LA BRETAGNE

COTES D'ARMOR AND ILLE ET VILLAINE

MARCH/APRIL 2017

My Spring Expedition to France started with a Portsmouth – St Malo ferry and a short drive to Taden, a small village just outside Dinan, where there was a campsite that opened earlier in the season than others which didn't receive visitors until early April or even later. I stayed for a fortnight, arriving on 28 March and leaving on 10 April.

BRITTANY

The region has been occupied by humanoids for 500,000 years or so, first by Neanderthals, then 35,000 years ago, by modern man. 

The Celts became prominent around 400-500 BC but were defeated by Julius Caesar in 56 BC who named the region Armorica, meaning Coastal region.  Roman occupation lasted until about 400 AD.

Thereafter many Celtic immigrants arrived fleeing from the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Great Britain and these newcomers named the country Brittany, after their previous homeland.

Brittany became a unified independent country in the 9^th Century but a century later King Alan II paid homage to King Louis IV of France and the region thus became a Duchy (later a Province) of France roughly comprising all the land West of a line drawn between Mont St Michel and Nantes with the latter becoming the capital.

For the next 500 years or so sovereignty over the region was variously claimed and contested by and between the local ruling families and the Kings of England and France. In 1488, the Breton army was defeated by the French and in the ensuing Treaty, Francis II of Brittany was compelled to agree Charles VII of France could decide whom Francis's 11 year old daughter was to marry.

That was effectively the end of an Independent Kingdom of Brittany.    Francis died only one month after signing the Treaty and Anne became the nominally independent (and much revered) Duchesse de Bretagne but was compelled to marry, first Charles VIII and then, his successor Louis XII.    After Anne's death in 1514 the title went to her eldest daughter who then married Louis's successor thus initiating a formal union of France and Brittany.

In modern times historical boundaries have been replaced by new ones so Nantes is now capital of the Pays de la Loire Region with Rennes having become the capital of a reduced size Brittany comprising the four Départements shown on this map.

La Bretagne (Modern)

North Eastern Brittany

ST MALO

As a coastal city the people of St Malo have long had a close association with the sea. This became particularly pronounced after discovery of the New World with St Malo Merchants and seamen playing an important part in French Voyages of discovery and colonialism.

That led also to the city becoming a notorious base for Corsairs – private fighting ships and men holding a Lettre-de-Marque, also known as a Lettre-de-Course, authorising them to attack ships and cities of enemies with whom France was at war. The captain had to commit to paying the Crown a high proportion of any treasure captured but he then had authority (in France) to keep the remainder for himself and his crew, and a guarantee (in France) of not being prosecuted for piracy.

Other nations made similar arrangements of course and sometimes captured corsairs were treated as prisoners of war but on other occasions they were hanged as pirates. The ones based in St Malo were particularly active and the city became wealthy on the proceeds in the 17^th and 18^th centuries.

After the French Revolution things quietened down for a bit until in 1944 during World War II the city was destroyed by Allied bombing and assaults.         Much effort and time was expended on a reconstruction project over many years restoring the old town walls and buildings to their former state, and of course expanding the surrounding area.

I remember this well because in 1996, the year that Alchemi was delivered I sailed into St Malo on my first passage across the English Channel.    So I didn't attempt to visit the "Old City" this year and confined myself to a couple of visits by car to take advantage of modern big city facilities.

DINAN

Dinan is situated about 25 miles due south of St Malo on high cliffs overlooking the Lower Rance Valley.

Control of Dinan has been important for many centuries because of its location and strategic importance. One of the earliest examples of this is a record in the Bayeux Tapestry showing William the Conqueror accepting the keys of Dinan from a defeated Duke of Brittany in 1065 (aided at this time by Harold Godwinson who, for his pains, got an arrow in the eye one year later at the Battle of Hastings!).

Two hundred years later Dinan was also in the news when Thomas of Canterbury (brother of the famous archbishop) besieged the city; As no side could gain a decisive advantage history has it that Thomas and the local defender - Bertrand du Guescelin - agreed to settle the matter in single combat.      Du Guescelin won and is still celebrated as a hero with a statue in the town.

A few years later John, Duke of Brittany built a Castle and extensive Town Walls that still survive today and are one of the most well-known Medieval sights in Brittany.

In the late middle ages a Port was developed at Dinan on the River Rance to promote and serve increasing trade between the city and St Malo.

In modern times the city has expanded to absorb previously independent surrounding villages, promoted itself as a tourist destination and become choked with traffic and limited parking as a result. The old city still has many medieval buildings as well as the castle and ramparts to enjoy and the Port has developed as a centre for pleasure boating with many restaurants near the waterside.

Town Ramparts high on the hill and a modern road viaduct across the deep valley

The Old Bridge across the Rance

The River and Port from the Old Bridge

Medieval Street from Port to Town

THE LOWER RANCE VALLEY

The Rance reaches the sea at St Malo and in its lower reaches is of course tidal with the very large range experienced by all narrow waterways situated on a shallow continental shelf near the deep ocean.

Local inhabitants have been taking advantage of the particularly favourable range on the Rance for centuries – average range between 26 feet at Neaps and 44 feet at highest Spring Tides.

Hundreds of years ago the exploitation took the form of small lagoons filled by incoming seawater as the tide flowed in that was then released over water-wheels when the tide went out.

But this idea was developed to a different level between 1921 when first design and then construction in 1963 of the world's first Tidal Power Station was begun at a narrow section of the river near its mouth to the sea.

The Power Station was opened in 1966 and has a peak capacity of 240 MW (comparable to a medium size modern combined cycle gas turbine plant) but rarely generates at this level. That's because its mostly used in a dual flow manner generating on both the flood and ebb tides over a longer period than it would if the flood were stored and then released some time after the tide had turned.

There have been some adverse ecological effects on marine and bird life because of the knock-on consequences of changing natural flows and wetlands but most people seem to think those have been a price worth paying for the availability of power that is now even cheaper than that generated by Nuclear Stations (both types have in common high capital and low running costs in comparison with other methods of generation).

There is another barrage across the Rance higher up the valley at Vicomte-sur-Rance and this constitutes the boundary between salt and fresh water. Fortunately there is an ancient towpath, now converted to a cycle and walking path, that follows the left bank of the river for nearly four miles between Port Dinan and the end of the barrage opposite Vicomte.

One day I parked the car about half way along this path, rode into Dinan to have lunch at one of the riverside restaurants then afterwards downriver to the barrage and back again to the car.     It was a great outing during which I learned in conversation with a pair of elderly walkers that all pleasure craft upstream of the barrage were trapped for 3-4 months whilst maintenance work was carried out on the swinging bridge above the barrage!

The Lower Rance near Dinan

Marina upstream of the barrage at Vicomte-sur-Rance

THE ILLE-ET-RANCE CANAL

The small town of Léhon lies in the valley bottom just upstream from Port Dinan and is notable as the site of a very old castle that was destroyed and rebuilt several times during Viking raids and in the struggle for supremacy between Brittany, England and France.

South of Léhon the land rises quite quickly until the sides of the Rance Valley become much less steep and the riverbed itself has a shallower gradient.   As long ago as the 1500's the relatively flat land further south gave rise to the idea of constructing a canal to link this point on the Rance with the important inland city of Rennes.   At that time nothing came of the idea but by the late 1780's plans were made to construct the canal, and even more ambitiously, to extend it until it could join the river Vilaine. If that could be accomplished there would be a continuous waterway between St Malo in the English Cannel and a port on France's Atlantic Coast in the south of Brittany.

But the French Revolution put paid to those plans until Napoleon revived them, as he did with the Nantes Brest canal, seeing both as a means of circumventing the English blockade of French ports. Again like the Nantes Brest canal he did not live to see the results of his strategy because work on the Ille-et-Rance canal between Rennes and the hills above Léhon was not completed until 1832.

Like other canals of the same period it was initially used extensively but then challenged by the development of Railways and Roads until the construction of the Tidal Power Station in the 1960's spelled the end of its use for the transportation of goods. Also like other canals it then had a new lease of life as a leisure attraction for boaters, fishermen, walkers and cyclists!

The canal is 50 miles long in total and passes through many attractive little towns as it winds its way through extensively cultivated countryside.

Rides Beside The Canal

The nearest place on the high ground at which I could leave the car to ride the towpath was opposite a small settlement called Tressaint which nowadays is really just a suburb of the larger town of Lanvally on the far side of the valley opposite Dinan.

From here I made a return ride of about six miles in each direction to Évran where I had lunch in a local restaurant.

Picnic Area near Évran

Springtime by the canal

On another day I drove to Saint Domineuc for lunch then back to Évran where there was more secure parking before picking up where I had left on the previous ride and again following the towpath for about six miles in both directions to the bridge near my lunchtime restaurant.

Blossom Everywhere

Wild Primroses

Le Pecheur

These two rides were absolutely delightful matching the future I had in mind when first conceiving this way of spending my post-sailing life way back in 2010 in New Zealand. 

The two lunches were also a far cry from the touristic places along the waterfront in Dinan. Quite a few people still work the land in France, albeit using tractors and other machinery, and these country restaurants catered for them with simple but well cooked food at a very reasonable price – three course lunch with 25 cl of wine and coffee for € 12.