Bretagne - a region you'll have to include in a visit to France

I hope I can share all on the places that we have visited this year in Bretagne before my departure to SA. When talking to French people they get enthusiastic when you mention Bretagne.  So I got more and more curious about this region as time passed by.  So I'm very happy to say that by now we have visited a few, although far to few for me, places in Bretagne - and I also fell in love with Bretagne.  So much so that when we had lunch in Cancale (more about that in a future blog), I told JL this is where I would like to retire in France.  I have to add, we were very lucky that weekend, as we had beautiful sunshine.  Bretagne is known for its weather - a lot of rain, fog, having four seasons in a day (or twice in a day).  (ha ha, I just have to add this after listening to the news on the radio this morning. We're having a relative mild Nov - to date.  So the guy was talking about Bretagne having a drought, stressing to listeners that he is not making a joke! So that gives you an idea of how famous they are for their rain...) 
But for now, I love it and I would love to explore more of Bretagne.  I've realised as I now wanted to post my photo's of my first visit to Rennes that I cannot really share photo's of different areas in Bretagne without sharing more information on Bretagne.  As they have an interesting, but also very bloody history.  Maybe that's why it is such a special region?
I found a informative map on internet to give you an idea of where Bretagne is.

After my few visits, my dream is to travel all around the coast line of Bretagne.  Three weeks at least, to really appreciate all.  I want to visit the pink granite coast, the various coastal villages, all with a different character, the coastal parts that start disappearing as the ocean wars against the land, Brest - the western point, the beautiful islands, a French singer wrote a song about the one, which name is literally beautiful island if you translate it, Carnac - the French version of Britain's Stonehenge, the forts. 
OK, their history.  Who are the Bretons who are so proud to be Breton and still celebrate their fêtes wearing their traditional clothes, doing their traditional dances, still speak their traditional language?  This region that is known to be the region for excellent crépes (pancakes) and their cider they make from apples.  Where did they come from?
It will be impossible to share more than 2000 years' history, so in a nutshell - it started off with the Celts and the Gauls, who were then overpowered by the Romans, hence the Gallo-Romans.  At the end of the 5th century, from Britain came the Bretons.  An emigration that took place over ca. 200 years as they were chased away by the Saxons and other clans in England.  A part of Bretagne stayed Gallo-Roman (so today you'll still find 2 traditional languages, breton spoken in the west and gallo spoken in the east and despite it being classified as a language under threat to disappear, more and more young people acquire the language).  This desire for independance led to many many wars between the Bretons and France and England (both France & England wanted to own Bretagne while the Bretons wanted to remain independant). At 11, the duchess Anne de Bretagne, inherited the crown of Bretagne.  After 3 years of resistance she accepted the hand of the French king Charles VIII (1491) and as a result, Bretagne came under the French crown (it became a French province in 1532 and had peace until the Religous War).  After his death, she married Louis XII (1499) whose daughter married the famous Francois I, the king who commanded the construction of Chambord (in the Loire) and other castles. 
To this day you'll still find signs of old castles and forts that was built along the border between Bretagne and France as a defense, bearing witness of the many attacks that took place.
So enough history, I'll try to post all the photo's before my departure, as it is going a bit hectic to finalise all!