My journey in France...
The sights
Fort La Latte, June 11th 2000. From Guildo, I passed by the St-Cast point, went around the Frênaye bay, and stopped to visit the La Latte fort: one of the many fortifications built along the Bretagne's coasts.
From Guildo, we go along the coast in the West direction. On the way, we pass by the St-Cast village.
St-Cast-de-Guildo
Here, at sea level, the St-Cast marina.
Going around the point, we then go back up the cape. At the top is a commemorative park.
At the front of the cannon (hopefully, out of service), a magnificent view over the English Channel.
From the top of the cape, West side, the Fréhel cape.
One may catch sight of the La Latte fort, on the other side of the bay.
I went on my way, going to the Fréhel village. Then I just had to follow the road signs for the La Latte fort.
Fort La Latte
In the path leading to the fort, one can have a preview of the fortifications that are expecting us. Here, a view through a gap within the vegetation.
Inside, after having reached the first drawbridge (...and the ticket office as well...), we wait for the guide.
At the center of the fort, the magestic keep, last resort of the fort's defense.
The cylindrical shape of the keeps allowed minimizing damages when the ennemy's cannonballs were hitting its wall, by deviating the projectiles toward outside.
The flared shape at its base allowed optimizing damages caused to the (exposed) ennemy, when from the top were thrown down stones, key sets, bike's chains, wrench, or any other blunt object.*
Anyway, these fortifications, true large scope masterpieces, were in someway accorded to the engineers of the time as individual projects, in order to protect the country. But not necessarly made to protect the soldiers.
Take as an example, this cannonballs oven, harmless at a glance.
|
In this oven were heated cannonballs that were spreaded to every corners of the fort, where they were handled more or less skilfully by the soldiers. Still hot enough, they were put inside the cannons, into which someone has previously filled with powder. In consequences, the cannonballs had some fortuitious tendencies to cause more damages at the source, rather than at the destination. |
At one time, the Ministery of War was informed of that fact, and thus decided, after a report showing the non-negligible number of colateral losses, that it was not desirable to go further with this method. Soon, did we find another use for those ovens, and bakers were hired. |
View from the top of the keep, where soldiers could see the strangers coming from the land, the coast, and the sea.
During the guided tour, I had the occasion to take a picture of this superb boat that was sailing around. Once in real-size, it has a resolution of 1024x768, portrait.
The
pictures contained in the following web pages were realized by, and
are the property of: Martin Lemieux (a.k.a. Maître Bart).
Any copy, in whole or in part, for commercial or lucrative usage must be
previously approved by the author.
| Back to my travels | Back to the main page |