July 11, 2017

July 11, 2017

About an hour west of our Amboise area inn, we stopped at another Chateau in Villandry. This time we passed on the house tour and opted only for the garden. And what a garden! It is a huge 10-acre Italian-inspired Renaissance splendor. It has everything, over 100,000 plants; vegetables, flowers, fruit trees, and sculpted hedges. It is all planted as a work of art. Aimee is amazed by the trellised apple trees. No surprise, it takes 10 full-time gardeners to keep it looking good. We walk in a long circle around this botanical masterpiece ending at a high point where we get a good view of the entire garden.

From Villandry, we have a long driving day, heading northwest. Our only stop is at a McDonald’s for a quick bite. We are amused to find the order entry is automated.

After more than three hours, we reach Brittany, the traditional homeland of the Bretons, one of the six Celtic nations. We stop in the town of Dinan and park in the old city. We give ourselves a walking tour of this charming medieval city. Dinan sits on a bluff high above the Rance River and is circled by a great wall. The old center has lots of stone and half-timbered houses. After walking the town and ramparts, we follow a steep cobbled lane through a massive gate to the river far below. This is Dinan’s old river port, the source of its wealth. It is now lined with restaurants and personal watercraft.

About twenty minutes east we stopped in the cute town of Dol de Bretagne. Just outside the city limits is the gigantic Menhir de Champ Dolent. This granite monolith is almost 30 feet tall. A menhir is a standing stone from the Neolithic people that populated Western Europe some 5000 years ago. They are all over Europe but especially concentrated here in Brittany. Like Stonehenge nobody knows their purpose or how they were transported or erected. Aimee is amused to find we are not alone. We have to dodge a dozen people to get a photo.

It is another twenty minutes to the border with Normandy and our home tonight in Mont Saint-Michel.