OMG…Dinan

Two and a half years ago, the Husband and I acknowledged (rewarded?) ourselves for 30 years of tolerating each other with a trip to Europe. Visiting the Brother and family in Berlin was a given, but we wanted to go somewhere else too. The best price to Europe was a flight to Paris and, after much discussion, we chose to visit the Brittany region of France. Brittany is Celtic, fiercely independent, and revels in its uniqueness. It is also gorgeous. I’ve not been to the south of France (Yet. Soon.), so I can’t say it’s more beautiful here than there, but the rolling hills, cows, sheep, apple trees, and beautiful villages that are seemingly untouched by time are amazing. This area was only slightly touched by the wars (okay, Brest and St. Malo might argue that statement. They were pretty much leveled), and make my historian’s heart sing. But back to our original trip…on our last full day in Brittany we asked our host (Samuel. More on him shortly) where we should go that day — somewhere not too far from his house in Combourg. He suggested that we go to Dinan, so off to Dinan we went. Oh, were we glad we did!! We were here for just a few hours and promised ourselves that we would return. Promise kept.

Dinan is a nearly perfectly preserved medieval town. That includes its walls (about 2.5 km of the 3 km of walls are still standing and you walk can on top of a lot of it), defensive towers, four of the gates, some of the cobblestone streets, wonky walls and buildings and beautiful churches. Enough of my rambling – where are the photos, you may ask? Wait no longer and remember, this is a real town: people live and work here. These buildings mostly date from the 13th-15th century (outer edges are more 17th-19th centuries)🥰🥰🥰

Let us begin with our house, which is one of the newest houses on the street (seriously). Our host purchased the house next door and a dilapidated garage that had once been a house, but was now ruins. The town was very open to them rebuilding the house as it had been, as long as the strict rules were followed. Which is why this house, which is 13 years old, looks like it belongs. The house across the street does have a date plaque on it (I love that this was often done, it makes it so easy to know how old somewhere is!) – 1463. Therefore, we have an old looking house, but we also have plenty of power outlets! And our windows are straight.

The street we are living on, Rue du Petit Fort, runs from the upper town to the lower town (the port). It is a gain of 75 meters (246 ft) in elevation, so you can imagine that it is quite the hill and there are bits (like right at our house) when it gets quite steep! No warm up before our walks anymore – we just head up the hill! Believe it or not, we are frequently passed by people running up it. Impressive not just from the steepness aspect, but because it is old, uneven cobblestones with a drainage ditch down the middle! What is the drainage ditch for? Well, there’s not always been indoor plumbing…

Thursday morning, Samuel came to Dinan to do a historical walk of the town with us. We met Samuel, and his wife Liza, when we were here before. They have a B & B in their house in Combourg (we stayed with them for several night during that trip) and provide guided tours of many areas of Brittany
( http://visite.bretagne.free.fr/index.php/en.html ). Samuel is a native of the region and speaks English along with several other languages. Liza is Russian, so she provides even more languages! They added to their family with a baby girl last spring – we will get to meet her one of these weekends😍. Back to the tour – Samuel took us several places we hadn’t even thought of going, like along the outer part of the walls. It’s very interesting how many houses are built into the walls!

This town continues to reveal more secrets every time we walk around. We will spend this weekend exploring here, so expect more photos next week😁. This place is completely enchanting. The Husband keeps singing from Beauty and the Beast … 🎶bonjour, bonjour, bonjour bonjour bonjour! There goes the baker with his tray like always🎵… but it does feel like a place at Disneyland. Except it’s real. And really old. So cool!

I do know there’s a town with Roman ruins just about 20 km from here. Oh my! My first Roman ruins!!! Giddy. And if you’re a fan of the Asterix comic books (would you be surprised to know that I am? hahaha), the location of Asterix’s village would be not far from here. Oh, this is going to be a fun two months!