Dinan to Pléhérel-Plage

June 8, 2019

Weather systems!

It looked promising today. I almost put on sunscreen! But I didn't want to tempt fate.

While waiting for breakfast this morning, I chatted with a group of British motorcyclists who were riding long days to get home from the Pyrenees. Even though they are on big bikes, they had trouble with the wind yesterday. Later I heard from various people that the storm last night had been quite severe, with trees down and telephone lines out. I saw a fair bit of tree debris and some fallen trees and big branches too, so I guess it was a good thing to have been under a solid roof last night.

Riding into Dinan was, as expected, much shorter than it had seemed riding out to the hotel yesterday afternoon. Less wind and traffic can have that effect!

My original idea had been to ride to St-Malo today on the east side of the river and then somehow cross to Dinard tomorrow. I've been having second thoughts about that. On the plus side, St-Malo is a historic old port that should be interesting to visit. On the negative side, it's a big city, the close campground doesn't take tents except in July and August and the other campgrounds are quite a ways out, I'm not sure how I'll get across the Rance, and it's a Saturday in France in 2019.

I dithered and decided to ride up the cycle route I'd found online last night to Dinard on the west side of the river. This would give me the option to turn onto Eurovelo 4 and just go northwest to the coast. In other words, I delayed making a decision.

Finding the start of the route in Dinan's historic centre was a little challenging, as you can see from the squiggles in my GPS track. But I did find it and it took me along some fabulous old streets. It had been described as "easy" but descending the steep cobblestone Rue du Petit Fort required some bike handling skill. Still, it was easier than walking my loaded bike down while wearing SPD shoes! I don't think I'd want to do it on my skinny-tire carbon bike, although walking in road shoes with road cleats would be deadly!

Historic Dinan in the early-ish morning. It's sunny!

The steep cobbled street, Rue du Petit Fort

The steep street met the riverside road at the old bridge and the route continued along the water (on the chemin de halage!) as far as Taden and then turned off and climbed away. Luckily, the road taken up wasn't nearly as steep as the descent!

I stopped in Pleslin Trigavou to get lunch supplies since the route went right by a Proxi. When I came out, I saw a sign about the local megaliths, apparently referred to as a "Druid cemetery." I was here, so I went for a look. Not overly impressive, I thought.

The "Druid Cemetery". What do you think?

When I got to the intersection with EV4, I saw this sign:

And I thought, "Cap Fréhel--I could get there today." I turned left.

And it wasn't much later that the weather really changed. The day had started sunny with cloudy periods, but I could see this black cloud coming my way. I found a place to stop and put on all my rain gear just as the rain started. So much for the weather forecast that promised a dry day! At least this shower, while intense, didn't last all that long. And then the sun came out again.

I got to Trégon around 12:30 and considered a restaurant lunch and saving my baguette, cheese, and cherry tomatoes for dinner. But the one restaurant I found was closed and I carried on, having removed the rain gear.

When I came to a sign for the car park for Château du Guildo, I was intrigued enough to stop. Sure enough, I ate my picnic lunch on the top of the restored tower of a ruined castle. Not bad!

I walked up these (not ancient) stairs...

...and back over the remains of the castle (there's an upgrade project going on)

I continued following EV4 towards Cap Fréhel until the turn to Fort la Latte. I took it, having read in my guidebook that it was not to be missed. And it was very interesting. There's been a château on the site for centuries; the medieval structure was completely renovated some time after its initial construction to make it a "château fort" and then maintained to be the latest in defence. It's privately owned and the family lives in the lord's residence (and presumably has other homes elsewhere). I think someone was staying there this weekend since I saw a cute little cat in the window.

Now that's a castle! Preliminary gate: pay your 6.30€ admission.

Outside the first real gate: a battering ram.

There's a garden (it's still a kitchen garden on the left), then another gate. I climbed up to the top of the keep, that tower you can see in the back. I think there might have been another gate first...

View from the keep over to Cap Fréhel and its lighthouse.

Looking out to sea from almost the top of the tower. There are steep stairs, with rope handrails both sides, to take to the very top.

Looking down at Fort la Latte from the very top of the keep. Attached to the small tower is the lord's residence. The building to the right of the gate contains the gift shop (mostly books) and the smaller building is the chapel. Beyond is the Emerald Coast.

A tapestry in the lord's room in the keep.

This thing is a cannonball oven, built around 1793 to set fire to enemy ships. It took hours to heat up (to 900°) then the cannonballs needed two to five hours to become red-hot. There are a couple other cannonball ovens on the Brittany coast, but apparently those ones could only be used if kept permanently heated. They are all well preserved since they weren't used much, being very inefficient. I'm still wondering how the red-hot cannonballs were transferred to and loaded into the cannons.

The lord's residence is in this building. It looks very well maintained.

Afterward, I returned to the Route du Cap and stopped at the lighthouse. I didn't go up, though, I just didn't feel like it. The lighthouse isn't particularly high since it sits on a high cliff, and I still didn't know where I was going to stay.

The lighthouse at Cap Fréhel. It seems the walks on and around the Cap are the attraction, more than the lighthouse.

The next part of the ride was spectacular! The coast road on the west side of the peninsula really deserves its green highlight.

A closer view of the red plant, whatever it is. There were clumps of it everywhere.

After that, I was ready to stop, and when a campground appeared, I booked in, having first checked that there was somewhere in the vicinity to get a meal. The campground proprietor suggested the mini golf just down the road. He was right, it was pretty good.

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Today's ride: 74 km (46 miles)
Total: 2,271 km (1,410 miles)

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