We are way behind with our blog entries because we’ve just been so, so busy enjoying ourselves. Travel is hard work! We’ve been to Dinard and Quimper in Brittany (10 nights), La Rochelle (1 night), 12 nights with Julia – 3 in Bordeaux, 3 with Flo and Jean-Mi at their country farmhouse in the Gers and 6 nights here in Buis. Immediately after Julia left to go back to Bordeaux, we went off for a 4-day trip hiking to the Ardeche with Randouveze (the hiking club that we belong to in Buis). We are now in full swing trying to get some small renovations and important administrative tasks done before leaving on the 26th. And we are very excited about Coby and Roelof arriving in Buis tomorrow for several days.
So – with that in mind here is a quick post explaining why we chose to go to Dinard and our visit to Mont St. Michel.
The decision to visit Dinard was inspired by Uncle John and Aunty Vera, who regaled us with stories of vacationing in Dinard with friends. There was the time that their friend Ronnie was stuck in the hotel lift on the way to aperitifs – hilarity ensured. There was another time when accommodation was accidentally booked in Dinan (30 minutes’ drive away) instead of Dinard.
We have also wanted to visit Brittany and Mont St. Michel, which is in Normandy but is close to Dinard.
To get to Dinard we trained from Zurich, via Paris, to Rennes, where we picked up a hire car.
Our number one priority was to visit Mont St. Michel, one of France’s most famous sites. It is about an hour’s drive from Dinard and, after consulting the tidal charts, decided that this would be our first touristic expedition. The reason for consulting the tidal charts was to work out when the best high tides would be. And we learned that on the following two days Mont St. Michel would be completely surrounded by water at high tide. Apparently, this only happens 15 times a year, following a full moon.
It's fair to say that Mont St. Michel is pretty damn impressive. We were surprised how prominent it was as we approached in the car, still many kilometers away. High tide wasn’t due until 9.15 pm so we arrived at 4 pm and went to the Mont to walk around and tour the Abbey. It’s amazing that this abbey was built around a rock a thousand years ago, which is difficult to access even today.
While we enjoyed climbing and descending through the Abbey, it (and the Mont in general) were most impressive when viewed from the exterior. As it was the middle of August it was VERY busy.
We then walked back along the causeway – enjoying the views – and eventually - our picnic dinner. We installed ourselves at the dam wall on the Couesnon River, which flows into Mont St. Michel Bay. Our research suggested that this would be a good spot to take photographs of Mont St. Michel, as the tide came in and the sun set. The views were wonderful although the cloud conditions were not good enough to produce the truly spectacular images that we’d hoped for.
Dinard, Dinan (and another town, Dinant) do my head in:
ReplyDeleteWe stayed in the inland walled city of Dinan on one of our trips.
Dinard is the nearby seaside city that one of my (French) work colleagues lives in during the summer months.
Dinant is the Belgium town my grandfather was billet in during and after WW1. (Did I get them right?)
Only surrounded by water 15 times per year? Both times that I stayed on Mont St Michel overnight it *seemed* to be totally surrounded... maybe I didn't look closely enough (I certainly didn't schedule my visits based on the state of the moon.)