Tin and tides wait for no man

 It rained during the night just to add to the water in the river, but we weren't flooded out of our camp by the river. We wandered through the town which has a large castle area and a misproportioned church. Lots of nice flower beds though.

The largest vestibule I can remember seeing so far in France.

The bank is in serious trouble. This section used to have a railway running along it, long gone, but it has slumped so now there's a reinstatement going on. Not helped by a spring tide!

Low tide. The rubble is the remains of two bridges, I am assuming one of which was destroyed during the war. Hennebont was the frontline for the contained Lorient pocket.

Spring tide! The yellow box on the right marks the failing embankment.

Hennebont was an important port in its own right, shipping steel plate around France, Europe and indeed the world. Now it hosts a marina but you can also take cruises out to the Ile de Groix from here.

Hennebont post-war

We visited the Office du Tourisme who told us a few things we could do. Tomorrow there is a horse display as part of the cultural weekend. (Many museums, galleries, etc, are free or cheaper and some put on special events, just for this weekend.) Today we biked up the (ex-railway) bike path to see an ex-steel works in Lochrist. None of the extensive works exist any more, though some of the buildings do. There's a museum with a guide who could speak English, thank goodness, and was quite interesting, but it's a little sad that such a big industry could suddenly disappear. 3000 workers at its peak, it just couldn't compete after WW2 and closed in 1966. Its specialty was printed steel for tins, like boot polish, sweets, biscuits, etc, and some of the artwork on display was very fine.

The water is doing something weird here - look how the cascade appears to be forming walls to hold its own water!

The pay office and what appears to be a train station at rear

A weir and lock-keepers house. The steel mill had its own hydro-electric generation to begin with though I suspect this would have been insufficient in later years.

We beat the rain home by about 20 minutes.