Historic Josselin and its Castle

Earlier this month we decided to visit the historic town of Josselin as it's only 30mins away from where we live and we've always heard such good reviews about it! It was a little bit overcast (and windy!) but we enjoyed it anyway and I tried to take as many photos as possible. Well you know me, I take photos of everything and then I have the terrible task of deciding which ones won't make the cut ;)

It's such a lovely place with a great atmosphere and a very dynamic old square. Everything feels authentic and we were lucky enough to be visiting during a small local event so we sat and enjoyed our coffee and crêpes with some live music in the background!

The church was very interesting in its architecture and the way it was decorated. First of all, I was surprised to see that it still had a wooden roof, which is really rare now as it usually doesn't last very long (a lot of them get burnt unfortunately). And also, it was surprising to see that so many decorative elements were painted! I couldn't take many photos but the details and colours were really good.

We, of course, visited the castle because come on you have to! You can only visit the castle at certain times of the day and with a guide as it's still inhabited by the descendants of the Rohan family (the Rohan-Chabot families) and because of that, it's forbidden to take photos inside. I was very sad. So I took plenty of the outside of the castle and its garden!

The tour was actually super interesting as we learnt a lot about the history of the building and how it got restored in the late 19th century to become what it is now thanks to the Duc Josselin de Rohan. The only problem is that I couldn't help but think about LOTR every time I heard this name haha. We also learnt a few interesting facts about the descendants still living there, one being that every first son has to be called either Josselin or Alain, so that both historic names will stay in the family!

I'm loving discovering so many nice places in Bretagne and we still have so much to see! We're actually going back on the 14th of July for the Medieval Festival that will take place the whole day in the centre of Josselin. Can't wait!

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