I decided to do some touristing and settled on something a few minutes down the road from Auray, the sanctuary of Sainte Anne d’Auray.

But first, another stone.  Just hanging about in a parking lot, nothing to see here, but a stone that was put in place something like 4500 to 7000 years ago.   Gemini said yep, that’s a menhir.  They are protected today, so people build parking lots around them.  I imagine there used to be a lot more of them, but many have been removed or repurposed over the last few millennia.

 

The sanctuary has several parts.  The Basilica, the Holy Stairs, the cloisters, the WWI memorial and the fountain.

In case you’re interested, this Sainte Anne is Mary’s mother, so the grandmother of Jesus.  She isn’t in the canonical bible, but is mentioned in the Gospel of James.  The Gospel of James was rejected for the New Testament, because it was written later than the books that were accepted and had some details wrong.  It was very popular though and led to traditions, such as the story of Mary’s parents being accepted as true.

Continuing on to Sainte Anne d’Auray.  A Breton farmer started seeing visions of Sainte Anne, telling him that there had been a chapel in the site and asking him to rebuild it.  Then they found a wooden statue and decided it was all real, so they built the chapel.  Then they built stairs in front of the chapel.

 

The upper level of the stairs was an open air altar where the priests could hold services for the multitude that couldn’t squeeze into the chapel.  It was moved from the site of the chapel when the basilica replaced the chapel on the original site.

The basiliica is the most impressive to look at.  I had imagined it was medieval, but it is actually 19th century (built between 1865 and 1872).

 

It looks like a classic gothic church inside too.

The windows look modern because they are.   The original stained glass from the 19th century fell apart and was replaced in the 1970s.  They decided to use a more contemporary style, which drew partly on the idea of pointillism to make the images from individual blocks of color, at least in the windows around the altar.

 

The cloisters are original, built starting in 1638 to house the Carmelite Fathers who looked after the site.

 

The WWI memorial is another open air construction.   There is a sign at the top that reads something like “Please respect this place.”  I rather take it to mean “Please don’t spray graffiti here.”  If so, it works, because it is very clean.  There is another sign that reads something like “Be careful and if you hurt yourself here, we are not responsible.”   I took that to mean “If you try to ride your skateboard down this ramp and fall off, don’t come crying to us.”   This place may not be the best location for teenagers to hang out.

 

Having the pope come to visit was a big deal.  It was the first time a reigning pope came to Brittany.  After he died and was canonized, the basiliica received some of his hair as a relic.

They built an open air shrine also.  The stones are menhirs, very ancient.

 

And some wildlife.  This is an insect nest, to help give succor to the local insect population.