| Pont-Aven |
| city of the painters |
| Welcome to the "valley of willows |
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city of the painters - Paul Gauguin - Autoportrait, Christ jaune.
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city of the painters - Emile Bernard
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the top of the estuary, where the sea air meets the light of the
countryside, where, "miraculously", a hundred years ago blew the breath
of inspiration. Pont-Aven is a place to see, and it invites you with
all its charm, with its shop windows and galleries and with its
memories of Gauguin and Emile Bernard. |
 city of the painters - Pont-aven
and history.
At the top of the long estuary which takes the deep waters of the Aven
towards the Ocean, there was first a ford used by the primitive
populations. This was succeeded by a bridge when the Romans built a
network of roads across Armorica. Everything was in place on both banks
for settlement by a small group of people, who could benefit from this
well sheltered meeting place at the junction of the road and the
primitive tidal port. There is another asset which in the |
 city of the painters - la rivière
Ages, would permanently serve the development of the town : the jumble
of rocks, used by monks and local noblement as sites for building
mills, using the natural waterfalls - mills in such large number for
such a constricted place, that Pont-Aven got its first claim to fame :
"Pont-Aven, town of renown, fourteen mills, fifteen houses". |
| PS : What
to see : the harbour, the Théodore Botrel public garden, the
traditional head-dresses, the costumes, the old mills, the fine
residences (XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles), the bridge, the Xavier Grall
promenade (writer-poet 1930-1981), the Aven, the Bois d'Amour (Lover's
Wood), the municipal museum, the Chapel of Trémalo (16th century), the
church and Calvary of Nizon,the megaliths : Luzuen,
Kerguillotou-Kerangosker, the galleries and the shops. |
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