Dinan

Today was a glorious mellow summer day, and I went to Dinan. Dinan is a very famous little town in Brittany, beautifully situated on the River Rance which leads to St Malo, and just over the border into Cotes D'Amor.

It is just at that point in the geography of the river where the latter is sufficiently wide to be dramatic, and have a long bridge crossing, but not too close to the sea to have relinquished its beautiful shore-line, undulating wooded banks with that combination of deciduous and coniferous trees, which gives Brittany countryside that peculiarly satisfying geometrical outline, with a combination of curves and points. I wish I could have taken some photos, unfortunately there was no way of stopping so I have plagiarized the following picture from Wikipedia commons.

Unfortunately, the powers that be have decided to make the N176, the major route over Northern Brittany, one lane only in a crucial area which caused a huge 'bouchon' which meant that a journey of just over an hour took two hours. As I hadn't arranged cover for the dogs, that rather curtailed my time in Dinan. Also, a mental note to self was made not to travel far on a weekend in August.

Dinan is, according to the guide books and the tourist 'blather', 'well preserved' with narrow, old cobbled streets and timber-framed buildings. I won't argue with that description, except to point out that whilst the old buildings have been preserved, it has been done in a way that the town seems to be self consciously touristy, with more or less every building in the centre dedicated to some form of tourist entrapment, whether it is a restaurant, an ice cream parlour, a luxury goods shop, or a souvenir shop. The town seems to be saying, 'Look at me, I'm pretty', rather than just getting on with its business, or letting us imagine how it would have got on with its business in the past.

It that, it rather resembles the centre of St Albans, which is very upmarket, lots of boutique shops, a total contrast to Tring which is equally historic but seemingly quite unaware of the fact: the high street boasts a couple of hardware shops, a couple of dress shops (not exhorbitantly expensive) a newsagent, a stationer, several estate agents, and a funeral parlour.

As mentioned, time was limited, but I did managed to see the St Malo church, which is the epitome of the High Gothic tsyle, and which has some really fascinating stained glass windows, 19th century, depicting the life of the town. After that, needing something to eat and drink, I had some muscles in a restaurant where I saw another lady sitting on her own eating muscles, which gave me confidence.

After that a wander round the town, back to the car park, then a beautiful cross country drive through Combourg and Tremblay, feeling very happy and content to have a house in this part of the world.