We hadn’t intended to visit Le Petit Ménec - and that would have been a huge mistake.

Most of the guide books, if they mention it at all, treat it as the least important of the Carnac alignments. Then we bought the Michelin guide to Brittany.

A quick aside here about guide books. It’s terribly important to find one that matches your way of travelling and your outlook. A couple of months before making this trip, we’d bought the Rough Guide to Brittany and Normandy. And we found it both irritating and useless. It’s written for young backpackers and so spends a lot of its time telling you how to get there and how to stay cheaply (irrelevant to us). Worse, it shares all the prejudices of youth - deeming places ‘boring’ or worthless if they don’t offer facile distractions. It assumes you can’t possibly want to go somewhere that doesn’t have a bar, club or shops.

The Michelin guide is far more adult. It assumes you are driving and it concentrates on telling you what there is to see and appreciate. It is, as far as I’m concerned, the best guide for the region.

And what it said was: don’t miss Le Petit Ménec. I couldn’t agree more.

This is the most easterly, and among the smallest of the alignments. It is not well signposted - you have to hunt for it down small, forest lanes. In November, the woodland was beautiful, still in its autumn colours picked out by a sharp winter light. On this morning, the sky was cloudless, though winter was making its presence felt by the sharpness of the air.

We arrived at the north end of the alignments, from where they curve east-south-east. There is no car park, just a rough lay-by. Nor is there a fence. Indeed, it has the feel of private land and the path through the alignments seems to be a favourite route for cyclists and locals making their daily walk. Mind you, that’s an assumption based on the very few people we saw there.

The standing stones - few of which are any appreciable size - run down the edge of the woodland, and so are mostly under a canopy of trees (don’t bother looking for the stones on Google Maps - they’re invisible under the foliage). This makes for a very peaceful, contemplative setting. After the initial group, the space, bounded by old, dry-stone walls, opens out and the number of rows increases. This area gave the impression of an arena, a defined area populated by a subdued crowd of stones and skinny trees. Trish and I each felt that the stones looked like a gathering of people upon whose silent and mysterious ceremony we had stumbled. Kind of like the way a bar-room falls silent when a stranger enters. But the effect was not hostile: it was as though they were simply waiting patiently and politely for us to leave.

Someone had had a bonfire here, a ring of small rocks enclosed the ashes (and the twisted remains of a bicycle wheel and some empty beer cans). The setting imbued even this act of littering with a ceremonial veneer.

While the size and number of the standing stones in the main alignments, at Le Ménec and Kermario, boast of the importance of those sites, Le Petit Ménec was the place where we had the strongest emotional response, a place where the inscrutable and mysterious significance of the stones was felt rather than demanded. And, mixed with the young trees, surrounded by woodland, and with no fence or obvious signs of restoration or management, this was the alignment most in harmony with the landscape. Even Zola was happy among these stones (although he’s on guard duty in the picture, right).

Le Petit Ménec was the only megalithic site we visited during the day. It was enough. It was the best. It was the highlight of this trip. Don’t miss it.

This was the day Trish dubbed me ‘Megalith Man’ - a superhero with all the special powers of … a rock. Oh well…

We started early with a drive to Locmariaquer, situated on a small peninsula that frames the west side of the Gulf of Morbihan. Our objective was one of the most famous sites of the region - indeed, one of the most famous megaliths in the world - Le Grand Menhir Brisé. ‘Big Broken Stone’ might not sound like much of an attraction - DisneyWorld doesn’t have a great deal to worry about - but there is a certain magnificence to the idea of stone age man raising a 280-tonne, 20-metre high stone. Whatever they were celebrating, they obviously felt it deeply.

Of course, it was shut. Being one of the most famous sites, it’s kept behind a fence, with entry through the visitor centre (and a fee of 5 € a head). We were there an hour before opening time (10am in the off-season). No matter: there’s plenty to see in this area.

First, we took a look in the nearby cemetery. This wasn’t always a graveyard - somewhere under those bones is a Roman amphitheatre. Tucked in one corner is a large grave monument with a crucifix carved on to the front of what looks, for all the world, like a menhir. It’s a Victorian-era grave. Maybe the ’standing stone’ is just a stylised tribute to the region, or maybe it really is a menhir, stolen for the purpose.

We drove a short while to a nearby dolmen, chosen at random. By a stroke of luck, we had stumbled on one of the best of its type. The Dolmen des Pierres Plates is close to the beach, its covering stones visible among the dunes but the passageway and chamber still mostly underground. It is a rare type, with the passage angled, turning left through about 60 degrees after a couple of metres.

The site’s keepers have allowed a few holes to appear between the capstones and the ground, so some daylight penetrates at strategic places. But I was glad to have a couple of torches with me, especially as I had to crouch very low.

One shaft of daylight strikes a beautifully carved stone. There are other carvings too. There is a side chamber just beyond the turn in the passageway, and a large (but thin) stone nearly blocks the end of the passage creating a chamber behind it.

I spent a long time down there, shooting pictures with a combination of flash, the meagre daylight and ‘painting’ selected stones with the light from the torch.

Trish loved it too, especially the carvings. But Zola, our dog, wanted nothing to do with it. The reluctance to enter a dolmen, that we’d seen at Mané Kerioned, became out-and-out refusal. This was strange behaviour for him. He’s an outstanding guard dog. Wherever we walk, he insists on taking point duty, walking ahead of us to fend off any danger. And he’s not afraid of confined spaces or the dark. He had no hesitation in running in and around the derelict German fortifications on the beach near our gite, even when the tide was starting to lap at their openings. But no amount of cajoling or dragging would get him into that dolmen. He’s not afraid of Nazi ghosts but obviously has to draw the line somewhere…

On the way back to Locmariaquer, we stopped to photograph a single standing stone and the tumulus de Mané-er-H’roueg. The latter is hidden along a narrow lane between houses (the wall in this lane, at one point, looks to have been made from a menhir). The tumulus has the appearance of a quarry. There’s a stone staircase (looks relatively modern) leading to the burial chamber itself. This boasts some simple carving but is otherwise fairly bland. It is some way underground, however, and you do get a sense of the weight of stone above you. Zola was happy to come down the steps but point-blank refused to enter the chamber.

Then back to Le Grand Menhir Brisé. The guide books say that visits are by guided tour. Once again, however, we benefited from visiting out of season. We were the only people there and could wander freely - visite libre.

The Grand Menhir, even broken into four pieces, is impressively huge. There is no telling when it was toppled, though current thinking is that it might have been within a few hundred years of being raised. Fairly recent excavations have revealed signs of a number of other menhirs raised in a line with the big one. It may be part of one of these that is now a capstone in the Tables des Marchands dolmen that stands just yards from the Grand Menhir. Another part of this same stone (identified by the carvings on the two pieces, which match up like a jigsaw) is to be found in the dolmen on Gavrinis island, 4km away. And the large rock that caps the Er-Grah tumulus, also alongside the Grand Menhir, may be a third piece from the same stone.

This raises the fascinating idea that neolithic man placed no great value in the stones themselves - that while their function may have been sacred, the stones themselves were not. It also demonstrates that we cannot regard megalithic society, and its monuments, as a single, consistent entity. If it was neolithic people who toppled the Grand Menhir, what was their reason? Was there a change in religion? Or was it more social or political? If the stones were raised as a function of the status and powers of a priestly class, perhaps that class lost its status. This is all speculation, as much else about this period. But we must be careful not to get too dewy-eyed and mystical about these things, because it’s possible that the original owners and users of these monuments were not nearly so romantic.

The Table des Marchands dolmen is also impressively large. The sun was still low and cast interesting patterns inside the large burial chamber - one of the few dolmens in which one can happily stand upright. There is some carving, most notably on the large stele opposite the entrance, covered with a crosier (shepherd’s crook) motif. A nearby sign asks you not to touch this stone - which we obeyed, though we temporarily removed the sign to take pictures - one of the advantages of being there alone!

The site is also home to the Er-Grah tumulus - basically a big pile of stones. This remained largely undiscovered until recently. The main section, with its burial chamber (which is not open, so you can’t go in) has been known about for some time - at least since the 19th Century (although it had already been plundered by then). But in 1991, excavators started to uncover more of the tumulus, and by the following year they had revealed a structure 140 metres long! And that’s after a significant amount of it had disappeared: the north end of the tumulus was known as Er Vinglé - the Breton word for ‘quarry’ because that’s how it had been used - as a source of stones.

These three monuments are important sites and a visit is obligatory if you’re in the area and haven’t been before. But as I mentioned before, this is theme-park archeology, a site so carefully and perfectly preserved that it has become a museum exhibit, robbed of atmosphere. I was glad we visited. I doubt we’d go again.

In the afternoon, we drove to Carnac’s Kerlescan alignments. This is the most easterly of what are regarded the ‘main’ sets of stones -by which I guess they mean those in need of protecting with a fence. Fortunately, the gate is left open during the day and you’re free to wander around. At the western end of the group, lines of stones form three sides of a near-rectangle, the fourth being occupied by what’s left (which isn’t much) of a long barrow. As usual, the standing stones at the western end of the lines are huge, diminishing and converging as you move east. Although there’s a riding school right up against the Kerlescan site (and some of the stones seem to have been moved to make way for it), the surrounding woodland makes this a very peaceful and picturesque place.

Once again, however, Zola had moments of doubt. He was profoundly suspicious of the large standing stones you see at the left-hand end of the row in the photo (above right). He wouldn’t go near them.

The photography was challenging, with lots of fast-moving cumulus making for highly unpredictable light. I found myself shooting into sun a great deal, and discovered just how much my 18-70mm Nikkor lens likes to flare at the least opportunity.

The gorse and heather are especially thick here - which I discovered every time I knelt to take a shot.

We walked around the riding school and along a footpath that took us deep into the woods to find Le Géant du Manio and Le Quadrilatère de Crucuno (or du Manio, as some have it). It’s the latter you find first and the effect is magical. One moment you are enjoying a walk in the woods: the next, you are faced with a strange, inscrutable construction of obviously ancient provenance. It helped that the sun was getting very low now, so we saw the Quadrilatère in veiled and dappled light.

The low stones create a rectangle that looks like an arena for some arcane ceremony. In fact, it’s believed that these are the retaining stones for a long-gone tumulus. Whatever the explanation, there is a definite sense that one is on sacred ground.

The Quadrilatère had so stolen my attention that I missed seeing the ‘Giant’ at first - which is surprising given that it stands some 6.5m high! It is the tallest stone in the Carnac group. It is given a respectful space, the trees having been cleared back to form an open area stretching from the Quadrilatère. At first, this bare ground appeared disconcertingly like a parade ground, or perhaps a car park. After we had spent a little while there, however, contemplating the stone in the golden, broken light coming through the trees, this open space took on a more ceremonial aspect.

It does make the setting somewhat boring for photography, however. We were joined by another couple. The husband busied himself taking snaps while the wife complained that they had missed the light because it was behind the trees. They left. Soon after, faint shafts of sunlight began hitting the menhir. I moved into the surrounding woodland to get my shots, having to use some relatively low shutter speeds. Fortunately, I was using a monopod. I think these may be among the best shots I got on this trip. I’m still working on them but will post a note as soon as I add them to the portfolio. They place the menhir very much in the context of the landscape, so much so that it is not immediately obvious, and has to be discovered.

Walking back to the car, we found that the light had become very rich indeed. I fired off some more shots of the Kerlescan stones, now in a much more subtle mood. It’s obvious that I will have to revisit these sites many times, in different seasons and different lights.

I hadn’t expected them to be quite so close to the town. Heading out from the centre, we found ourselves at the visitor’s car park for the Le Ménec alignments almost immediately. A few stones peeked tantalisingly over the rise on the opposite side of the main road, but we resisted the urge to dive straight in. I’d waited 30 years for this: it had to be done properly.

After a fast visit to the visitor’s centre, to buy guide books, we took our first real look from the viewing platform on top of the building. It’s a staggering sight. For anyone accustomed to seeing standing stones alone or in ragged circles, to gaze on the meandering rows of Le Ménec almost beggars belief.

This is the most westerly alignment. The rows contain around 1,150 menhirs, with the standing stones diminishing in size and the lines edging closer together as you head east.

Like most of the Carnac alignments, Les Alignements du Ménec are closed off by a low, green fence. In peak months, you are allowed in only by arrangements and as part of guided tours. Out of season, however, you can wander freely around the main part of the Le Ménec alignments, from 9am to 5pm (in November, when we were there, that ruled out sunrise and sunset photographs). This protection may be irritating to some, and the locals were furious about it - many still are. But this entire area of the Morbihan département has a fragile ecosystem. Soil erosion is a particular problem. Having countless tourists tramping around the stones destroys the vegetation - particularly the heather and gorse - and that subsequently threatens to topple the stones. The restriction on access is a responsible measure to protect these monuments for the future.

The stones at the western end are truly huge. By the time you get to the road that splits the Ménec group, they are down to waist height. Even a casual examination reveals that the lines are far from orderly: suggestions that this monument was some kind of astronomical computer are hard to credit. True, the majority of the stones have been ‘restored’ to their current positions, primarily during the 19th Century, but such restoration would probably have tended to greater precision, rather than less. Whatever the function of the stones, they make an impressive statement in the landscape.

The eastern section of the Ménec alignments is not open to the public, but is less impressive anyway and quickly peters out.

We continued east, ignoring the small (and fenced off) Kérabus group and spent the next couple of hours at Les Alignements de Kermario. This is the longest of the alignments, with around 1,000 stones. Alas, it is entirely fenced off, though there is an astonishing view from the old, derelict windmill (fitted with a modern metal, and slightly wobbly, viewing platform) about two-thirds of the way along.

What struck me most about Kermario was the variety of shapes. Current thinking is that the shapes are, in fact, entirely arbitrary and random. Around 1764, the Comte de Caylus, one of the founders of archeology in France, attempted (without success) to read the stones as ciphers, as though each row was a line of text written in ancient symbols. Most archaeologists today accept that the shapes are the result of natural erosion, the stones having been quarried from surface locations, rather than mined.

For this trip, we were staying in a gite just outside Erdeven. On our way back, we stumbled across the Kerzerho alignments, on the south-east of the town - utterly unmissable because the road cuts through one end, isolating a handful of stones on the south-west side. Passing by the site you’d be forgiven for thinking it was a quarry, or the yard of a particularly ambitious monumental mason. The stones, many of them very big, appear jumbled at first, as though abandoned or unfinished. Seeing the alignment takes a bit of effort.

There’s no fence here. We found children playing happily on some of the stones, which seemed oddly appropriate. Perhaps that’s because, for me, one of the most compelling impressions created by these monuments is one of joy and optimism. They are the work of people who contemplated the future with hope and confidence, I feel. That’s an entirely emotional response, of course, based on no intellectual foundation. As such, it cannot be denied!

The main group comprises around 165 menhirs, but the proximity to the road and the park-like surroundings don’t make for an auspicious location. The same was true of the the Carnac Le Ménec and Kermario alignments. They’re not exactly McMegaliths , but it’s difficult to achieve a sense of wonder and entrancement with trucks roaring past.

We spotted some more standing stones across a field and found ourselves face to face with the vast menhirs of the Alignements de la Table du Sacrifice. These were among the largest and most impressive standing stones we would see on the whole trip. They form another alignment that winds down a wooded path to the ‘table’ itself - a recumbent stone next to another large menhir. These are on a path that, at the time we arrived, was being used by cows going in to be milked. At other times, it’s used by ramblers - one of many route de randonnée in the area. The path, bordered by gnarly oaks, appeared ancient - you could easily picture yourself in medieval times. We wanted to explore more, but the light was failing. We swore we would return.

Just a few weeks after deciding to embark on this project I found myself at ground zero for megaliths. Carnac.

We like to holiday in Brittany during autumn or winter. On a previous visit, we mooted the idea of driving up to Carnac, but were too busy.  It was a disappointment as visiting the alignments had been a dream for 30 years.

When I first became interested in megalithic sites, as part of an art school project back in 1977, I read about Carnac and its thousands of stones arranged in mysterious rows with both fascination and despair. The despair came from knowing I would never see them. For a working class boy living in Cheshire, the idea of travelling to France just to visit some stones was too fantastic. Now I live about 3.5 hours drive away (3 hours if I drive like a Frenchman) and have at last realised that dream.

I will blog about the sites we visited and sights we saw in subsequent postings - with some pix, once I’ve finished working on them. But first, a general impression.

I wasn’t disappointed. Yes, the main Carnac alignments are now fenced-off, but in the off-season you can stroll freely about the main part of Le Ménec and Kerlescan. And Le Petit Ménec isn’t fenced and is possibly the most beautiful and moving of the monuments.

Other sites weren’t so impressive and my advice to anyone new to the area would be to seek out the more remote and less-visited sites. Le Grand Menhir Brisé, for example, notwithstanding its astonishing size (albeit broken into four pieces) and the accompanying cairns, is in a carefully manicured enclosure, with hedge and visitor centre, hemmed in by modern housing, and feels like a bland piece of sculpture in a small, municipal park. All sense of mystery, any intimation that this may once have been an auspicious place, has been eradicated. It’s like a neolithic theme park. I called it ‘MegalithWorld’ but Trish, my wife, came up with the better, if more savage, ‘McMegalith’. We encountered a few McMegaliths - perhaps a reflection of just how common they are in this area.

Far more interesting, more intimate and infinitely more spooky was the nearby dolmen of ‘Les Pierres Plates’ - but more of that later.

For now, another couple of bits of advice for new visitors:

• The best maps are IGN’s ‘Carte de Randonnée’ series. These are 1:25,000 scale (1cm = 250m). They are designed for walkers and are much more useful than the same organisation’s ‘Carte de Promenade’ (1:100,000). IGN, by the way, is the French equivalent, near enough, of the Ordnance Survey.
• Even at this scale, not everything is marked, so keep your eyes peeled. We went on a walk from the Kerzerho alignments at Erdeven to the dolmens of Mané-Braz (highly recommended) and found a few stones not marked on the chart.
• Autumn is a good time to visit. With the leaves off the trees, you get better light on the monuments, there are fewer grockles to get in the way of your pictures, and you can stroll freely about the fenced-off alignments at Carnac.
• Buy ‘Le Guide des Mégalithes du Morbihan’ by Gabriel le Cam (published by Coop Breizh) if you have even just basic french. It’s a good visual guide to the sites, with at least one photo of each. It’s not so hot at pinpointing where each site is, so you’ll need to cross-reference with a map or another guide, but it gives you an excellent idea of what to expect at each site, and therefore lets you prioritise more easily.

That last point is important. There are so many menhirs and dolmens in this area that you become blasé - and picky. We found ourselves spotting megaliths while driving and thinking, ‘nah, not good enough’. The locals practically use them as doorstops. In fact, new ones are being discovered all the time, much to the annoyance of developers and individuals who want to build houses.

In France, having your house built to order is very common. You buy a patch of land and have a bungalow (’pavillon’) built on it. That is, unless the digger unearths a dolmen or menhir, at which point all building work stops and an area of one hectare around the discovered rock becomes protected. That’s good, of course, though it does mean (in a country where breaking the rules is the national sport) that builders are motivated to just bulldoze the site and tell no-one.

All the same, for the megalith hunter, there’s more than enough to entrance and amaze you on the ‘Côte des Mégalithes’. About which, more later…