Dinan

 OK...I have to make this disclaimer; I am writing the remainder of the blog from the comfort of my home in Rossmoor. In the past when we have travelled and I've written a little family blog, I did the writing each day in the quiet times of early morning tea/coffee drinking when we have first awakened, and then in the evening before heading out to dinner - another quiet time as we rested and regrouped over a quiet glass of wine before heading out.  This trip, traveling as a group of 6, allowed for no quiet down times!  The combination of chatty sisters in law, corralling 6 adults (harder than herding cats every morning!), and the mental fatigue of dealing with the rental van just made keeping up with the blog too difficult.  But here I sit in Walnut Creek, after a great night's sleep in my own bed, and I am raring to go...wanting to preserve all the memories of our fun family trip!

So I last left off after we returned "home" to Dinan after having our rental van towed on Friday, September 19.  Dinan is truly a lovely little medieval town, quaint sights around every corner.  When we first arrived here, I told Gary that if I were writing a book, I would want to rent a place here for 3 months and just hunker down and write. The town has a million restaurants, beautiful church bells that toll throughout the day, very friendly people (including a surprisingly large English speaking population; many British/Scottish tourists  and expats seem to land here), a beautiful river to walk along - its kind of got it all!  All that being said, I did not anticipate being stranded here for 2 days with no rental car - and that is exactly what happened to us!

I lost count of how many times I call EuropCar over the weekend, trying to get a replacement rental van, and get our belongings out of the dead van.  With each call I had to go through all the same info with the robot lady on the phone (name, license plate #, case #, etc) and each time they told me that there are very few vans in France but they would definitely locate one and get it to us and they would call me shortly. with the info/timing.  I would wait a few hours, hear nothing, and go through it all again!  Finally someone told me that most places are closed on the weekend but they were really trying.  It was all out of our hands so we got to know every single corner of sweet little Dinan!  We ate some fantastic meals here (and a one that was pretty gross!). So basically, for 2 days we did nothing but eat and drink, walk, and make lots of phone calls!)

It was sprinkle/drizzly/misty/and a bit rainy most of our days in Dinan, so our umbrellas went everywhere with us. One day when it wasn't raining, we walked down to the Rance River below.  The town we are staying in at the top of the hill is Dinan.  Down below along the river is Dinan Port, and across the river is another town called Lanvallay, although the Port and Lanvallay seemed like just the outskirts of Dinan...not separate little towns.

The walk down to the Port of Dinan was through an apple orchard - it just smelled of "autumn" for our walk down the hill!

The path we walked on was not paved...we walked carefully and only one person had a graceful tumble!

Eyes down as we watched our footing!

The happy wanderers!

For our return back to our home, we walked up the very steep cobblestone road we had driven down on our arrival day in Dinan.  Today we got to peek inside the little shops lining the steep road - lots of artist galleries (kind of a a Carmel vibe to this little street).

That evening when it was time for dinner, Ron had a hankering for pizza and we had all walked past a brick fire pizza spot so off we headed. Rosa restaurant was lovely and modern inside, quite unlike any other spot we found in this town.  It was bright, light and hip inside (I think we were the only English speakers in the place).  The pizzas were all delicious, amazing crust with fresh toppings.  I had noticed on my last trip to Paris, that the French eat pizzas with a knife and fork (the do not shove triangles of pizza into their mouths by hand!). I shared this tip with the others, and we all ate French style!  No pizza for Gary though.  They had risotto on the menu, but sadly it was pretty dry, not creamy at all, but it was topped by a piece of salmon, so there was that!

Similar but different!  Both equally delicious! And the hand painted plates were so pretty.

During our extra time in Dinan, John and Babette walked to the local laundry facility and did their wash.  Our little airbnb has a combo washer/dryer but it is so small and really doesn't dry things well, so it's just easier to go the the laundry and bang it all out at once.  When J&B got to the "Laverie" (which was very small - 4 washers and 2 dryers) they found a homeless man sleeping on top of one of the dryers.  If you ever get a chance, ask them about having to roust him and get him out of the small laudromat!  It was a bit scary and intimidating at the time, but makes me chuckle now when I think about it.  No harm, no foul, just a homeless drunk who found a warm safe place to sleep at night.  Gary and I headed to the same laundromat (only one in town) the following morning..no drunk waiting for us, but we were joined by an old dude with brown teeth (and half drunk bottle of wine sitting on top of his laundry basket), who very casually peed on the outside of the building, right next to the wall. as he waited for his wash to be done!  He was pleasant and polite when talking with us though so I ignored his toilet habits.  As luck would have it, there was a amazing bakery just across the street from the  laundromat.  The whole time we were there, there was a steady line out the door, 8-10 people long.  Almost every single patron walked out with 2 bagettes in hand!  Not one...but two!  I walked out with a croissant and a Kouign-Amann pastry which I carried down the block and enjoyed at a little cafe/bar with a pot of tea while Gary had a cappuccino! Yes, I know, I really didn't need 2 pastries, but after seeing the constant line at the bakery, I decided it must be the best in the whole town, so I thought it would be a shame not to sample several different items! We popped across the street several times to check on the laundry, moving it from washer to dryer.  Not a bad way to do laundry at all!  Hear is my Kouign-Amann and my gorgeous croissant!

We all know about French croissants, but this Breton area of France, is known for a pastry called a Kouign-Amann (pronounced "queen-ah-man").  It's kind of like croissant dough, with lots of butter and sugar incorporated into the layers.  Then it is baked and gets all carmelized on the outside, and all soft, flakey and gooey inside...it's pure heaven!  Start with the flakey crusty layers on the outside, keep peeling and eating and get rewarded with the softer moist layers on the inside.  Its a good pastry to start the day...but also a good one to enjoy at the 4pm "goûter" hour.  The French eat 4 meals; breakfast/petit dejeuner, lunch/dejeuner, goûter, and dinner.  Oh, and there is apero for wine and cheese before dinner...so maybe should say they eat 5 meals!

Below is another Breton classic - a Galette.  These are savory crepes, made of buckwheat flour.  The are 100% gluten free so were an easy option for Gary (and the rest of us loved them too).  They are sold in the same restaurants as crepes...galettes are savory, crepes are sweet.  Usually the galettes are made round, with the four sides folded toward the center, so it ends up being a square (with the toppings showing in the open center).  This restaurant did it a little differently - they folded 3 sides in, making it into a triangle.  No matter how you fold it, I think they are delicious!  This one in the photo has roasted tomatoes, fresh strawberries, mild pesto and beautiful buratta cheese on top!  It was one of the best I had in Dinan.  The strawberries sounded weird, but were so perfect in it.  There were SO MANY galette/crepe restaurants in Dinan and we definitely sampled many.

The more traditional square shaped galette...this one is "complete" (ham, cheese and egg).

Trying out the local hard cider which is frequently served with galettes.  Brittany/Bretagne/Breizh...no matter what you call this region, it is famous for its cider!

We had an absolutely amazing meal at this restaurant in Dinan, The Cantorbery. Gary enjoys doing restaurant research and his research really paid off with this one!   I popped in to make a reservation and was struck by how small the restaurant was...imagine my surprise when we arrived for dinner and were taken upstairs to the second floor I had not realized even existed!  (Itty bitty spiral stairs of course!). The food was truly spectacular - beautiful and delicious...or was it delicious and beautiful?!

Ron had sea bass that was served on a flat slate...he has been on a real sea bass kick, and this was voted "best sea bass, so far"! (But I have a feeling the quest will continue for the duration of the trip!!)

I had a fillet (wrapped in bacon) with bernaise sauce.  It was fabulous, but maybe even better than the tender steak was the slice of dauphinoise potatoes that you see lying next to the little pot of sauce!

The desserts stole the show though.  I had this meringue ball sitting on top of paper thin slices of pineapple.  Inside the meringue ball was soft meringue with diced pineapple, drizzled on top with lime gelée.  It was a pavlova unlike anything I've ever hadD

I'm not a chocolate lover, but this dessert was a piece of art... chocolate cake topped with a huge "sail" of salted caramel candy!  Add a little quenelle of chocolate mouse and a drizzle of raspberry puree and you can recreate this at home! (I think in this photo, Lenore is reaching into her purse to get her phone/camera out...but I beat her to it!)

So, although we had no rental car, and couldn't get to Mont-St-Michel and the D-Day beaches/American Cemetery, we found plenty to do in Dinan!  

Sunday night I was told by EuropCar that they "thought" they could get us a new van delivered by noon the next day...I had such little hope in this prospect, that I sadly cancelled our private tour in Mont-St-Michel scheduled for Monday, and said "no" to the car.  I had too many empty promises from them in the past.   Instead, we walked to the Tourist Info office and asked for a reliable taxi who could drive us on Tuesday 1 hr. to the train station in Rennes where we were scheduled to catch our train to Paris.  The adorable gal in the TI off set it up for us and we headed home to pack for Paris.