Erdeven - Megalith Trail

Level of difficulty: Easy

All year round - Mountain bike possible Discover Erdeven's many megalithic sites: alignments of menhirs, dolmens, megalithic enclosures...

Departure point: Sports complex, grass parking lot. Go around the soccer pitch, take rue du stade towards the village. Follow rue Abbé Le Barh, place de l'église. At the crossroads, turn right into rue du Souvenir and rue Tenat er Velin for 100m. Cross to the left towards the Botlann dolmen.

Step by step:

1) Continue right along the path to join rue du Calvaire. Turn left into rue Lann Huen. After 250 m, take the path on the right.

2) After one kilometer, turn left then right towards the Dolmens de Mané Braz ("the big hill" in Breton). The site features 4 different corridor tombs (single chamber, side-cell chamber and compartmentalized chamber), probably built at different periods of the Neolithic, the most recent being the compartmentalized chamber (-3,500 BC). They were restored by Zacharie Le Rouzic in 1923. At the next intersection, turn left and continue along the path. On the left are the Alignements de Mané Braz (partly private), part of the megalithic complex stretching from Kerzerho to the Bois du Varquez. Follow the path to the Alignements de Coët Er Blei ("Le Bois du Loup"), also known as "La Chaise de César". Continue to the Varquez parking lot. Go left up to the Mané Croh Dolmen, a corridor tomb with a compartmentalized chamber. It was once part of a tumulus that has now almost completely disappeared, and was restored by Z. Le Rouzic.

3) From the parking lot, take the path to the right, then the road to Crucuno. See the Dolmen de Crucuno, a monument stripped of its tumulus and access corridor, once described by W. Lukis (1864) as measuring a total length of 27 meters and still visible on early 19th-century engravings. Today, only the burial chamber remains under an imposing cover slab weighing over 30 tons. From the square, go around the dolmen and on to the Quadrilatère de Crucuno, a megalithic enclosure now comprising 22 menhirs, two of them recumbent, measuring 34 m by 26 m. A historic monument since 1889, it was restored by Felix Gaillard in the same period. He erected and laid out the menhirs, which were then lying on their sides, to orientate them on the cardinal points and match the diagonals to the sunrises and sunsets of the solstices. Retrace your steps.

4) Take the road opposite towards the housing estates in the direction of Triono. Take the path on the right towards the village of Kerbernes. Cross the village to take the path opposite.

5) At the next crossroads, take the path furthest to the left, then immediately left again. Continue along the farm track to the Alignements de Kerzerho, which form the western part of the Kerzerho-Varquez megalithic complex and comprise 195 stones over 200 m in 5 rows. Restored in 1 884 by Felix Gaillard, some of the blocks have been straightened. The largest menhirs, known as "Géants de Kerzerho", are around 6 m high and weigh 40 tonnes.

6) Return to town via rue du Calvaire, right into chemin de Botlann, left into rue Tenat Er Velin, right into rue du Souvenir and left into rue Nationale.

Focus: - The Mané Braz dolmens ("the big hill" in Breton) group together 4 dolmens in various states of preservation - Caesar's chair is a group of isolated menhirs located at Coët er Blei (le Bois du Loup).- The Mané Croc'h dolmen measures 6 m in height - The Crucuno quadrilateral comprises 22 menhirs - The Kerzerho giants are 6 m high and weigh 40 tonnes - The Kerzerho menhir alignments comprise 195 stones over 200 m in 5 rows. Monument Historique since 1862, it is the most important megalithic site in Brittany after Carnac.