France Guide
Brittany
Musée de Bretagne
Website: www.musee-bretagne.fr
Opening time: Tues noon–9pm, Wed– Fri noon–7pm, Sat & Sun 2–7pm
Price: €4
The showpiece Musée de Bretagne, housed in the new edifice Champs Libres, five hundred metres south on the cours des Alliés, provides a high-tech overview of Breton history and culture. It starts at the very beginning, with a hearth used by humans in a Finistère seacave half a million years ago that ranks among the oldest signs of fire in the world. From there on, a quick, entertaining skate through regional history covers the dolmens and menhirs of the megalith builders, some magnificent jadeite axes and Bronze Age swords, and the arrival of first the Celts, next the Romans, and later still the spread of Christianity from the fifth century onwards. With labels in English as well as French and Breton, it makes a good introduction to the region, but unless some compelling temporary exhibition is on it's not really unmissable. Under the same roof, and sharing the same hours and entrance fees, the Éspace des Sciences is a peculiar sort of scaly volcano that contains two floors of rather dry scientific displays, this time with no English captions.