Bagad, kouign-amann and la Roche-Jagu

By |Published On: August 26, 2024|Categories: Europe, France|907 words|4 Comments|

Hiding in Lézardrieux

Our next stop was Lézardrieux, a scant 5 nm to the south east from île-de-Bréhat. Here we planned to stop for a few days owing to some unpleasant weather coming through and the presence of nearby castle that needed to be inspected. No less importantly, it was another one of the destinations recommended to us by our friends from the French Douane.

Along the Trieux river towards Lézardrieux.

Lézardrieux sits a short way up a narrow fjord-like river valley. The river’s flow, combined with the huge tides that the area gets (c.10m) means that on the ebb the anchorages in the river can get an impressive 6 kn of current through them at springs. That means that it pays to chose your entrance time carefully in order to catch the incoming tide and to arrive at the harbour at high slack. The narrow stretch of the river up to the town is lined with moored boats, fishing boats, yachts, motor boats, dinghys and dark black rocks. Even had we wanted to put our anchor down somewhere along the shore, there was just not any room to do so.

The harbour in Lézardrieux, with the ‘bassin à flot’ about 10 m higher than the river at low tide. This makes for steep walks from the pontoon to the shore.

So, we moored up alongside the isolated waiting pontoon in the middle of the river, initially to see where the harbour master wanted us to berth. However, as he never came to see us we decided that it was a nice and quiet spot and would suit us just fine. So, we settled in there and dinghied across to the harbour whenever we needed to go ashore.

Bagad – a Breton pipe band

On our first day in Lézardrieux we did our usual investigation of the market. This turned out to be a relatively meagre affair that was greatly enlivened by a raucous bagad in its centre. What is a bagad, you ask? Well, it is a joyful and unbelievable combination of drums, binioù khoz and bombards. Binioù khoz? Ah, these are the traditional Breton form of the bagpipes, high pitched, single octave and with just one or two drones. Being higher pitched than say Scottish bagpipes, they have a particularly piercing tone, not an entirely pleasant one. The ‘bombarde’ is an instrument that is truly deserving of respect. These are short oboe-like things that might claim to be the only instrument in existence that can make bagpipes sound like mellow and smooth instruments.

A binioù khoz, and bombardes ((c) Schule für traditionelle Musik).

Get a mob of binioù khoz players together with a mob of bombard players, add a few drummers of various sorts and bingo, you have a group that will wake the dead, scare off a massed pipe band and clear out the wax from your ear canals. The sound is just fantastic and the tunes they play are clearly meant for dancing, though I have no idea what sort of dancing would be appropriate to the Breton tunes.

Kouign-amann – a Breton pastry

While I marvelled at the bagad, F (who will claim she has more refined musical tastes) was scared off by the sounds and fled to find a bakery and stock up on baguettes and croissants. This led to another bakery discovery, the kouign-amann.

A kouign-amann (photo (c) president-professionnel). Almost equal amounts of flour, butter and sugar. No wonder they taste so good.

Here in Lézardrieux these were a thin crunchy, laminated pastry baked into a swirl and soaked through with butter and caramelised sugar. Crunchy, sweet, buttery – definitely Dental and Heart Association recommended, these Breton specialties were so good that F temporarily forgot about the wailing banshees standing just 10 metres away! Unfortunately, little did we then realise that, despite sampling them in many other towns, these would be by far the best kouign-amann we would be able to find.

La Roche-Jagu – a Breton castle

The next day we took the dinghy and headed off up the river to visit the Gothic castle ‘la Roche-Jagu’. We motored along at a leisurely 3 or 4 knots, with incoming tide, with just sound of the water around the dinghy’s pontoons and the barely noticeable hum of the electric motor.

The Trieux river valley upstream from Lézardrieux.

We first crossed a wide, shallow estuary area upstream from the town and then followed along the winding, wooded river valley. Eventually, on a sharp, deep bend in the river we could see, high up on the hilltop overlooking the river, the old fortress. This fortressed house was located on a key promontory on the river that allowed its owners to control access along the river and to a large part of inland Bretagne. Not a bad way of getting rich.

Conveniently, our castle had a boatramp.

The current building dates from the 15th century and houses a good museum which explains the design and history of the building while, ever so conveniently, in an old outer building, is an excellent restaurant.

Location-location-location! The look-out from the fortress along the river.

We wandered around, ate our fill and then explored the gardens before wandering back down to the dinghy to catch the outgoing tide back to Yuma.

Coming down the river in our dinghy at Lézardrieux, with tidal streams and markers. Both a bit bigger than we are used to.

4 Comments

  1. Caro Imming October 20, 2024 at 8:16 pm - Reply

    Een soort boterkoek dus. Echt jouw ding F. Wat een heerlijk leven hebben jullie toch.

    • Frederieke October 20, 2024 at 8:25 pm - Reply

      Inderdaad, hahaha, een soort boterkoek maar ik vind boterkoek is toch nog wel lekkerder.

  2. Jim October 23, 2024 at 6:36 am - Reply

    On the subject of ‘musical’ instruments that wail mournfully – the definition of a gentleman is a man who knows how to play the bagpipes but doesn’t!

    • David Westcott November 2, 2024 at 4:18 pm - Reply

      The bombarde is a fantastic instrument and definitely makes a strong impression, it leaves you with ringing ears. I doubt a gentleman would learn it.

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Heading west along the Breton coast
Our first pile of rocks