Moli del Vent

Trip No.205  Entry No.89  Date Added: 28th Oct 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Languedoc:Pyrénées-Orientales 66)
Visited: Yes on 12th Sep 2005. My rating: Condition 5 Ambience 5 Access 4

Log Text: At the top of the hill to the north west of the village of Bélesta can be found the superb but restored remains of this lovely little dolmen-a-couloir. The little chamber is about 2 metres by 1 metre, and the south side is approached by a corridor 5 metres long from the edge of the cairn, made with a few upright slabs and drystone walling. The chamber has an upright slab at each side, and two back slabs, topped by a gorgeously shaped capstone about 3m by 2m. The whole thing is contained within a round cairn, about 9 metres in diameter and 0.5 metres high.

The views from up here are superb, the Fenouillades valley to the north, and the Canigou brooding in amongst the clouds to the south west today. The dolmen is less than a kilometre walk up a good track from a junction of minor roads with plenty of space for parking, and is well worth the effort. It is possible that there are remains of other monuments round the area.

Molieres Dolmen

Trip No.204  Entry No.316  Date Added: 12th Sep 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Pays de la Loire:Maine-et-Loire 49)
Visited: Yes on 12th Aug 2005. My rating: Condition 4 Ambience 4 Access 4

Log Text: This little dolmen can be found to the west of the village of Beauvau, which has a little map with the dolmen marked on it. When you find the track to the dolmen (beware, the village detail map is rotated from the full map!) there is a signpost pointing to it. Its then about a 500 metre walk, and at the top of the windblown hill, hiding under a tree in a field, and with a little wellhouse beside it.

The dolmen is pleasant, with a 4m by 2m chamber topped by a nicely eroded and bowled capstone, 5m by 3m. The present entry is probably not the original, but there because the backstone has fallen, which is at the northwest. The original entry was probably to the SE, but its hard to tell. Many other stones lay about, perhaps it was once much bigger.

Mondétour polissoirs

Trip No.204  Entry No.290  Date Added: 11th Sep 2020
Site Type: Polissoir Country: France (Centre:Loire-et-Cher (41))
Visited: Couldn't find on 9th Aug 2005

Log Text: This polissoir is signposted up a trackway from the D.917 roadside to the southwest of Vendome. The trouble is, there are no more signs to be found once away from the road, and the track splits into three ways. A railway cuts the straight on, obvious path, and I could find no stone up there. The other ways all split again and again, and even after crossing under the railway, there is no obvious way. Just how the heck are we meant to find this stone ???

Since my visit, and with the help of geoportail and its 1:25,000 ign maps, I have now been able to identify where this polissoir is, and it is a fair bit to the south of the railway. Obviously, in order to find it, the ign 1:25,000 maps are needed, as the signposts are hopeless. So all I needed was all 1200 1:25,000 maps !!!!! Or geoportail up and running back then. Its odd. The village map in Fréteval say that there are megalithic walks in Marcilly-en-Beauce, but nothing about its own dolmens. The sign at Marcilly-en-Beauce on the other hand, has nothing about itself, yet says that there are dolmens to be seen in Fréteval. Its enough to make me want to give up.

Money Pit cairn

Date Added: 2nd Oct 2020
Site Type: Stone Circle Country: England (Devon)
Visited: Yes on 11th Apr 2019. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: Looking lovely in the late afternoon sun

Money Pit cairn

Date Added: 28th Dec 2022
Site Type: Stone Circle Country: England (Devon)
Visited: Yes on 3rd Dec 2022. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: Passing by the Money Pit cairn, had to go for a quick look. I also had a quick look for the southern, top, end of the treble stone row, but didn't follow it down the hill, as we were walking the other direction.

Monpalais

Trip No.204  Entry No.122  Date Added: 13th Aug 2020
Site Type: Barrow Cemetery Country: France (Poitou:Deux-Sèvres (79))
Visited: Yes on 18th Jul 2005. My rating: Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: There are a couple of dolmens marked here on my map, but when I get here there is a sign and a parking area, and before I even get out of the van I can see four dolmens ! In all there are remains of about a dozen dolmens here, many of which have been recently restored. It is a pity about the busy road and the open fields, which make for low ambience scores for an otherwise very good place.

Monpalais Dolmen 1

Trip No.204  Entry No.123  Date Added: 13th Aug 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Poitou:Deux-Sèvres (79))
Visited: Yes on 18th Jul 2005. My rating: Condition 5 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: This is a beautifully restored dolmen with entry couloir sitting on and in a little stone cairn. The chamber is about 3 metres by 2 metres opening to the east, with a single stone acting to close off half the entry. It has a single capstone covering only the western end. Around it is a double walled cairn, the internal cairn of about 8 metres diameter enclosing the dolmen and its entranceway, while the outer cairn is about 15 metres in diameter, with its wall encircling the whole lot. This is a really nice piece of restoration. I hope it can remain in such good condition. The stones in the cairn are all red coloured stone, although most of the stone round here is a white colour.

Monpalais Dolmen 2

Trip No.204  Entry No.124  Date Added: 13th Aug 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Poitou:Deux-Sèvres (79))
Visited: Yes on 18th Jul 2005. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: Just 50 metres west of Taizé No 1 is this poor little thing. It also looks to have been recently excavated and restored, but there can't have been much to work on. There is a collapsed capstone and two side stones, and also probably the backstone, but it is now all nearly flat to the ground. For whatever reason, the restorers have left a rectangular patch of stones around this one, about 7 m by 5 m. The chamber would have been about 1.5 m by 1 m in size.

Monpalais Dolmen 3

Trip No.204  Entry No.125  Date Added: 13th Aug 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Poitou:Deux-Sèvres (79))
Visited: Yes on 18th Jul 2005. My rating: Condition 5 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: This is another small simple dolmen, about 150 metres to the west of the large dolmen 4. A 3 m by 2 m capstone sits on what appears to be two side stones and a back stone, with the entrance looking to the north. The stones sit in a little 7 metre diameter mound of stones, and in fact the chamber is full also. It has obviously had a restoration job done on it, but they probably didn't have much to work with, so have just tidied it all up a bit.

Monpalais Dolmen 4

Trip No.204  Entry No.126  Date Added: 13th Aug 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Poitou:Deux-Sèvres (79))
Visited: Yes on 18th Jul 2005. My rating: Condition 5 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: A few hundred metres north of the first dolmens can be easily seen and reached this large dolmen, which from the south looks like it is going to be an Angevin dolmen. However, upon reaching it, it is a V shaped dolmen in an oval mound. Another superb bit of restoration, this large dolmen sits in an oval cairn, of dimensions about 15m by 10m, with faced walling around the outside. The chamber is about 8 metres long and opening at the east, where it is about 2 metres wide, increasing in width to 4 metres wide at the western end, and I can easily stand up within it. Two capstones cover the main part of the chamber, while the front entrance part is not covered. Within the chamber is a stone which does not reach the roof, which must have acted as some form of partition, a feature I have seen quite a bit round here. The entrance to the mound is concave, and fits to the edge of the front stone slabs.

Monpalais Dolmen 5

Trip No.204  Entry No.127  Date Added: 13th Aug 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Poitou:Deux-Sèvres (79))
Visited: Yes on 18th Jul 2005. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 3 Access 5

Log Text: Further west from the first four dolmens, towards the new houses, can be found another little dolmen in the middle of a field, which again has been nicely restored. It is a simple thing with a 2 m by 2 m capstone sitting on top of two side slabs and a back stone. It opens up to the east on about 060°, and in fact is looking directly at what I have called dolmens 3 and 4. It has about a 5 metre cairn of little red stones surrounding it, and a few other larger pieces are sort of scattered around.

I would not be at all surprised if there weren't more of these dolmens around here. This was obviously an important place thousands of years ago.

Monpalais Dolmen 6

Trip No.204  Entry No.128  Date Added: 13th Aug 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Poitou:Deux-Sèvres (79))
Visited: Yes on 18th Jul 2005. My rating: Condition 2 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: As I was walking back to the campervan, I noticed a tree and some bushes in the middle of the field on the other side of the road. Now, why would they be there ? Yep, it's another dolmen, but not in very good condition. Like the others, it has been tidied up, and now consists of a chamber in a little round mound of stones, about 7 metres in diameter. The chamber is 2 metres long by 1 metre wide, facing to the northeast, but it has no capstone. It has two long side stones and a backstone, though they are fairly broken. lots of large pieces of stone are scattered around, no doubt the broken remains of the rest of this dolmen. It is quite possible that there is also the remains of another dolmen nearby, overgrown in a hedge.

Mons dolmen 1

Trip No.203  Entry No.143  Date Added: 10th Apr 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Midi:Lot (46))
Visited: Yes on 24th May 2005. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 3 Access 3

Log Text: In the Champ de Belair, to the northwest of the village of Assier, on the opposite (northwestern) side of the railway to the previous dolmens, are supposedly 4 dolmens, 2 tumulus and a menhir to be seen. But they don’t get any easier to find. Follow the trackway along the northern side of the railway, in a northwesterly direction for about a kilometre from the station. The track gradually fades out into an overgrown grassy path, with bushes everywhere, before completely fading away into nothing. In a field to the left of the path, having passed through some dense scrub and across a wall, I eventually found the first dolmen.

A 4 metre long by 2 metres wide capstone sits on top of a bit of a wreck of a chamber, orientated at about 115°. The chamber seems to be made from a mix of slabs and dry stones, but its possible that the slabs are just crumbling, and the capstone has been held up by stones placed underneath it.

Mons Dolmen 2

Trip No.203  Entry No.144  Date Added: 10th Apr 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Midi:Lot (46))
Visited: Couldn't find on 24th May 2005

Log Text: Supposedly another 500 metres along the path across the fields beside the railway can be found this nice little dolmen with a 3.5 by 1.5 metre chamber, within a round mound. But time was getting on, and there was no obvious way to get much further along into the fields without climbing fences and walls, and walking through cropped fields. This area was not proving very helpful for finding dolmens, so I decided to give up and move on.

Mont Joly

Trip No.202  Entry No.13  Date Added: 26th Mar 2020
Site Type: Ancient Village or Settlement Country: France (Normandie:Calvados (14))
Visited: Yes on 23rd Apr 2005. My rating: Condition 2 Ambience 4 Access 5

Log Text: This is a promontory site surrounded on three sides by the steep gorge of the river Laizon and the eastern end has been defended by ramparts little of which can now be seen between the church and water tower. The site has been inhabited and defended since Paleolithic times and artefacts have been found from all times since this. It is said that although little ancient remains can be seen they are everywhere underfoot and every molehill will contain several flints and pottery sherds. This region was a major supplier of flint tools in the past and there is much to be found here.

Mont Joly

Trip No.212  Entry No.8  Date Added: 26th Mar 2020
Site Type: Ancient Village or Settlement Country: France (Normandie:Calvados (14))
Visited: Yes on 7th May 2012. My rating: Condition 2 Ambience 4 Access 5

Log Text: What an intriguing place this is, and deserving of much more thorough exploration.

Mont St Michel

Trip No.212  Entry No.13  Date Added: 13th Jun 2020
Site Type: Ancient Village or Settlement Country: France (Normandie:Manche (50))
Visited: Yes on 11th Oct 2012. My rating: Condition 5 Ambience 4 Access 4

Log Text: Getting a late lunch at Plein Fougeres, it is now much too late to go to Fougeres and have a proper look round, so we decide to go to Mont St Michel for a quick look around. Shouldn't be too busy at this time of year. It has all changed since either myself or Dad was last there, and you now have to park miles away, at what is becoming a sort of holiday village resort. Many huge car parks, some hotels and restaurants etc, and a 40 min walk to the Mont, but free shuttle busses are provided. At this point I was ready to give up and drive away, but Dad still wanted to persevere, so we got the shuttle bus 10 mins out to the Mont.

Theres a hell of a lot of work going on here, both to the walls and the surroundings. Turns out they are trying to cut off the Mont again, to get the sea to surround it once more, and this involves removing the old causeway etc, and just have a sort of bridge going out to the Mont. This and alterations to the river should then mean the silts get washed away, and the sea once more claims the Mont at each high tide. I read at the new controlling dam on the river that the land has risen 4.9 metres since the 1960s. Much of these new grassy marshes is being dug up and pushed into the river, hopefully to get washed away.

The place is not too crowded, although many Japanese here, so we walk up to the abbey along the main street, no time to do the tour. Walk down around the outer walls, watching the tide coming in, and theres a group of people out walking over the sands and mud with the water coming in. Just as we leave the Mont, the sun starts to come out, making a few pictures much better.

Cup of tea, then on to Sara's, much later than we ought to be, but this time its not all my doing! Must visit here properly sometime, October Thursday mornings might be OK, but need the whole day.

Mont St Michel

Trip No.203  Entry No.604  Date Added: 13th Jun 2020
Site Type: Ancient Village or Settlement Country: France (Normandie:Manche (50))
Visited: Yes on 28th Jun 2005. My rating: Condition 5 Ambience 2 Access 4

Log Text: Far too hot and busy and crowded.

Mont-de-Sène dolmen 1

Trip No.204  Entry No.207  Date Added: 27th Aug 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Bourgogne:Saône-et-Loire (71))
Visited: Couldn't find on 3rd Aug 2005

Log Text: Remains of at least three dolmens and their mounds are to be found on the slopes of Mont-de-Sène, high up above the village of Dezize-les-Maranges.

Mont-Dol

Date Added: 29th Oct 2019
Site Type: Ancient Temple Country: France (Bretagne:Ille-et-Vilaine (35))
Visited: Yes on 23rd Oct 2010

Log Text: None