Dinan

It's Sunday June 27 and I've bumbled my way across central Brittany. Weather has been very hot , 27 or 28 yesterday, and you get pretty sunburned when you're out on the roads as much as I am. I am lathering on the sunblock, so it becomes a sticky salty mess after a few hours. Yesteray I changed my route and rode to Dinan from Combourg via the canal towpath canal d'Ille-et-Rance. The canal was cut through during the early C19th as Napoleon was fed up with trade blockades by the English. You could actually get through using the canal system from one side of Brittany to the other, if you want. I don't know if you can ride it consistently. The path is a mix of hardpacked sand or pebbles and sealed road of various levels of repair. But you can walk it for sure. It's part of France's network of Voies Vertes. I think I rode a similar path when I was in the Loire, outside Cheverny. Back then, gosh only about 2 weeks' ago, the sand was sodden and pretty tricky to ride, like working through sand, but dried out, it's fine. I went this way because of the shade, and it's a lovely way to travel. You go past various infrequently used locks, all of which have a stone lock house, complete with flowerpots in every window, shutters, lace curtains, resident Grande-mére, you get the idea. It's not d-i-y here, like the Camden Lock in London. If the lock keeper isn't there, you phone ahead and someone will drive out from somewhere, to open the lock gates for you. It's quite a show. Because it was Sat yesterday, the lock keepers were around, so I watched a kayaker make his slow but picturesque way through one lock near Calorguen. The lock keeper filled the lock, then opened the gate at the far end, then once the kayaker went through, she emptied the lock with a gush of water. The gates are wood and have flowers and ferns growing out of them, so I guess they don't get that much use. Quite the change from the Locks I know back home in Seattle. I live up the hill from the Ballard Locks, so I'm used to seeing factory trawlers and seiners heading for Alaska going through those locks. Quite a different experience!



It is cooler today, so I may head towards Cap Fréhel via Lancoet. I haven' seen any foreigners for days, as I don' think many travel the places I go, but as I am now getting close to St Malo, I'm back in the tourism belt. I want to avoid the horrible traffic bottleneck on the dam across the Rance between Dinard and St-Malo, so I will look for a boat to take me, and Sir Gulliver across the bay. I have renamed my bike appropriately, given the number of places I've been through recently that have some chivalry aspect. Yesterday I was able to study the C12th tombs of Jehan de Beaumanoir and various other relatives or knights of the time. It is amazing to be able to place your hands on the stone carvings of knights holding swords and shields, and, in one case, an honorable lady of the time, also dressed in a stylish hip belt, short tunic, and cropped haircut of the time. The carvings are lovely in their simplicity, and having survived maybe, 800 years, it sort of puts things into perspective. I am shaky on the history of this time, and, at 1 euro per 15 mins of time in the Dinan OT (office tourisme) internet spot, I will save my historical re-education for later. But you don't have to know a lot about the history to appreciate the artistry.

Plus, again, it's a great place to ride, despite the fact that Dinan is a HILL town, and they sure love pavés around here. Actually, I have 2 new swearwords now: pavés! and gravillions! I feel my teeth rattling around in my head when I clatter over yet another set of pavés, and I say bad things about the little towns that decide it's "quaint" to add bands of pavés into their central town traffic circles. And getting gravillions stuck in your cleats, after several km of newly oiled road, as I got outside Hédé 2 days' ago, well. I think the last week of June is "let's re-il every small road in every small town" week. Still, today I was greeted by a large peleton of buffed out cyclists as I sat having my café créme in the Bar Tabac across the street from the OT with a chorus of "saluts" plus various grunts, waves, thumbs up, etc. It is so nice to be in a place where being a solo middleaged bike tourist, loaded with matching sets of yellow panniers, and lumbering up another hill is considered totally normal.

Alors, maintenant, il faut que je parte vers la cote!