My town ,my loving Pluvigner. Most write about far away lands we visit but seldom about the one we live in, I have lived in 5 countries and citizen of 4, having visited 81 so far and all have an impact on my life, Needless, to say the meaning of Pluvigner is big on my family. I had written several post on our lives here but realise these were repeated on individual posts; therefore, crazy me decided to erase them all. Not to lose the memories and sights of my loving Pluvigner ,will do several posts updating these older posts. This one is my Pluvigner ,part IV. This is my last one on this series. Of course, these posts will be on my black and white series,no pictures ,Hope you enjoy the post as I.
I have not told you about the house we live, and so much love keeping the work of my dear late wife Martine. Most folks including my overseas family think that we all have small houses, like cubicles lol! well if you live in a big city like Paris you find a lot of 50 sq meter homes and even less, but we live in the countryside Breton and houses are big here and lots of land. My land is 1000 square meters or about 10 760 square feet. The house living space is 255 square meters or about 2 743 square feet. It has five bedrooms,(we use one as game room/entertainment center for the boys) , and two full bathrooms and half toilet seat extra apart. There is a garage not counted in living space but can fit three cars easily, and a cellar of 33 m2 or about 355 sq ft. fully loaded! A separate laundry room 28 m2 and so on and on. There is a front gate to enter the property and a long driveway for the back and the garage entrance. We have not counted in the living space an open air terrace of 11 m2 (118 sq ft) and a veranda glass enclosed terrace of 22m2 (237 sq ft). The house is about 400 meters or 1320 feet from downtown/city center or centre ville which we go on foot for all our needs.
There is bus service very limited every 2-3 hours on line 5, and no train station; therefore transportation is basically all done by car which we like ! and if I go the opposite way from the house I am in dairy and horse farms galore on a winding hilly road into the forest. However, we have taken the bus and my boys do it into Lorient and Vannes as well as Auray. The bus network is manage by Keolis Atlantique, the line 5 is it, and there is a nice bus stop in city center where now we are doing a huge cultural center. And our Keolis Atlantique bus line 5 connects with Vannes bus terminal next to the train station and then bus intercity even to Paris!The town is sandwhich between two main road for easy access to everything. In the north on the D768 you reach the N24 and connects with Rennes, Lorient, Brest etc. Going to the south or the beaches on the same D768 you connect with the expressway or voie express N165 doing the run from Nantes to Brest. From the N165 you can connect on the N166 to Rennes and onwards to Paris and beyond. I can take the D767 and D779 very easily connecting with all the above and north south Bretagne. There are other roads we take that connects quite nicely with all the needs such as the D102, D103 ,and D16. There is an airport at Lorient Bretagne Sud but with limited flights choices located at 32 km or about 20 miles. My main airport is in Nantes Atlantique at about 147 km (91 mi) and 1h30 time, taken many times by yours truly.The closest train station is at Auray at about 14 km which I have taken, however, for choices I take the Vannes at 27 km. Both handle the TGV as well. Oh yeah we are 129 km (80 mi) from Rennes and 145 km (90 miles) from Nantes city center. Also, 161 km (100 mi) from Brest at the point, and 58 km (36 mi) from Sarzeau in the Rhuys peninsula as well as 161 km (100 mi) from Saint Malo in the north. All centrally located for our enjoyment.
This is the countryside! However, we do have 10 bars 8 restaurants, 1 supermarket, and 1 mini proxi grocery store, 5 bakeries, and 5 haircutters , 2 pharmacies, eyeglasses, dentist, doctor, nurses ,clothing/shoes store, gifts/pmu tabac stores, 3 banks, two car dealers and garages, oh well pretty much covered. The only service we go to Auray is the eye doctor and the Pratel hospital. A major hospital Bretagne Atlantique but known locally by its name Chubert is in Vannes. Another great service of a small town, here with the mairie (Ti Ker in Breton) we communicate by email and even before the virus and they respond rapidly very good service. We will go next to pickup our new French passports! Believe it or not, we have a tourist office in town, we do get a lot of Breton history here with sacre monuments and lots of walks into the woods with chapels etc.We belong to the Agglo communities of the Auray Quiberon Terres Atlantique, do not know why they invented these maybe to suck in national employees of the regions they cut down from 22 to 13. Oh yes one big advantage is that we are just very close to the beaches. Straight down on the road D768 you are in Unesco territory of Carnac, and also, St Philibert, Plouharnel, La Trinité sur Mer, Quiberon peninsula (our favorite) with a bit divertion to Locmariaquer, and on the other side Erdeven , and Etel ;all wonderful coastal beach towns at about 22 km (14 mi) ,28 km (17 mi) , 33 km (20 mi) and the farthest at 40 km (25 mi) going over to the Gulf of Morbihan name one of the most beautiful bays in the world! By Great Bays and Conde Nast publications! At Vannes there is also a gare maritime or sea passenger terminal for trips to the outlying islands in the Morbihan like Belle-île sur Mer, Houat, and Hoédic in the Atlantic , and in Gulf such as Aux Moines, Arz , and still a bit further by Lorient Groix in the Atlantic ocean.
We are lucky to have found the house, as we are near the best park in town Goh Lanno, and the city maintenance dept where we get our yellow tri garbage bags on foot! The folks are friendly and we talk to many neighbors already, as my boys take our dog Rex out for walks in the town and the park. He behaves very well indeed! We love him much!!! Many things happened lately you know, like the virus and we still trying to get out of it. However, we are behaving well in Bretagne and have some movement and hopefully by mid May we will be fully out. I like to tell you about some curiosities of Pluvigner, my town in the Morbihan breton dept 56 of Bretagne and my belle France! Pluvigner comes from the Breton “Ploe” (parish) and “Guigner”, a Breton saint. In the Breton language is written Pleuwigner.
The parish church is dedicated to St Guigner whose relics are carried in procession. The Saint is accompanied by an angel wearing an ermine coat of arms. The stained-glass windows done 1932-1933, relate the events in the life of famous figures of the parish, such as St Guénaël, the penitent Kériolet or St Guigner. The lintel of the south door shows a group of Crucifixions, made up of Christ surrounded by the Virgin and Saint John. The church contains the relics of Saint Guigner and houses a statue of Saint Guigner. Next door to the above church and connecting to it we have the Chapelle Notre-Dame des Orties or Our Lady of the Nettles was invoked against rheumatism. It stood next to the parish Church Saint Guigner , and even communicated with it, at the level of the sacristy. These are called double churches. Located between the parish Church Saint-Guigner and the remains of the Notre Dame des Nettles Chapel, this massive Calvary has a plinth with several degrees. Its long column ends with a two-sided sculpted panel. It shows the Christ, and Sainte Anne left and Saint Guigner rigtht. It has been recently renovated to look like new. The Monument to the Fallen or Monument aux Morts has an obelisk on plinth with war cross at the top and numerous plaques with names of the dead for France (about.336 local boys) The Bas-relief on bronze plaque representing a Hairy or Poilus as combatant in WWI were called in France,it shows it shows a weapon at his feet. The monument is in granite and the slabs are in white marble. It was started and in 1906 and finished after the Great war, and renovated in 2018. It is right next to the above church as well.
Last but not least we had to take some home as it was across the street ! The La Fondue de Chocolat. 3 rue de l’église, diagonally in front of the Church Saint Guigner. This is a great shop and one we certainly visit often. The store is smallish, but packed with all kinds and shapes of chocolate items, wines, liquors, pates, miel ;coffees, cookies, jellies and snacks from many leading producers even as far as Provence.
There you go folks, my town of Pluvigner, Another historical memorable town for us , already 9 years in the house and now more empty than ever missing our two women, Life goes on and the town has been good, hard to tell the future but I believe this will be my last town, from here to the sea at Honfleur Normandie as our family has. Hope you enjoy this kind of post, and do get to know me more and hopefully I will you too. Do read my many posts on Pluvigner in my blog !
And remember, happy travels, good health , and many cheers to all !!!
Paris1972-Versailles2003 
Leave a Reply