Tag Archives: Brest

Wandering Around Brest – Pt 5 Music and Wine

25 Replies

Wandering Around Brest - Pt 5 Music and Wine

After my look around Recouvrance I crossed back over the river and found myself in the city’s main thoroughfare, the Rue de Siam. Originally called Rue Saint-Pierre, it was the location of an overnight stop in 1686 for three ambassadors sent by the King of Siam to meet King Louis XIV in Versailles. After arriving in Brest, their unusual appearance caused such a stir that they renamed the street after them.

Like the rest of the city centre, the Rue de Siam was rebuilt after the end of the Second World War, but that didn’t make it an unpleasant place to take the weight off my feet for a while, and at the bottom end of this pedestrianised avenue, there were any number of bars and restaurants that had outside tables enticing me to take a closer look. In the end, I didn’t choose any of them because I could hear the distinct sound of Breton music coming from a bit further up the street.

Continue reading →

Originally posted 2024-08-21 14:58:39.

Wandering Around Brest – Pt 4 Recouvrance

31 Replies

Wandering Around Brest - Pt 4 Recouvrance

I’ve had a change of heart: I was going to make this my final post about Brest, but I’ve now decided to break it up into two smaller ones, as Recouvrance and the City Centre are quite different from each other – and always have been.

Being on opposite sides of the Penfeld River, both communities grew up with separate identities: Recouvrance, for example, was Breton-speaking while Brest spoke French, and even though the former was annexed by Brest in 1680, it still retains its own independent character.

Recouvrance, it has to be said, might not be on everyone’s list of places to visit, in fact probably very few, but I was keen to see how it compared to Plymouth’s Devonport and so after leaving the Chateau and Maritime Museum I wandered through the Jardin de Gaulle towards the Recouvrance Bridge.

Continue reading →

Originally posted 2024-07-15 14:56:18.