Rennes, where we will spend the next couple of days, is only an hour from Saint-Malo but since check-in isn’t until five o’clock we decided to visit Mont Saint-Michel and the medieval town of Dinan, best known for it’s half-timbered houses.
We remembered eating our picnic lunch beside a picturesque windmill with a view of Mont Saint-Michel on our 2011 visit to France. Our journals were hand written back then and copied onto our single shared computer. Wifi was pretty much hit-or-miss, so it isn’t surprising that I posted only a single photo of Mont Saint-Michel and didn’t even mention it in my journal.
Our memories—this time, at least—were correct and we ate lunch at the same “moulin au vent” before driving on to the Mont Saint-Michel. Oh, how things have changed! Paid parking lots run out more than a mile from the Abbey. We had no intention of paying to park, let alone €25 each to visit the Abbey proper but if it had been high tide we might have considered walking nearer for some photos.
Our travel guru, Rick Steves, advises “If you have time for only one stop in Brittany, do Dinan. Hefty ramparts corral its half-timbered and cobbled quaintness into Brittany’s best medieval town center.” As instructed, with our backs to the statue of Bertrand du Guesclin and Rick’s “France” on Kindle in hand, we followed his walking tour along the cobbled streets to “Anybody’s Tombstone.” While Bertrand distinguished himself in battle during the Hundred Years War, countless others died; so many that tombstones were pre-fabricated without the head. A portrait bust of the deceased would be attached to the generic body to make for a decent and economical burial.
Most medieval towns had a bell tower to tell the people when to start and stop work and when to pray. As a show of prosperity, Dinan’s merchants erected a real clock tower, one of the oldest in Europe. Although we didn’t climb to the top, the views are supposed to be wonderful.
The half-timbered buildings in the old town center are the oldest in Dinan, dating from a time when property taxes were based on the area of the building’s ground floor. To provide shelter from both taxes and the weather, ground floors were small. The second floor extended towards the street creating a covered arcade where shopkeepers sold their goods. Before the fire in 1907 Dinan had about 1000 buildings with wooden porches but only 16 are still standing.
The Church of Saint Sauveur, according to a story based on a capital decorated with camels, was pledged by a Crusader who promised to build a church upon his safe return from the Holy Land. What is definitely true is that the weight of the immense organ has caused the balcony above the entrance to sag over the years.
Thanks for the memory, Rick.
