Time Trails in Brittany - Sentiers du Temps

Let's take a look at the Locminé Loop tour. Adult prices from 56€ per person (based on a group of nine adult guests booking as a single party) If you are living or taking a holiday in central Brittany, the busy little town of Locminé is a great starting point for a visit to some fascinating sites, ranging from the modest to the intriguing and the truly spectacular. Église Saint-Sauveur et Saint Colomban is our rendez-vous point in Locminé. After meeting in the centre of Locminé w e will head south to explore six fascinating sites. Our first stop will be a brief pause at a small dolmen (burial chamber) after which we will move on to discover a range of menhirs (standing stones), and a couple of sites of uncertain purpose, most of which rarely figure on the itinerary of visitors to this part of Brittany. Our first stop We will explore some of the associations between these sites and their natural surroundings whilst also taking some time to appreciate the ingenuity of the...

On my tours I talk lots about the continuing relationship between the living and the dead and the significance burial monuments had for ancient communities. Many of the tombs I will take you to show evidence that they were the centre for ongoing rituals over many hundreds of years and, it might surprise you to learn, this didn't just happen in prehistory. All over the world similar rituals still take place. Here's a link to an interesting short video from the BBC that gives a snap shot of one such ritual in Mexico. https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p07srkd7/the-village-that-exhumes-its-dead-once-a-year If you'd like to see the evidence of similar rituals in prehistory why not join me on the fascinating Guerlédan Heights tour? Alternatively, my Locminé Loop, Pink Granite Coast and "Carnac and Beyond" tours also include some compelling evidence of long-term interaction between living people and the ancestors. I look forward to sharing these amazing places with you.

Timetrails is run by a qualified archaeologist who gives guided, self-drive tours of many ancient and mysterious sites in central Brittany. All tours are conducted in English and they focus on sites dating from the Neolithic (New Stone Age) and Bronze Age. Depending on the tours you chose, you will visit Menhirs (standing stones), Cromlechs (stone circles) and several types of ancient burial monument known collectively as Dolmens. Your guide will explain about the lives of people in Brittany up to 6,000 years ago, highlighting their ingenuity and skill as they constructed monuments which demonstrate a deep understanding of engineering, the land, the seasons and the skies above them. At some sites you'll see enigmatic carvings which tempt us to speculate on the beliefs of prehistoric communities and you'll be amazed at some of their achievements. These tours are a unique experience for small groups, offering unrivalled access to an expert guide who will be happy to answer (or at...

    Over recent weeks we've been asked why we limit our tour group size to a maximum of seven guests. There are two reasons for doing this. Firstly, most of the sites we visit are not established tourist attractions and, therefore,have very limited places for parking vehicles (sometimes requiring us to park as safely as we can on verges). For this reason we like to ensure there are no more than three cars on each tour.   The second reason is that keeping our groups small means we can focus more on the needs and questions of our guests. Our tours provoke lots of questions so we like to spend some time exploring the answers with you. Experience shows us that a group of six is perfect for these types of discussions and debates.     #brittany #brittanyholiday #archaeologytour #archaeology

Hearts and Hands   One of the things we love about visiting so many ancient sites is the pull they still exert on people, despite the thousands of years that have elapsed since they were built. Over several decades visiting sites together my wife and I have found that, no matter how remote they might be, we are rarely the only people there. That's not to say that these sites are crowded; far from it, but more often than not we arrive as somebody else leaves, or we leave just as somebody else arrives. There is something magical about these sites that has lingered, reaching out across the millennia to pull people towards them, often for reasons that are far too complicated, or personal to explain or even vocalise. This photograph was taken by one of our guests on a recent " Locminé Loop " tour as we walked along a pretty river valley which, in all probability, was the source of stone for some of the local monuments. What motivated people to come here and leave these marks? ...