"Now listen very carefully, I shall say this only once . . . . . . " as we all know Michelle of the Resistance, as featured in the hit BBC TV show 'Allo 'Allo, said that line many more times than you could shake a stick at, so where better to find out the truth about the wartime French Resistance and a cafe owner called Rene than almost on our doorstep in Brittany.

Situated just on the outskirts of St Marcel, about 3km from Malestroit, is the 'Musee de la Resistance Bretonne', a museum built on the site of a Marquis (or group) of French Resistance fighters whose aim was to slow down the German movement across Brittany following the D-day landings in 1944. The occupying German forces, based in Malestroit, were unaware of the 2,500 strong team that was camped out at the La Nouette Farm - that had had Jeeps and other equipment weighing over 300 tonnes parachuted in by the British - until they stumbled upon them almost by accident. To commemorate the ensuing battle on 18th June 1944, in which 560 German soldiers and 42 French Resistance fighters were killed, a memorial column dating back to 1947, when General de Gaulle laid the foundation stone, has also been erected close to the museum

The museum has six rooms to view and is crammed full of information, artifacts, old equipment as well as a number of videos to watch as you wander through the different areas. They have an English translation booklet for most of the information boards although if you have a grapse of French you will probably get more from the visit as there are a lot of things on display that are not directly translated (e.g. newspaper articles). After over two hours at the museum I was getting serious 'museum fatigue' having pretty much tried to follow the sixty plus translations so it was time to leave.

Overall it was well worth a visit and we have come away knowing more than when we went which is always a bit of a bonus. They also had a small Cafe Rene set up inside the museum, although I am not sure whether that came before the TV show or whether this was the basis for the BBC sitcom.