Just spent the last three days with my cousin Ann snd her son David, my godson. Ann is my cousin on my father's side (her father was a radiologist, my father's brother), David is her son born just after the death of my first husband. I remember him as a slightly shy, definitely geeky young man who had trouble at university, where I, by the nature of my academic background, naturally encouraged him, but goodness, how he has matured now as a thirty something young man. He is highly intelligent and able to converse on a wide range of subjects, whilst also being very polite and considerate. His main interests apart from his work are music and especially cordon bleu cookery. He is a réal foodie, which makes cooking for him quite a task!
I survived that with a few good-tasting but bad-looking recèpes; I think that the most disastrous was giving them a gallette that broke. (Gallettes are a wonderful Brittany culinary invention: a very thin, buckwheat pancake which can, it seems, include almost anything but is best with egg and bacon (anyone quessed the British influence?) I have had it served to me with the aforesaid ingredients cold, but the pancake beautifully neatly folded; by myself, again with aforesaid ingredients, when the gallete was warm, broken and all tasted very good.
Ann and David came with me to Fougeres and Dinan; in Fougeres, we went to the castle and although it was my third visit, this time I really fell under its spell. They make extensive use of multimédia; there is a preliminary film which sets the picture as far as the land of the marches goes, and various of the towers have their own animation of the lives of the people who lived there, including Melusine, who rather mysteriously seems to have acquired a drangon's tail, which must have put the dampeners on her wedding night but a least made it easier to get away. After that, we repaired up town for lunch, anc then walked down through the public gardens to the château.
Fougeres, if she were a woman, whould have lovely haïr from the back, but a common face seen from the front, or some other combination of very obvious good and very obvious bad features. As you approach it from the west, you drive through the suburb of Lecousse and through a coupls of big roundabout, from where you see one side of the town rising up on a very steep bluff. The vision, as you come up the the first view of the town proper, is of a wall of houses not so much jostling together for space but rather elbowing one another for precedence. It reminded me of some other places where geography and architecture match - San Gimigniano in Northern Italy for example,or Matera in the south.
Go over the hill into the town centre, where you are still in the town centre but the tourist signs have run out, it's a different matter. Roads with concrete post-war buildings accompany graceless streets all of which seem to run into the Place de la Republique, which once prèsumably had fine buildings but now they seem mostly municipal, there is the odd shop and ubiquitous estate agent.
Dinan was also a success, althpugh I could not persuade them to get into any of the muséums. By finding the ramparts and the way down to the river Rance we were able to get a better view of the town:
We had a very nice meal of moules and chips for me (too much); lingustinse for the others. I am reliably informed that they are delicious but I like my food easily accessible.
On the way back, we looked at Combourg, another pretty town which is the birthpace of Honda, here seen trying to launch a raid on the food.
It's more réal claim to faim is the writer Chateaubriant, who had connections with the castle, which was owned by his family. By the 16th century, when I believe the castle was built, even though Europe was still a dangerous place with wars stoked with the flames of religion, which as we all know makes war even more horrible.
However, they seem to have grown a bit more sanguine about being attacked, and you don't see the kind of fortifications you do for earlier castels, involving different spaces for massing the troops, arrow slits, and of course a moat and drawbridge. According to the ads, it actually seemed to have a number of rooms which looked as though they had been preserved as if someone could life in them. This I guess is more my kind of castle: I like to see how people lived, and it's difficult if you are in a place devoid of furniture and décorations.
Neither Ann nor David, however, showed much interest in going inside and it was late, so we just wandered through the gardens, with me looking forward to seeing the house, with its Chateaubriand association.
The following day, David being asked what he wanted to do opted for a long walk of 13k which I was not sure I would be able to do because of the length, and handling Honda, who actually proved herself surprisingly good in the évent. David made clear to us that there were two points at which we could shorten the walk.
The walk was mostly across agricultural lands, field with hedgerows and small patches of woodland, and the paths turned out to be extremely narrow between the wired off field (in some cases electrically so) and the hedgerow, which was sometimes overgrown with brambles. It was a great irritation to the dogs, who could not understand why we couldn't walk on perfectly good ground the other side of the wire fence
We went through some very pretty woods, walked a bit further, had lunch, walked on, right into some bog which we could not avoid, after which David, who led mountain walking trips in Manchester, showed his leadership skills by curtailing the walk so we finished on the road.
Altogether it was a very pleasant visit, and one that enabled me to get to know, and admire, my godson for the person he has become.
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