The small Brittany port of Plougastel-Daoulas (29 Finistère, Brittany) celebrates with its annual Strawberry Festival (Fête des Fraises) on the second Sunday in June (12 June 2016)

Strawberry Festival posterCelebrating its 70th Anniversary in 2016, the festival features the strawberry in all its guises and offers folk dancing and folk singing, parades and music.

They take the Strawberry seriously here, as it is an important part of the local economy, such that in addition to the Strawberry Festival there is also a Museum of the Strawberry and Heritage (Musée de la Fraise et de la Patrimoine).

The Strawberries of Plougastel are known throughout France for the abundance of fruit and their sweetness and quality which comes from the moistness of the atmosphere and well-drained soils in this part of far west Brittany, just east of Brest. This variety of strawberry originated in Chile.

Villa Plougastel
Villa Plougastel

Stay in a modern self-catering villa with pool in the village at Villa Plougastel

 

The region is famous for its production of strawberries (gariguette de Plougastel). The New World species of strawberry, Fragaria chiloensis, which had been introduced into France by Amédée-François Frézier (1682–1773), flourished in the marine climate of Plougastel. Gardeners there had observed that this species bore abundant fruit when Fragaria moschata and Fragaria virginiana were planted in alternating rows with it. There had been failed attempts to cultivate fragaria chiloensis in Anjou, Touraine, and the lower-Loire areas. (wikipedia)