For the megalith enthusiast, visiting the Carnac region can be an overwhelming experience. There’s just so much to see. But here are some personal recommendations, as well as a few photography tips.

Many of the monuments in the Morbihan department of France are among the most important megalithic sites in the world. And the department has one of the highest concentrations of megalithic sites you’ll find anywhere. Alas, that brings with it popularity and a responsibility to protect and manage, and it risks turning the sites into McMegaliths – well-preserved but devoid of atmosphere.

If you visit the Morbihan and see only the main Carnac alignments (Le Ménec, Kermario, Kerlescan) and the famous Locmariaquer megaliths (Le Grand Menhir Brisé, Er Grah and La Tables des Marchands) you might easily leave with a vague sense of disappointment. Yes, you would have seen magnificent artefacts of great historical and cultural significance. But it’s hard to be moved by them.

I would strongly recommend visiting these famous sites at the beginning of your trip. Tick the boxes, take the snaps, browse the gift shops then move on to the places that retain something of their auspicious character. Those we visited that fit into this latter category would include Le Dolmen des Pierres Plates at Locmariaquer, Le Géant du Manio near the Kerlescan alignments, the Petit Ménec alignments and the rambler’s path from the Kerzerho alignments at Erdeven (a route that takes in standing stones and the Mané-Braz dolmens). I’m sure there are many others, but in a week we only just scratched the surface in terms of megalithic sites in Brittany.

It also pays to plan what you’re going to see in advance and have at least a rough itinerary each day. If you can, get hold of a copy of Gabriel le Cam’s Guide des Mégalithes du Morbihan, even if your french isn’t up to snuff. Because it has at least one, reasonably sized image of each site, you can make valid judgments on which are likely to prove worth the trek.

Going out of season turned out to be a good move. True, we were lucky with the weather, having had bright sun and cloudless skies most days (which is rare in Brittany in November). But megalithic sites are just as fascinating on cloudy or rainy days – and often even more atmospheric. By turning up in the off-season, we had free and unfettered access to the Le Ménec and Kermario alignments and were also able to walk around by ourselves at Le Grand Menhir Brisé at Locmariaquer. We also had fewer other tourists to contend with – a real plus for photography. Talking of which…

A few photo tips

• Bend your knees! A lower viewpoint places the monuments against the sky, where they stand out and you achieve a better impression of their massive nature. It also helps to eliminate or minimise distracting background details, such as nearby buildings. Don’t take it to extremes though, unless you want to seriously distort scale. I spent a lot of time on my knees (which some might feel appropriate ).
• Have something to sit or kneel on. I didn’t, and my knees ended up seriously scratched by the gorse. Also, if you are visiting these sites with a partner, they might appreciate having a ground sheet or blanket to sit on (and maybe a book to read) while you busy yourself taking pictures.
• Wear practical clothing. You’re going to do a lot of lying down, kneeling and scrambling about, especially where dolmens are concerned. In cooler seasons, something like a Barbour or hunting jacket will keep you dry,clean and protected while providing plenty of pockets for lenses, flashguns etc, so that you don’t have to drag camera bags into tight spaces. Which brings me to…
• Keep your gear light. You may end up walking fair distances or squeezing into tight spaces. My preference now is for a backpack (a Lowepro CompuRover), which means I can haul water and some snacks without putting a strain on my shoulders. But if you can get all your gear in your pockets, so much the better.
• Carry a torch at all times. You’ll want this anyway when you’re inside a dolmen or tumulus, but it also has photographic applications. You can ‘paint’ with light using long exposures (I plan to blog on this technique very soon). And even if you plan to use flash, a torch (or flashlight, for our American friends) gives you enough illumination to frame and focus the picture. I always have a tiny LED torch on my keyring, but also carried a 2 D-cell Maglite.
• Flash is more useful than you might think. For interiors, it may be the only light you have. But even when shooting menhirs in broad daylight, it’s useful to be able to fill in the shadows, to retain some detail. Also, flash on a nearby standing stone helps pick it out from the background. So carry a flashgun at all times. I’ll be blogging on this, too.
• A tripod is good – sometimes essential. But if you can’t be bothered, carry a monopod. It’s often the case that you need to use a small aperture to get the depth of field you need – for example, to render both a menhir and the landscape behind it sharp, or perhaps multiple stones in an alignment. A monopod lets you stop down a couple of extra stops over what you’d risk hand-held. A monopod also makes a reasonable walking stick when hacking across the landscape (and there are walking sticks available with camera mounts, though I like to have a quick-release plate on my monopod).
• Think about the context. One standing stone or dolmen looks much like another when isolated in the picture frame. Think about what’s around it and the relationship the monument has to its surroundings.

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…