Today has been a beautiful day, with a deep blue sky and 19.5 degrees of sunshine.
Auray: Roughly half-way between Lorient and St Nazaire sits the town of Auray, which is a small harbour connected to the sea by a river. Le Petit Port – the small port – is still used as a harbour with many of its original houses lining the small winding streets. Men left here for the Americas in the late 1600’s and in 1776 Benjamin Franklin arrived here to travel to Nantes to gain support to kick the British out of the Americas. Crossing the river to the harbour is a small bridge. There’s been a bridge here since the 13th century but the first proper stone bridge was built in 1464. A new bridge was built to replace it in 1663 but that fell down so the present bridge was built in 1693 and it was the inspiration for many 19th century artists. It really is a beautiful small town, and well worth the visit.
Lorient: The city of Lorient is further north up the coast. It’s a large modern city with a bustling port and a thriving industry in yacht making. There’s little of the original Lorient left, as it was heavily damaged between 1943 and 1944. But, sitting in the harbour are three colossal concrete structures – the Submarine Pens. Built by the Nazi’s for their U-boats, it took over a million tons of concrete and over 150,000 workers to make the three large buildings which could – and did – withstand the largest bombs dropped by the RAF.
The first building next to the water is a 6-bay building for U-boats preparing for patrol or returning from patrol. The next building is where a U-boat can be taken out of the water, put onto a cradle and then pulled onto a large railed area where the U-boat can be moved into the third and biggest building. Containing 6 huge bays, a U-boat could be pushed inside on its cradle for repair, refit or upgrade.
Between building 2 and 3 some of the original rail system remains, and on the rail is a French Daphne class submarine, La Flore. It is a diesel-electric submarine and saw service between 1964 and 1989. It’s been open to the public since 2010 so I quickly bought a ticket. I really enjoyed walking through La Flore, and was surprised how different it is inside compared to UK submarines from that same era. It only cost 11eu and next to the submarine in one of the U-boat pens is a large museum telling you about life on a submarine. Definitely well worth the visit if you find submarines interesting.
