymore. You want to use it? Fine." You know. So this Duke of Brittany, he decided to take the Island of Arz and give half of it to the Monastery of Saint-Gildas.
Annie Sargent: And the other half not.
Elyse Rivin: And the other half not.
Annie Sargent: He wanted to create problems.
Elyse Rivin: Well, there were problems, because what happened was, it was a little bit later, another duke came, I can’t remember now in my notes. It’s like 100 years later or something like that. He was not from that area around Vannes and all of that. He decided to give the northern half of the island to a different monastery.
Annie Sargent: See? Hmm.
Elyse Rivin: See? And we’re talking about an island that is not very big, you know, really, you know.
Annie Sargent: I mean, these are monks. They should be able to get along perhaps.
Elyse Rivin: Well, yeah.
Annie Sargent: Maybe?
Elyse Rivin: We’ll talk about that another time, yeah. So in fact, the land on these islands is very, very fertile, and it’s part of that is the, is because of the tides and the fact that there … between the movement of the tides and all of this, it’s very rich land.
Elyse Rivin: And one of the reasons, the motivation for giving this to the monastery, starting with the first one, which is the southern half, was because the monks, they were sent there to work the land and turn it into farmland. And then eventually that happened with the northern half, with a duke who’s gave it to a monastery from Rennes, which is much further away…. whatever. That was at the earliest part of the Middle Ages.
Elyse Rivin: Eventually, it all came under the auspices of the Monastery of Saint-Gildas, and of course there were people that were laypeople, not just the monks that were living on the island.
[00:36:09] Island of Sailors and Captains
Elyse Rivin: And then starting, interestingly, in the 16th century, the royals were recruiting people to join the navy or to work as merchant marines, you know, members of the merchant naval group. And they started recruiting people from the various islands in this area, and it turns out that the Island of Arz, maybe because it was not a place that you had much opportunity except if you were going to be a monk, a lot of the men went into the navy, the royal navy or the merchant navy.
Elyse Rivin: And so the island came to be known as the Island of Sailors, and then the Island of Captains because many of the sailors turned out to be such good sailors that they became captains both in the royal navy and in the merchant marine. So to this day, Arz is the Island of the Captains.
Annie Sargent: Interesting. Well, it’s true that if you are from this sort of place, you get on a boat all the time. You have a lot of experience boating.
Elyse Rivin: Boating, exactly.
Annie Sargent: And sometimes in pretty difficult circumstances because it’s not easy sea. I mean, it’s not all flat.
Elyse Rivin: No, no.
Annie Sargent: Like, you know, it’s not a lake by any stretch of the imagination.
Elyse Rivin: No, no, no. And the tides are extremelydifficult on two sides of the island because there are two sides that are relatively shallow and two sides that are relatively deep. So all of this you learn because there’s documentation pretty much everywhere you can walk around.
[00:37:41] Attractions and Activities
Elyse Rivin: The things to see and do on the island, there’s a tidal mill that works that’s from 500 years ago. It’s made out of stone. A tidal mill, works with the coming in of the waters and then the pulling out of the waters again with the tide.
Elyse Rivin: The area is absolutely beautiful. We picnicked a little bit right nearby. You can see the church spire from it, because of course nothing is really far away. There’s a ceremony and a festival two daysin the summer, in August, around the tidal mill. They have lots of music and fireworks and things like that. There’s a lot of the biking and hiking, the visit to the church. There’s a tiny little museum that’s a history of the sailors and the navy, that’s right in this-
Annie Sargent: And the captains, I guess?
Elyse Rivin: And the captains, with photographs, and pictures of the ships that they used. Because a lot of these were sent on long journeys. And because so many of them were families where the men went out to sea.
Elyse Rivin: The other nickname that the island developed was the Island of the Women.
Annie Sargent: Ah, because a lot of the women stayed behind.
Elyse Rivin: They stayed behind and they were the farmers. They were the ones that grew the crops on the island and sold the things and took care of everything when the men were away. So for a tiny little island, it has a lot of interesting history.
Annie Sargent: Are there any beaches? I mean, is it like a sandy beach or no?
Elyse Rivin: Yes. There are three or four places with very beautiful sandy beach. It’s not huge long stretches like the beaches that you are familiar with in Vilanova. But they’re very beautiful little beaches. There’s outcroppings. There are places where you can come if you have your own little boat. You can come and just come up and moor your boat.
Elyse Rivin: There’s also a very famous sailing school, Le Glenan, which is very famous, which is on the island. And many people in France send their … If their children are interested, you can have a one day or a one week or a two-week stage.
Annie Sargent: So camp, like a summer camp for sailors?
Elyse Rivin: Yes. And you can learn to do catamaran. You can learn to do windsurfing. You can learn to do sailing. And we were watching a group go out with these very colorful little boats that afternoon. The entire island is basically … Everything’s based on the sea, obviously, you know? So you have the activities, everything in the church. You have the ex-votos in the church that are connected to the sea. The life of everybody there is connected to it.
Elyse Rivin: What I like about it, I’ve been to Ile-aux-Moines which is much, much bigger and fancier and has several villages. It’s also a lot hillier. It’s beautiful. It’s absolutely gorgeous, Ile-aux-Moines. But I like this one because it’s not pretentious.
Elyse Rivin: It’s just a lovely place to spend a day.
[00:40:24] A Day in Arz: Personal Experiences
Elyse Rivin: So what we did was, the enlarged family that went to this island split up into small groups. And at one point, I was walking with my stepson. He and I decided we were going to do a bit of a walk together and walked along the coast and went to see the tide mill and everything. And then I joined up with my husband, in the little village, the Bourg. And we had a very nice lunch in this little village, which is actually beautiful, there are four or five restaurants, crêperie restaurants.
Annie Sargent: Yes, yes.
Elyse Rivin: Of course. And they’re all very nice. There are a couple of cafes. For a tiny place, there’s a lot of stuff like that as well. There aren’t too many things like shops with souvenirs and things like that. But you definitely get food, and it was delicious, absolutely delicious. And I had a dessert. J’ai craqué. You know me, I’m so in control when it comes to desserts and things like that.
Annie Sargent: She lost control.
Annie Sargent: I lost control. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I was looking at this menu with all of the galette and then the crêpe. And I was intrigued because they had this one, it was crepe with creme de marron, which I love. Oh, yes.
Elyse Rivin: … and an ice cream. I’ve never heard, that was made by somebody on the island, I asked, sesame ice cream.
Annie Sargent: Oh, wow. I have never heard of that either.
Annie Sargent: You said, "Let’s try it."
Elyse Rivin: I said, "Let’s try it. I may not like this at all." I have a picture, I will send it to you because I, it’s very odd-looking because it, it’s black sesame seeds.
Annie Sargent: Oh, wow.
Elyse Rivin: So it’s very strange. Anyway, it was really delicious, but very odd, I would say.
Annie Sargent: All right. All right.
Elyse Rivin: And, to add to all of that, we splurged, and we shared a Breton spritz.
Annie Sargent: Oh, what is that?
Elyse Rivin: Breton spritz, instead of it being with just Aperol and Prosecco, it’s with cider, apple cider, because that’s of course what you drink in Brittany. Something else, a fruit juice, and then Aperol. I don’t know, it was the oddest mixture in the world, but it’s like-
Annie Sargent: You add cider, it makes it Breton, doesn’t it? Yeah.
Elyse Rivin: It makes it Breton, you know. It makes a …
Annie Sargent: Yeah.
Elyse Rivin: It was all delicious. It was absolutely, it was really original, and it was really delicious, and it was not expensive, you know. It was just really a very nice kind of a break. Then I accompanied my husband, and we did a bit of walking where the beaches are, and that’s when we saw the sailboats for the Glenan and everything. Basically, we were there from 12 … The boat arrived at noon, just about noon. It takes a little over an hour as an excursion to get there.
Elyse Rivin: Oh, so it’s a long kind of… Well, because it’s an excursion boat because it was, it really takes you through the islands so that they point out the different islands.
Annie Sargent: Oh, I see. I see.
Elyse Rivin: But if you want to do it to go directly to Arz, you do it from Vannes.
Annie Sargent: Okay, and probably they have a ferry where you can put your car on it and everything?
Elyse Rivin: Exactly. You can also, if you have a boat license, you can just rent a boat and go there.
Annie Sargent: Uh-huh.
Elyse Rivin: It’s really easy to do. It’s not far. It’s just really not far at all. But we decided we wanted to do the whole thing, you know.
Elyse Rivin: And so we were there from just about noon till 5:45.
Annie Sargent: Okay.
Elyse Rivin: Which is a nice good chunk of a day. By the time we got back, we had left early to get to the boat and everything anyway, so it’s, you know, pretty much a whole day excursion. But it was absolutely a lovely place to go and a nice thing to do.
[00:43:48] Concluding Thoughts on Brittany
Elyse Rivin: I think one of the reasons I like it is because in spite of having spent all these summers in Brittany, when you go to a little island like that, you really feel like what Brittany was like before.
Annie Sargent: Mm-hmm.
Elyse Rivin: Before it was just a place invaded by second homes. There were some beautiful old stone houses. The building that used to be the abbey of the Saint-Jude, that’s southern half of the island, is now where the mayor’s office and the school are. So it’s been recycled into something else. But there are still some very beautiful old houses. And it’s very peaceful and quiet, and it’s a lovely way to spend a day.
Annie Sargent: Right, and you were there in July, right?
Elyse Rivin: The very end of July.
Annie Sargent: Right.
Elyse Rivin: The thing about the weather, and this is southern Brittany, which is always nicer than northern Brittany, you never know when it’s going to be a warm, sunny day.
Annie Sargent: Right.
Elyse Rivin: I mean, basically in all the years I’ve been going there, there have been some visits where all the time it’s been warm and sunny, and warm meaning not super hot but warm and sunny, and certainly easy to go into the water.
Elyse Rivin: And then there have been times like this time when the first week was really not very nice weather, and the second week was nice. I went into the water a few times, but you have to be prepared for water being cold.
Annie Sargent: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Elyse Rivin: But it’s very nice. But it’s the kind of weather, I came back in spite of everything with a bit of tan because you go outside, and you’re in the outdoors almost all the time, so it’s a really nice thing to do.
Annie Sargent: Wonderful. Well, thank you so much, Elyse. I think between this and the episode we did about the Morbihan, you know, people have a lot of information. I really love to send people to different parts of France that are probably not so touristy. And this, I mean, despite the fact that you lament all the second homes and whatever, I mean… …
Elyse Rivin: It’s touristy for French people.
Annie Sargent: Exactly.
Elyse Rivin: More than for Americans.
Annie Sargent: Right, right, right.
Elyse Rivin: I mean, Americans know about Saint-Malo. They will go to Saint-Malo. They will go to a few of the places like that. They will go to Nantes because they’ve heard of Nantes, especially now with the podcast and things like that.
Elyse Rivin: But this is an area where you have pretty much mostly French people who go on vacation. And yes, there are parts of it that are really developed, but it’s still filled with little villages with really ancient houses that are made out of stone. And the coastline is gorgeous, and you eat… I don’t, you would be in heaven there because the oysters are grown right by your feet.
Annie Sargent: Right, right.
Elyse Rivin: And just as an anecdote, which has nothing to do with the island itself, 12 oysters was six euros.
Annie Sargent: Oh, that’s nice. Will they open them for you for that price?
Elyse Rivin: Yes, they will.
Annie Sargent: Oh, wow. Yeah.
Elyse Rivin: Yes, and they serve it to you on a platter with lemon and bread.
Annie Sargent: Nice. Heaven.
Elyse Rivin: They don’t… But you do have to pay for the wine.
Annie Sargent: Well, okay, I’ll pay for the wine. I mean, that’s nice. That’s a really good price.
Elyse Rivin: Yeah. No, it really is, yeah.
Annie Sargent: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Elyse Rivin: I mean, you know, people eat things that come out of the sea.
Annie Sargent: Yeah. Thank you so much, Elyse. It’s been wonderful talking to you again.
Elyse Rivin: It’s been a pleasure.
Annie Sargent: Au revoir.
Elyse Rivin: Au revoir.
(Mid-roll ad spot)
[00:47:17] Thank you Patrons
Annie Sargent: Again, I want to thank my patrons for giving back and supporting the show. Patrons get several exclusive rewards for doing that. You can see them at patreon.com/joinus.
Annie Sargent: A special shout-out this week to my new Join Us in France champion, John Alan Farmer, Rose Johnson, and Rachel Zierzow.
Annie Sargent: And thank you, Beth Murphy and Susan Nelson, for editing your pledge up. And David Palachek for signing up again.
Annie Sargent: Would you join them too? You can do it for as little as $3 a month, but if you can afford it, I would love to have you pledge more so you can have access to more of the rewards.
Annie Sargent: And to support Elyse, go to patreon.com/elysart.
[00:48:06] Self-Guided Tours and Reviews
Annie Sargent: This week, I published a video about the tradition of the Galette des Rois, and I ate a few as well, because, ’tis the season for the galette. I hope you’re enjoying some as well. If you’re heading to Paris and want to explore without joining a group or following someone with a raised umbrella, I have self-guided walking tours of Paris on the VoiceMap app.
Annie Sargent: You pop in your earbuds, I walk with you, and you can pause whenever you want for coffee, photos, or a croissant, or even some wine. Hmm!
Annie Sargent: Somebody left this review of my tour this week. This person wrote, "Even for me as a Parisian, I found it well researched. It has hints of comedy, is super clear, and a nice production with music. I will look for other material from this guide."
Annie Sargent: Thank you very much. That’s very good to know.
Annie Sargent: Another French person took my tour and lamented that I don’t do tours in French so much, and perhaps I will, you know, if more French people buy them, I will, but it’s hard to justify the time and commitment to doing a tour in several languages when most of the people who know about my tours speak English.
Annie Sargent: And I should mention that there is now the possibility of AI translated tours, but I have opted not to do that because too many people assume that if it says AI anything, anywhere in the description, that it must be an AI tour. And my tours are definitely not created by an AI. They’re created by me and so I want people to keep that in mind.
Annie Sargent: And I should also say that, unfortunately, another person said in a review that I don’t give directions at all in my tours and they were lost the whole time. Okay. What do you mean I don’t give directions? Of course I give directions. So I mean, you do have to pay attention a little bit, even if you follow those tours, okay?
Annie Sargent: Podcast listeners get an exclusive discount when they buy these tours directly from my website at joinusinfrance.com/boutique. That’s also a very good way to support the show because it means most of what you pay comes straight to me instead of going through Apple or Google. But if you’re in a hurry, just download the VoiceMap app and buy the tours there.
[00:50:29] Itinerary Consulting and Personal Updates
Annie Sargent: If you’re planning a trip to France and would like some expert help, you can hire me as your itinerary consultant. If you already have a plan, I’ll help you fine tune it, and if you’re just feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the choices and not sure what sources to trust, I can design a custom plan for you.
Annie Sargent: You’ll find all the details at joinusinfrance.com/boutique. And I must say, I’m doing a lot of consults, very casual consults about people who are thinking about perhaps finding a place in France and just want to explore some possibilities with me. That’s always interesting to talk to them and give them some feedback about their specific circumstances.
[00:51:08] Personal update
Annie Sargent: For a short personal update, I’ll be in Paris for a couple of days next week. It’s January and cold, so I’ll be mostly going to museums I haven’t seen yet. I had family plans for that trip originally, but those fell through.
Annie Sargent: But I’m still going because there’s always great things to do in Paris. It snowed more than normal in Paris in the last few days. You might have seen the photos.
Annie Sargent: Be aware that French people generally have no idea how to handle snow days, so if you’re in Paris when it snows, you will probably run into some snags, but it is so pretty, it’s probably worth it.
Annie Sargent: And last week I also visited a spectacular medieval castle in the southwest called Chateau de Bonaguil near the city of Fumel.
Annie Sargent: I will do an episode about that at some point.
[00:51:54] Train Tickets and Public Transport Rules
Annie Sargent: I want to come back to something I’ve talked about before because it keeps coming up, and not just for visitors as a matter of fact. A listener sent me an email about one unpleasant experience they had with French trains.
Annie Sargent: She wrote, " We had a terrible train experience in Strasbourg. We got slapped with three 60 euro tickets in one day for completely different infractions."
Annie Sargent: That’s a lot, and honestly, many French people also find these fines incomprehensible.
Annie Sargent: She goes on to describe the first incident. "We bought our tickets at the kiosk, boarded the train, and that’s when we learned we were supposed to find a tiny box somewhere on the platform to cancel or validate them."
Annie Sargent: This is where things get frustrating for everyone. Paper tickets in France are a legacy system. Sometimes they must be validated, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes the machine is obvious, sometimes it’s hidden or broken. And yes, French people complain about this too. That’s exactly why I recommend these days a very simple solution.
Annie Sargent: Buy your tickets on the SNCF Connect app instead of a kiosk. When you buy on the app, your ticket is for a specific train and time. It’s a QR code. There is nothing to stamp or validate. No mystery box, no guessing, no outdated system.
Annie Sargent: Now, about the second fine, she writes, "Later that afternoon, we were charged 60 euros because my daughter had her feet on her seat."
Annie Sargent: I completely understand how shocking that feels. I also understand that visitors often spend long days on their feet, heavy legs happen, jet lag happens, but in France, putting your feet on seats on public transport is never okay. Not on the train, the metro, the bus. Just don’t do it. French people get fined for this as well.
Annie Sargent: Is it always posted clearly? Not generally. Is it enforced strictly? Yes.
Annie Sargent: She also mentioned this. "The officers were intimidating and harsh. I read that transit officers get bonuses for every ticket they write." Let me say this clearly. Many French people also find controlleurs unpleasant and inflexible. This has far more to do with their training or lack thereof, the number of people that they have to process, and the fact that they are not allowed to negotiate.
Annie Sargent: Whether or not they receive financial incentives doesn’t really change the outcome, and I don’t know whether they do or not.
Annie Sargent: I know this can feel predatory, especially when you’re a visitor, but it’s not personal. French people get slapped with fines constantly as well.
Annie Sargent: One last point that’s really important. When you’re buying tickets, do not automatically choose the lowest fare you see on the screen.
Annie Sargent: In France, some of the cheapest fares are not general public tickets. They’re discounted fares reserved for children, students, people with disabilities, military personnel, or people holding specific French or regional cards.
Annie Sargent: If you buy one of those fares, you’re expected to prove you’re entitled to it. And inspectors really will ask. I’ve personally seen a man traveling with a guide dog, and he was blind clearly, asked to show his disability card. He had it, there was no issue. But if he hadn’t had it, he would have gotten fined.
Annie Sargent: This catches visitors out because the screen doesn’t always explain things clearly, and in many countries the lowest price just means the best deal, right? That’s not how it works here.
Annie Sargent: So the rule of thumb is simple. If a fare looks unusually cheap, don’t assume it’s for everyone. When in doubt, choose the standard adult fare.
Annie Sargent: Costs a little more, but it’s much cheaper than a fine and a very unpleasant conversation on the train. The system works this way because public transportation systems only work if the rules are enforced the same way for everyone.
Annie Sargent: So the takeaway is use the app to buy your tickets, buy the correct fare, not the cheapest one you see, and keep your feet off the seats even when you’re tired. That will greatly reduce the chances of having one of those unpleasant encounters.
Annie Sargent: Public transit people are kind of strict. Sometimes they are too strict, but with a little preparation, you can avoid most of these problems and enjoy your trip, the way it deserves to be enjoyed. And this person said they had a great trip otherwise. It was just this part that was unpleasant.
[00:56:32] Artisanal Mustard Production in France
Annie Sargent: In the Pas-de-Calais, up in the Hauts-de-France, almost England I tell you, a young farmer named Amaury Fardel has taken on a project most people around him thought was a little eccentric: growing and producing his own mustard from start to finish.
Annie Sargent: Not the usual thing for this part of France, which is more famous for beer and endives and for condiments, but Amaury decided he wanted complete control over his product, from the seed in the ground to the final jar on the shelf. Amaury already grows wheat, lentils, and even saffron, on his land in Aloigne and Robec.
Annie Sargent: The idea came when he saw saffron mustard for sale in a shop and he thought, "Huh, why not do it myself completely". And that turned into a real adventure.
Annie Sargent: Today he cultivates his own mustard seeds, harvests them in August, sorts them, soaks them, and grinds them, and bottles them personally. Truly a field to jar operation.
Annie Sargent: He works mainly with brown mustard seeds, which are fiery little things. After cleaning, he soaks them in a mix of salt, vinegar, and white wine. When it’s time to grind them, he laughs and says, "I have to step back because the mustard really comes up the nose." I bet it does.
Annie Sargent: Once the paste is ready, it rests for a month so the flavors can settle and round out. And like every artisan, he learned through trial and error. "We tested, we made mistakes, we tested again," he says. He also picked up tips from chefs and restaurateurs before landing on a recipe that works.
Annie Sargent: But Amaury does not work alone. His friend, Antoine, a local caterer, is part of the adventure. The two joke that they call each other more than they talk to their spouses. Isn’t that right about work people? They refine the recipe and cook with it regularly. Dishes like honey mustard sausages or Carbonnade Flamande
Annie Sargent: Their mustard reflects the collaboration. It’s local, punchy, and made with real care.
Annie Sargent: And Amaury says, "No one else around here is doing what we’re doing, and we’re proud of that."
Annie Sargent: And honestly, I’m starting to see this same trend in several fields in France. More and more artisans want total control over their product.
Annie Sargent: I read recently about boulangers who grow their own wheat, mill their own flour, and bake their own bread themselves all on site. It’s a huge commitment, obviously, and yes, it raises the prices of the final product because you’re paying for the expertise, the time, and a more thoughtful process.
Annie Sargent: But there’s a real value added here, especially in terms of confidence. You know where it comes from, you know who made it, and you know every step was done with intention. It also signals that the artisan does not intend to grow an activity and rejoin the ranks of industrial food, and I think that’s the whole point.
Annie Sargent: Amaury’s mustard fits right into that movement, small scale, transparent, and built on trust. It’s not just about producing food, it’s about reconnecting with how things are made and the people who make them. There’s one big problem with this trend: cost. Having total control over a product is very old school.
Annie Sargent: There are no economies of scale. Every producer has to reinvent the wheel, when it comes to bottling and distribution and everything else really. This mustard probably costs more than the stuff you can buy nationally at any grocery store. Some people will choose to pay, many won’t. So long as we have the choice, that’s great in my book.
Annie Sargent: My whole life I bought Heinz ketchup, but the other day I noticed one Marcel brand ketchup, and it said it was proudly made in the Ariege, which is a department just south of me. I haven’t opened the bottle yet. We don’t eat that much ketchup. But it was a tiny bit more expensive, maybe 20% more or so, and so I thought I’d give it a try.
Annie Sargent: Will these locally produced foods survive long term? I don’t know, but it’s definitely a trend.
[01:00:50] Conclusion and Upcoming Episodes
Annie Sargent: My thanks to podcast editors Anne and Christian Cotovan.
Annie Sargent:
[01:00:53] Next week on the podcast
Annie Sargent: Next week on the podcast, an episode about a home exchange experience with Liz Van Montfort from New Zealand.
Annie Sargent: She was a lot of fun to talk to. I think you’ll enjoy it.
Annie Sargent: Thank you so much for listening and I hope you join me next time so we can look around France together. Au revoir.
[01:01:10] Copyright
Annie Sargent: The join us in France Travel Podcast is written, hosted, and produced by Annie Sargent and copyright 2026 by Addicted to France. It is released under a Creative Comments, attribution, non-commercial, no derivatives license.
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Episode PageCategories: French Châteaux, Normandy & Brittany