Where is asterix village

Many cite ancient history. Others point out Erquy's three prominent marine rock formations. We had to reluctantly intervene," Uderzo said.

Daily newsletter Receive essential international news every morning. The content you requested does not exist or is not available anymore. Listen to RFI. The buried remains of a large and heavily defended Iron Age settlement at the precise Breton spot where Asterix's creator, Rene Goscinny, located his hero's well-fortified home village, have been found by an Anglo- French team. Excavations at Le Yaudet derived from the Gallo-Roman word for 'tribal centre' near Lannion, show that the settlement covered 10 acres and was defended by a massive bank and ditch.

Incredibly, the fortified village is almost exactly as described in the 33 Asterix books. Goscinny was not aware of the existence of this real Asterix village when he wrote his stories in the Sixties and Seventies, but he had only one major detail wrong - the shape of the defensive palisade. The fortifications - 50ft from top of bank to ditch bottom - are straight, not curved as depicted in the Asterix books. But Goscinny and his artist colleague, Albert Uderzo, got the location spot on - in the right locality, on top of a high cliff on a promontory overlooking the Channel.

The archaeological dig has also borne out Goscinny's claim that Asterix's village was never stormed by the Romans or occupied by Roman soldiers. After the war period, he and his family frequently spent their holidays in Erquy.

He was also incredibly impressed by the stunning scenery and in particular by Cap d'Erquy headland and its three rocks, illustrated on the flyleaf of the albums. Last but not least, he states that the beaches close to the headland are recognizable in the album "The Mansions of the Gods", published in In his last album "Asterix and Obelix All at Sea", the illustrator also made allusion to Tu-es-Roc , the former hamlet where many fishermen lived.

Obelix, as we know, is also an excellent menhir sculptor and owns his own quarry: in the 19th and 20th centuries Erquy was at the cutting-edge of the extraction of pink sandstone, known as pink granite, a stone which was so renowned that it now paves certain streets in Paris and London! The region was occupied by the Romans.