We drove out of St.-Malo the next morning and crossed the Rance river. Stopping along the way, of course, for photos in the foggy morning. It looked as though the sun was going to come out for the first time during our journey.
We could see Dinard from across the river and the stately vacation homes built up on the Pointe du Moulinet just opposite the old town of St.-Malo. Dinard is a ritzy beach town on the coast whose name derives from Arthurian legend. When the British came to this part of the continent, they named the little fishing village here hill (din) of Arthur (art), at least according to Wikipédia.
Since then, the place has become a haunt of wealthy British vacationers (and a few French, too). Among them : Pablo Picasso, Victor Hugo, Winston Churchill, Lawrence of Arabia - whose family lived here when he was a child - Agatha Christie, and Hugh Grant (this list reminds me of that Sesame Street song, "One of these things is not like the others"). There are over 10,000 more or less permanent Dinardais living there now. And looking back across the Rance, we could see the outline of St.-Malo in the distance.
We kept on westward and came, almost by surprise, upon the 13th century Fort de la Latte on the little cape of Fréhel. We wanted to drive out to the point, where there is a lighthouse, and noticed that a fort was indicated on the map. I certainly wasn't expecting what we found ! To my eyes, the Fort de la Latte was something out of a story book.
There were people walking up and in, so I assumed the fort was open to visitors. But, we decided not to take the time to explore it. One day I'd like to go back and check it out (and unless they let Callie in, that's not going to be any time soon).
Onward to the point of Cap Fréhel and the lighthouse, which was nice but not as dramatic as the Fort de la Latte. The lighthouse was built between 1946 and 1950 ; a youngster !
How do you keep track of what you did years ago.
ReplyDeleteI am currently scanning slides and most of the time cannot remember where the photo was taken, much less when. I feel that if I had had a blog then, I wouldn't have run into this problem.
Great photos.
I agree! When I was at my Mother's house, I was looking at some old pictures of trips when I was in Highschool. I have absolutely no idea what they are of. I know when they were taken, due to people who I was travelling with, but no recolection of the pictures themselves. Being able to caption the photo when posting it really helps.
ReplyDeletemp, claude, Certain things I just remember - these were fun trips ! I also traced our route on a map as we went along, so if I don't remember a place, I just look at the map and it helps. We also kept food logs back then - we'd write down what we ate and where. And some of the things that I don't remember, Ken does, so that helps fill in the gaps.
ReplyDeleteOf course, some stuff is just gone - the old brain cells are fewer and farther between these days... ;)