A Term Break Trip to Bretagne, France, Part 2 - Dinan

As sad as we were to leave Josselin, we were intrigued by what we had heard of Dinan, our next destination. It was definitely going to be more of a city than a town, but it was also supposed to have exceptional Medieval architecture and a very well-preserved Medieval road, the Rue du Jerzual. We had a very easy, one-hour ride to Dinan, and we had no difficulty finding our hotel, the Hotel le Challonge.

Once again, we had a nice two-room 'suite', with one room for the girls and one room for us. It was a great setup. This was another hotel with a good restaurant on the ground floor, the Brasserie Longueville, and we headed down there almost immediately for some much-needed lunch. We were not disappointed. Christine had a delicious Salade Nicoise,

while I had the first of several Soupe des Poissons. Given the preponderance of shellfish in the Breton diet, this regional dish seems to have mussels as a main ingredient, giving it a distinct flavor. All of the soups of this type that I ate in Brittany were outstanding.

It was a beautiful day, so we decided to wander around the old town and see the sites. Our hotel was on the main square in the town, so all we had to do was walk a couple of blocks and we were in the old core of the city, home to a plethora of Medieval architecture and the city walls. There was a distinctive old church, which were were lucky to hear chime that evening.

The city walls are not complete, but they are long enough to walk along,

they contain the old gatehouses like this one,

and they provide nice views of the town's port on the River Rance (also a canal)

in addition to the large viaduct that spans the river (and reminded us of Calstock).

 

Here's another view of the city walls. You may notice that the girls are having their daily allotment of ice cream!

Here's another view of the walls and our intrepid, world-travelling girls on their continued quest to sample all of the world's ice cream.

The view of the river from above intrigued us, so we decided to head down there and check it out. The way to get down there is on the aforementioned Rue du Jerzual, which passes through the city walls and heads down a very steep cobbled street to the river. We had no problem going down, but we weren't too excited about the climb up! Here's the view at the top of the street

and further along.

There is some amazing Medieval architecture along the way, and not much uniformity. There are half-timbered houses,

stone houses,

some with intricate glass and wood work,

some with crazy paint colors,

and some that seemed as if they could fall down at any time.

We eventually reached the end of the Rue du Jerzual at an old bridge that reminded us of bridges in Cornwall. Here is where the road meets the river.

We walked along the river, checking out the sights. There were, of course, loads of cafes and restaurants, and the place was packed as it was a Sunday afternoon. We eventually came to the quay and found boats for rent. The girls were keen on taking a boat out onto the river/canal, and they finally persuaded us to go for it. It turned out to be a great idea. The boats were small and easy to drive (no experience necessary!) and we had an hour to drive up to the lock at the village of Lehon. Here are the happy girls,

but here is how Rebecca really felt about it.

A nice thing about being on the river was the chance to see the bridges up close. We've walked over many 500-year-old bridges, but this one was the first that we've have gone beneath. And, of course, it was fun to go beneath the large viaduct, or 'viaduc' in French, that so reminded us of the one in Calstock near our cottage.

We also saw quite a bit of canal traffic and people out for walks along the towpath. The boats were varied, from people rowing,

to people having a barge holiday on the Canopus,

to people out on the overpriced canal tour boat.

At one point we found ourselves sandwiched between the Canopus and the tour boat, but we survived. Here are a few more pictures from the canal. Here we are trailing the Canopus - I can't imagine maneuvering a boat of that size on such a narrow river. You should have seen him going under the old bridge!

The woods along the canal were lush (notice all of the people walking along the towpath),

we had plenty of room to spread out,

and yes, Christine was also on the boat!

Here are a couple of pictures to strike fear into the hearts of everyone - the girls driving! I gave them each five minutes to take the wheel, with my supervision and constant corrections, of course. Here's Rebecca (she'll be able to get a driver's license in only seven more years!),

and here's Gwendolyn. She looks like she's driving a convertible down Route 66, doesn't she?

We celebrated our successful river trip (we didn't wreck the boat!), with, what else? A snack in a canalside cafe! Christine and I enjoyed a new beer, a Wendelinus Biere d'Abbaye, which is a French beer from the Alsace region of France. It was quite good.

The girls shared an Orangina, one of my favorite drinks when I lived in Switzerland as a kid.

We had such a great time on the canal that we were all smiles, as you can see. The smiles continued, even after we climbed back up the Rue du Jerzual to the old town. We were on a quest for a place to eat, but Sunday evenings in April, even in a slightly touristy town, are not the easiest places in France to eat out. We finally settled on Le Bigouden, the cafe with the green awning above Gwendolyn's head.

Omelettes are a staple for us in Europe, and this one was pretty good.

The girls may be giving their meal a thumbs up here, but these may have been the last galettes that they ate in France. They were truly sick of them. We finally wised up to the French menus and stopped ordering off of the kids' menu. The girls ate much better food after that and had a lot less sugar (the kids' meals in France all include beverage and dessert!).

The next day we wandered through the old town a bit more, but we were also interested in walking the towpath to the village of Lehon, just to the north of where we had been on the boat the previous day. Lehon is a pretty village with an old abbey, and we were looking forward to the walk and the scenery. To get to the towpath we first had to walk down the Rue du Jerzual once again - we were beginning to know our way around Dinan! We also had to cross the old bridge that we had gone under the previous day. Here the girls are looking longingly at the boat rental facility downstream!

But this was the direction that we were headed. We ended up having dinner in the cafe on the right of this picture that night.

To get to Lehon we walked along the old canal towpath. It was now a Monday and we had practically the whole trail to ourselves. This was quite different than the previous day, when there must have been 100 walkers on the trail.

We eventually came to the village of Lehon after a couple of miles. It's just across the bridge.

This was a cute little village and the sign suggested the same thing - "Petite Cite de Caractere".

Here's a view of the only street in the village. There was an appealing cafe here and we could smell the cooking going on, but unfortunately it was too early for lunch so we pressed on.

The abbey in this town had a large church with flowering trees all around. The church organist was practicing as I walked around, which made for a nice ambience for church sightseeing.

There was also a pretty courtyard to wander around. 

While I was peeking around the abbey, Christine was with the girls checking out the village's outdoor pool, which they found much more interesting because of the huge slide which they had seen from far down the towpath. They had suspected a playground, but unfortunately it was only accessible for the swimmers. Although it was only mid-April, the pool appeared to be in current use and a worker was putting lane lines in. I suspected a swim team practice, and sure enough, when I ran past there later that afternoon the swim team was out in force. I've never seen an outdoor pool used so early in the season. The heat must have been up high, however, because the water was steaming. 

We took a smaller trail back in order to make a loop,

and were able to avoid the Rue du Jerzual this time by going up some stairs instead. Gwendolyn counted all of the stairs, but I think that she must have been counting her steps instead because she had almost twice as many as Christine and Rebecca. Perhaps it just felt like that many to her?

We lunched at perhaps the best cafe of the trip, the Creperie Ahna.

 

As I've suggested above, we were pretty tired of the crepes and galettes, but the choices at this restaurant were excellent. Christine and I had ratatouille galettes that were fantastic. We also had our favorite beer and cider of the trip. Cider is a staple of the region (it is in Cornwall, too). It is a dry cider and is locally produced. It is a far cry from the mass-produced overly sweet ciders that are available in most bars over here. The cider in France comes in a range of sizes, but is usually served in some sort of pitcher (notice the small pitcher in the picture below) and accompanied by what appears to be a teacup in which to drink it. This is the type of vessel used throughout Brittany, and it almost always had the black and red stripes painted on it. The Pelforth Brune was available all over Brittany. It is a tasty beer and we liked it as much as we like Leffe.

We followed up our lunch with the girls' daily ice cream ritual. This was their favorite ice cream shop, but I don't think that it had anything to do with the ice cream itself!

 

 

That was it for our time in Dinan. We had a nice pizza dinner in a canalside cafe that evening, and although we had another night in Dinan, we had other plans for this last day - a trip across the border to Normandy to visit Mont St. Michel and an exploration of a portion of the Breton coast. This is the subject of the next blog post - the third and final blog about France.