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Test your knowledge: fun French facts
Try our fun quiz about Brittany featuring a musical tradition and a science-fiction writer
1. Piped playing
Brittany has its own bagpipes, known as binioù. The traditional binioù kozh, or biniou-bihan, and the binioù bras are very similar to the Scottish Great Highland Bagpipe. The latter was brought over from Scotland in the 19th Century.
Q: Brittany holds many traditional musical festivals featuring live music and dancing. What is the well-known Breton name for them?
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Fest Noz. In 2012 they were added to UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The Breton groups bagad (pipers, drums and bombarde), inspired by Scottish pipe bands, traditionally play at them.
2. Animal in the saddle
Bernard Hinault, a proud son of Brittany, won the Tour de France five times – and is one of only six cyclists to have won all three Grands Tours (France, the Tour of Italy, and the Tour of Spain). Between 1978 and 1986, he won Le Tour five times, and was second twice.
Q: What animal is Hinault’s nickname and why?
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He was known as le blaireau (the badger) because he typified its courage and fighting spirit.
3. Found in translation
Q: Which famous French science-fiction writer – said to be the most translated writer in the world after Agatha Christie, with over 4,700 translated editions of his works worldwide – is Breton ?
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Jules Verne, author of Journey to the Centre of the Earth and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, is one of historic Brittany’s most famous sons. He was born in Nantes, in 1828, when the city was still part of the region.
