This Christmas I spent some time in Brittany. It was not my first visit, and I know from my previous visit, which was in the summer there are many more places that warrant your attention, and you can easily spend 4-5 days exploring the canals that run through the centre of the peninsula, as well as the Brittany Coast. Of course St Malo warrants a few days all to itself. However this time I got to visit two really special places Dinan, which is in Brittany, and Mont St Michel which while not in Brittany is only a ninety minute drive away.
Dinan and surrounds
Even though I had been to Brittany before I can’t believe I missed Dinan, which is one of the cutest medieval towns I’ve had the pleasure to visit. I was lucky enough to venture there twice – the first time was a drive by visit to show someone who was leaving the next morning the lay of the land. I was impressed and was hoping that I would get another chance to have a more in-depth look. Luck was on my side and when my friend offered to drop me, together with her mother and her husband, in Dinan and then pick us up several hours later I was delighted.
Luckily we all expressed a similar interest in exploring the abbaye St Magloire de Léhon which is only 3-4 kilometres walk long the river Rance to Dinan, and so a plan was hatched. We would be dropped at the Abbey and picked up from the church square at Dinan.
The original abbey dates back to the sixth century when six preacher monks arrived from Wales and established it. It was destroyed by Norman raiders during the ninth century and rebuilt in the twelfth, and features both Romanesque and Gothic architecture. It sits in a village of the most gorgeous stone cottages on the lower reaches of hills that tumble down to the river Rance, and is overlooked by the ruins of Le Chateau Fort de Léhon on the hill above which we climbed and wandered around too. Both are well worth exploring.
From the Abbey we descended down the hill and across a picturesque stone bridge, and followed a wide lime lined path along the river. I really enjoyed this walk, but because I’m the injured runner I am at the moment, I couldn’t help but think what a good run it would make! After following the river for a kilometre or so we crossed under a pretty amazing road bridge, which could almost be classed as a viaduct, and reached the harbour at Dinan. To call it a harbour is to slightly exaggerate for while technically it is – the river is tidal this far up, it looks and feels more like a canal.
From here we climbed up a steep cobblestoned and very pretty medieval street until we reached the town itself.
We grabbed a coffee at one of the many cafes and restaurants in the town and then walked the town walls until we reached the church which was to be our meeting point. We were a bit early so we rewarded ourselves with a mulled cider in a bar on the square while we waited.
Mont St Michel
Mont St Michel was another place I had previously visited, when I was travelling Europe in a VW Combi Van in 1986. Suffice to say it was a long time ago and a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then. Mont St Michel is now a major tourist attraction, and is, I’m told, the second most visited site in France. The numbers of tourists in the eighties was nothing like the numbers now, and there was none of the necessary infrastructure that is there today to support the numbers of tourists. There are now huge car parks a couple of kilometres away from the Mont, and you can choose to use the free shuttle buses (warning – while the shuttle buses are free the car park is definitely not!) to the Mont, or you can choose as we did to walk the distance and let the sense of anticipation grow as the Mont changes from a small hump on the horizon into the magnificent abbey with the walls and town between it and the sea and or sands depending on the tide.
We had put our visit off for a day because of rain and high winds with a significant negative wind chill factor. The day we visited there was the hope of sun and we felt very pleased with ourselves when we saw the sun bathing the Mont in its winter glow. It was still pretty bitter though, and at one stage my phone gave up because of the cold and it didn’t warm up until we got inside the Abbey once we had climbed to the top.
But I’m getting ahead of myself – the cost to visit the Abbey was 10€ (you can venture onto the Mont and not visit the Abbey for no cost as I had done those many years before) but visiting the Abbey gives you a lot more insight about the daily life of the Mont, and there is a lot to see. As noted, because of the cold my photos don’t start again until we were back inside the Abbey, so I have a missing section from our upwards climb.
On this trip I visited two places I had previously visited, St Malo and Mont St Michel. Both warranted visiting again, and I think there is something to be said for revisiting places with new insights and having had more life experiences. It helps to see that while many things change, many don’t and instead of the places changing it can often be you that has changed.
LIVING LIFE ON MY OWN TERMS 