Catching up

Okay, we have a bit more time today to update the blog, so here goes!

To catch up a bit:

Day 14's statistics:

Distance traveled: From just south of Pipriac to St Méen (60 km!)

Time: 9:30 am to 4:15 pm

Day 17

If you see a menhir, look at it!

We left our friends Florian and Héloïse after three relaxing days in St Méen and headed north to Dinan, taking the windiest path possible (as in, the least-direct).

We curved around tiny back roads and spied menhirs in cow pastures, vestiges of the Celtic culture that was (and still is) so prevalent here.

You can kind of see Joe to the left there, and he's 6-foot 3-inches, to give you an idea of the size of these things.

(As a side-note, the Brétons are known throughout France as being fiercely proud of their region and their heritage. Until just a few years ago, it was illegal to teach Bréton in school and the language almost died, but it's making a comeback! According to Florian, Bréton will be offered in schools as a second foreign language option here starting next year, along with English, German, Spanish, Italian, etc (a side-side note: students must choose to learn at least two languages in France)).

Croquelins

These deserve a bit more attention than we were able to devote to them the other day.

They look a bit like pastry shells. Well, that is what they are, in fact. Their consistency is kind of like baked meringue with flour added, as they are made of merely flour, water, eggs, and salt.

We were in the supermarket with Florian and Héloïse when Hilary's eye landed on them. None of us, in fact, had any idea what they were, which made Hilary all the more curious. A Brétonne saw us pondering over them, and stopped in the middle of the baked goods aisle to convince us of their quasi-magical properties. "You can eat them any time of the day," she said, "They're delicious, absolutely delicious, for breakfast with milk or jam or Nutella, or later for tea, or just a little snack! You can't find them outside of this region, I swear to you." She was so enthusiastic that we grabbed a bag of twenty and later had a croquelin-tasting party. "They're kind of like communion wafers," Héloïse said. (Hm. Good to know that if we can't find any croquelins outside of Brittany, we could hit up a local church for a similar treat. Mm, with a little Nutella...)

Really, these things are great! And check out Nutella too if you don't know what it is -- you can find it hinding amongst the jars of peanut butter in most supermarkets in the states.

It's up there on that big hill!
We rolled into Dinan at about 3 pm, surprised (and rather proud) of our time. We're very sorry to say we have no photos of this beautiful walled city. They're preparing for their medieval festival this weekend, when all kinds of exciting medieval activities will be reinacted within and around the old city walls.

Here we caught up with Hilary's English friends John and Helen, who had hosted Hilary and her mother last summer at about the same time. We caught up over fizz (oh, that lovely Saumur sparkling wine!) and a yummy dinner filled with fresh salads and veggies in season. Helen also gave us a phonetics lesson: apparently, in English English, you can hear a difference between the words "ferry" and "fairy". This is news to our American ears! (We simply love learning about the differences between our versions of English!)

They sent us off with advice for finding a ferry to Ireland, as well as sparkling water (such a treat!) and a warm yet lightweight fleece-like blanket, since the weather here has been unusually chilly. We want to say thank you here for your kindness!

Distance traveled: St Méen to Dinan (55 km)

Day 19 (July 13)
We followed another windy route to St Malo, passing by cows and villages along the way.

We stumbled upon St Suliac, "One of the most beautiful villages in France" a sign boasted at the entrance to the village, so we coasted to the waterfront for a picnic.

No more cheese, please

We've decided to pare down our diet a bit, inspired by Julien's biking standards. So, we've eliminated the delicious cheeses from our diet...well, only when we're biking, that is!

St Malo!

Oh yeah.

We were greated by this great walled city by the drawbridge, which instead of opening up on a hinge, rather slid back on itself. So cool! It opens on the hour every hour for boats to pass by, and gave Hilary the time to take this photo of the backside of the city:

Inside the walls, life is a bit crowded and a bit touristy, but it's pretty cool nonetheless. We hunted for the tourism info office to find an internet café and research ferries, and got thoroughly lost in the narrow streets before stopping for a map at a hotel (wow, no city maps were posted anywhere, as in most French cities).

St Malo was one of the German navy's headquarters and home to many u-boats during WWII, and was razed to the ground by the Allied forces in the summer of 1944. Upon entering the destroyed city by foot and yet curiously still under fire, the Allies learned, to their dismay, that merely sixty Germans were actually in the city walls -- they were, in fact, firing from behind the city! After the war, St Malo was beautifully (and quickly) reconstructed very authentically to its original state, with much of the funds coming from Americans.

Warm Franco-american relations

Armed with a little bit more information, we headed across the river to the west to Dinard to friends of Joe's family, the lovely Gorés.

On the way over, we crossed an interesting power source. A kind of dam, the huge turbines turn as the tides rise and fall between Dinard and St Malo each day:

Joe's grandfather had participated in the invasion of the French coast near Dinard in 1944. Colonel and Madame Goré had hosted Joe's grandparents in 1986 for a ceremony honoring the Allied soldiers who had fought here, and had remained in touch with the entire family ever since. Joe's grandmother visited the Gorés again shortly after the death of his grandfather in the early 1990s, and Joe's mother, sisters, and Joe himself visited just a few years ago.

It was thus with warm arms that we were welcomed by Jaques and Solange, their daughter Dominique, and their three beautiful granddaughters, Meghan, Camille and Lucille.

Jaques showed us photos of Joe's grandparents over drinks in their beautiful garden. After a delicious meal prepared by Solange of fresh bigonots and shrimp, then pork, green beans, and potatoes, and finished off by another regional speciality, a Bréton shortbread. They surprised us with gifts of perfume in lightweight travel pouches ("So you can freshen up before meeting people after being on the road all day!") and dark chocolate. How lovely!

Then, Jaques and Dominique took us for an evening stroll down by the old "douanniers," paths where port officials called douanes used to patrol back in the day when smugglers would try to sneak past tarifs by landing at night between the two ports.

Dinard at sunset

St Malo at sunset from the west

Jaques was 11 years old in 1944 and told us the story about how St Malo was destroyed and then rebuilt by the Americans. He also told us that the top German officers in the area were in Dinard, living at the northern tip of the peninsula in the most beautiful houses overlooking the sea, and communicated with the other soldiers across the bay via an underwater telephone line. Just before the anglo-american invasion in August 1944, the Germans called for all the children and women to leave Dinard, St Malo and the surrounding area, thus he spent that summer in the countryside. He later gave us a book detailing St Malo's occupation and liberation, which we devoured.

The next day, Meghan, showed us around Dinard by foot:

That's not all!

Ack! We're being booted out the café's door once again! We'll try to update again soon! We'll just say quickly that we got tickets for a ferry bound for IRELAND leaving Cherbourg this evening. We biked from St Malo as far as Avrenches, where we climbed the world's longest hill just to be directed back down the other side to the train station.

Bailing out

That's right, we had only about two and a half days to get to Cherbourg for the ferry, as the next ferry wouldn't leave for Ireland until Sunday, and we're impatient to get over there. So, we decided to bite the bullet and hop on a train to get up to the northern tip of the peninsula separating Brittany and Normandy.