Dinan

 Today did not disappoint. We wandered the 200m or so into the heart of the old town and had breakfast in a Boulangerie. A filled baguette and coffee. Then it was a short stroll to the information centre. There were a couple of chassuer (shoe) shops which looked very tempting but they are not open on Mondays so we dodged a bullet there. The lady in the info centre was very nice and gave us the run down on this little place. We then headed to the castle for a look around.

 Really well set out and just fascinating. We were there for about 1 1/2 hours. It is impossible (for me) to read about the history and not try to imagine the people who trod the flagstones over the many centuries and the what their lives must have been like. I guess there can be parallels drawn to today but I won’t philosophise on that. 

Mark’s imagination getting carried away. 
Waiting for Santa, no chance of getting stuck coming down that chimney. 

Anyway it was time well spent and we could get a feel of the purpose of each section and how castle life worked. 

After we were castled out we made our way to the original  town civic centre. The place where the city leaders would meet. 

This at the time was built to be noticed and we clambered up the 160 steps of the spiral staircase to the bell tower 41m from the ground. Not much room up there hence the limit on numbers at any one time to 19. The balcony sort of slanted towards a pretty rickety old wooden railing. It was safe but if you were unsure about heights then this was probably not for you. 

The view from the top. 


It was just on midday when I filmed this. 

After this we couldn’t resist a gander in the cathedral, not unlike so many others but the sheer size and number of the stained glass windows was breathtaking. 

With still some energy in the tank we descended down down down a really steep and cobbled street to the river.


 It was very picturesque and full of boats and the banks had restaurants and cafes. 



We then puffed our way back up again and by this time the weather, which had been lovely all day was lookimg threatening. We adjourned to a bar for a well deserved lemonade and a cider for me. 

It rained on and off for most of the rest of the afternoon so we just chilled in our nice apartment. 

We had a more low key dinner tonight partly because a lot of places are closed and partly because we didn’t want to walk too far. I still managed a nice glass of Burgandy though. 





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

St Claude to Manigod

Image
 Only around 140km today but very very windy on our chosen route. Today we wind up into the foot hills of the French alps where we will spend a few days. Chris and Karen have hired a house here and have kindly invited us to stay.  The terrain is lovely very reminiscent of Switzerland which I guess is hardly surprising as we are close to the border. Lovely forests and pretty green meadows.  All the little villages are out of story books and are kept in absolutely pristine condition.  We passed a lookout through to the big mountains and there was a sign board depicting and naming them including the famous Mt Blanc. Unfortunately for us they were all obscured in what appears to a heat haze.It is very hot up here with temperatures into the low 30’s. A little later we did see some outlines through the haze and they are big mountains.   We watched the weather on TV last night and there is another heatwave imminent. Some areas, in fact most areas will experience high 3...
Read more

Dinan to Mont St Michel

Image
 Another grey day and threatening rain. We only have a short distance to go and we only had a bit of drizzle until we got near our destination and then it hosed down.  We were too early to check into our hotel but we could park in the hotel carpark and leave gear in the lobby.  We have arrived at probably the 2nd most photographed place in France behind the Eiffel Tower.  Mont Saint Michel is an icon. Of course there are tourists everywhere but for good reason, this place is epic.  We jumped on the free shuttle bus which traverses a causeway out to the island. The weather had fined up and the tide was out so we could wander around the island to get different perspectives and to truly appreciate the scale of this place.   We then entered the compoumd and meandered up and up and joined a queue to get tickets into the abbey proper. We opted to get the audio guide as well which was well worthwhile.  The design and engineering of the abbey is off the s...
Read more

Kassel to Celle

Image
 A lovely day today. The weather is pleasant and our journey has also been very pleasant without being spectacular. Much like yesterday really, many lovely farming villages and perfect back country roads meandering through rolling farmlands and woodland forests. For several km the road was lined with lovely oak trees, very nice until I considered the possibility of having to take evasive action at some point……I stopped thinking about it then.  Our destination is the town of Celle which we didn’t know too much about but it is a gem. After checking into our hotel we walked through a lovely park into the old town.   We visited the palace dated back to the 12 th century. It is now a really beautiful museum.  There are many pieces of period furniture in place and some of the cabinets amd bureaus have staggeringly beautiful inlaid wood patterns. The last permanent resident of this palace was Caroline Matilda the sister of King George III.  She married the Danish king ...
Read more