Shopping

There were two notable music shops that we found during our stay at Concarneau.  One was a wonderful second-hand record and CD shop that we stumbled upon as we strolled around Quimper on a day visit.  With records and CDs stacked in a jumble it was the sort of place you could spend days in discovering new (old) gems and listening to them.  A 40-year anniversary special edition (vinyl and CD) of Aqualung, with souvenir book?  Set you back €75 if I remember rightly.   But I'm a fan of the music rather than memorabilia so I let it pass.  I did buy some jazz and a classical CD though.

The other shop was on a roundabout on the outskirts of Concarneau and it specialised in the sale of celtic music, instruments, CDs and sheet music.  It included Scottish, Welsh and Irish traditional music as well as the usual Breton.  The instruments were the bodhran, penny whistles, and the bombarde.  The bombarde is described as a kind of oboe, which sounds quite innocent, until you hear it.  I don't know what a strangled cat sounds like, but I imagine that the bombarde comes close.

The big bass penny whistle that I fancied  was a bit more than €200 so I passed on that.   I bought some sheet music; a suite on celtic themes for flute and organ.