A maze of mists and shadows.

It’s easy to under­stand why it was so hard for the Romans, and then the French, to con­quer Brit­tany. The land resem­bles, as I said yes­ter­day, the Ozarks or West Vir­ginia in its basic sur­face struc­ture. Brit­tany shares the same North Atlantic winds and cur­rents that turn Eng­land into a sog­gy mess. There are creeks every­where. Every tree and rock is slimy with moss. The ground cov­er is thick. There are climb­ing vines cling­ing to every decid­u­ous tree. Except where the ground is lev­el, it’s slip­pery foot­ing — and it’s sel­dom lev­el. This for­est con­tains an amaz­ing vari­ety of trees. Call­ing it “mixed for­est” is an under­state­ment. Oaks are every­where, and so are an odd-look­ing sil­ver birch. There are also spruce and the occa­sion­al pine. One large stand of spruce I passed through was par­tic­u­lar­ly creepy, a con­fus­ing maze of mist and shad­ows. Every­thing about this for­est makes for slow going, and the under­growth quick­ly swal­low up any foot­path that isn’t con­stant­ly used. Read more »