Celt in France

Even in same country, France, each region gets diverse influence of the neighbor country. It's interesting for me. For example, Alsace has German culture. Flandre has a cultural stream from Belgium. The Mediterranean coast "Midi" is in Med- Sea cultural area which is same to some part of Spain and Italy.
However, the situation is just different when I talking about Japan. The reason is quite simple. Japan is island off the edge of the continent. It's different from the landlocked country. But as I talked in the issue of Okinawa, the landlocked geography is not always necessary for bringing culture. Bretagne region in France must be a good example.

I had wondered for long time "Why the region is called "Britannia(Great Britain)" in spite of locating in France. <Actually, my knowledge of the region was poor. What I knew about Bretagne was it's famous for ciders and special crepe with buckwheat flour. Nothing more than that.> However once I actually visited the land, I well understood the origin of the name. Houses or churches made of stones, ancient megalithic tombs "Dolmen", alignments of large up right standing stones "Menhirs" , and landscape with swelling hills looked like the one of Britain or Ireland. As shown in the name, Bretagne was developed by Celtic people and even now the Celtic culture add strong taste in the regional character.

Now I look at the map. In the west France, the Bretagne peninsula sticks out to the Atlantic ocean like a horn. Crossing the narrow seas, southern coast of England is just over there. For thinking of a culture, you have to remove political borders. Then maybe you'll see a different geography. Ireland, Britain and Bretagne of France are connected each other with the sea. Obviously, you see the Celtic cultural region on the map. Inevitably, the name of the sea becomes "Celtic Sea".

Stony towns in Bretagne had dignity. It looked cold but holy at same time. The only regrettable thing in Bretagne had bad weather especially in winter. It's also in Celtic way. It's rain every day although temperature was not low because of warm sea tide. The rainy gray sky perfectly matched the scenery of the antique town. But I needed sunny days sometime.

I'm walkin' in the town of Quimper. I come to the antique building which is made of stone. It's a "Lycee"(high school). In a winter break, no student is there. Trough the window, a lay figure in the science room looks lonely.