Saint-Malo and Dinan

The morning of our day trip out to Bretagne (when we visited Mont Saint-Michel) began in the coastal town of St. Malo.

We were really happy to get to ride the TGV, France's high-speed train, which made the trip a lot shorter! Seb has loved the TGV (from afar) for many years now. And let's just take a moment to be grateful for the fact that the trains were running and no one was on strike! I was fully expecting to run into some sort of strike while we were in France, and we didn't (but I heard from a friend that right now, the train workers ARE on strike—for the next three months! So we wouldn't have been able to take the TGV at all, and we wouldn't have made it to Mont Saint-Michel! *shudder*), so hooray for that!

Seb pointed out landmarks of interest to Ziggy

But Zig preferred to do THIS for most of the time (when he wasn't nursing).

Anyway, Saint-Malo! I had never heard of the place. But it was a beautiful walled city, famous for pirates (or "corsairs," I think they can be called…I have only heard of them in this poem, and the opera by Verdi). When our wonderful guide Geraldine was telling us about the history of the place (and her English really was excellent), I kept thinking she was saying "parrot" instead of "pirate." "This is a place very famous for the parrots, you know? They came in their ships and took tribute from the English." I was very confused, although I kept nodding wisely until it finally dawned on me. Oh…pirates. Got it.

There are several famous chefs from this area of France. The region, Bretagne (or Brittany), is also known for its salted caramel (yum) and its regional specialty pastry, Kouign Aman, about which I consider myself something of an expert! Ha! Not really, but I happen to have made it myself before, and you can find the recipe here. We tried the Kouign Aman from two different shops and they were wonderful…but would you believe me if I said my own was just as good??! I was pretty surprised about that, but I think it's true (and Sam and Sebastian concurred). So if you can't make it to Saint-Malo, come visit me instead!

We walked all around the city on the walls, which were interspersed with lookout points and guard towers. Very cool. Also COLD! The wind was bitter next to the ocean.

We only walked through the "old town" part of Saint-Malo—there is a more modern area, too, and it's a popular place vacation spot in the summer, Geraldine said. I'm sure it would be beautiful in the summer, but it was quite lovely all quiet and deserted as it was, too. I like the way you can look all the way down the street in this picture and see the ocean under the arch of the city wall.

This was a beautiful old house in the countryside as we drove away from Saint-Malo.

After Saint-Malo and Mont Saint-Michel, our guide also drove us to Dinan, another walled city dating from Medieval Times. We have visited old towns like this in Italy and in Germany too, and I love them so much! I love the cobblestone streets and the narrow alleys and the feeling of antiquity you get as you walk through them. But I also think it's interesting how different all three of the places felt, within that common milieu. (I'm sorry to use the word milieu, I really am, as it sounds pretentious, but I can't think of another one!) Orvieto felt warm and Italian, and Zons felt charming and German, and this place, Dinan, just felt…well…French! Geraldine, our guide, said her husband grew up in Dinan and when he founded their small tour company, he wanted to take people to see the hometown that he loved and that so few people knew about! I think that is sweet.

This whole day, it almost felt like we were in a different country. Geraldine was so warm and friendly, especially after the Parisians we met (who weren't unfriendly, but I would definitely not describe them as "warm" either!). The countryside felt so much more open than Paris. And Geraldine said they DO basically consider themselves another country here. For hundreds of years back, they have called themselves "Breton" rather than French. They had their own King and then a Duke that ruled them. They even have their own language, unrelated to French! Some kids still learn it in school.

Dinan is a little ways inland from Mont Saint-Michel, up the Rance River. There's an upper city you can reach via this road bridge, and a lower port city too.

There were two big churches in the old city. Beautiful (and empty!) inside. Everything was empty. The whole town seemed deserted, although we did get some hot chocolate at a little sort of pub, where people were playing darts and there was a roaring fire in the stone fireplace.