Brittany continued...

Gday all,

we are at the stage of our trip where we are traveling faster than I can keep up with the Blog! Our time at Brittany passed all to quickly.After our trip to Mount St Michele we spent some time around the area of Brittany where we were based.The Brenton's were originally Clelts, and as such very close to the English, especially Cornwall. We noticed immediately the difference between the Franco's, even though they use French as their everyday language. Brenton is still spoken, and their is a move to re-establish it, in their schools and workplaces. As a PR exercise for example, Mc Donalds uses both languages on their signs. We visited the walled city of St Malo, which is connected to England via Ferries (high speed catamarans built in Tasmania!) and is a favorite holiday spot for the Poms. We walked around the city on the Ramparts enjoying the marvelous coastal and ocean views. Much of the city was bombed by the Allies during the wall, and was rebuilt, faithfully to the original. We especially fell in love with a river town called Dinan. This is a fortified Medieval town,built on the banks of the river Rance. We spent a wonderful day there, walking around the cobblestone streets.We also hired a boat, and did a little cruise. Like many of the rivers,it is connected to the canal system, and we could of gone anywhere in our little tinny! Later we visited the Abbey Beauforte, in a town called Piampol. This is a 800 year old Abbey, with a chequered past, but incredibly beautiful. It was pouring with rain and the girls were cold, so we could not spend as much time as I would have liked. You will see a photo of the girls warming their feet in the old Chapter House. Regretfully we had to leave our little house by the river and on Sunday 9th we packed the car for the 540k trip to Paris to take the Euro Star to London. We dropped our car at the return point.I was ratherproudof the factthat we had driven 5436 kilometres without a dentin the car! It was emotional moment for me when we left it behind!

Mont Saint Michel

On Tuesday we drove 45k to visit Mont Saint Michel. Founded around the year 600 after the local Bishop had a vison where the angel St Michel told him to build an Abbey on the island known then as Mt Toombe. The Abbey grew in importance both spiritually and politically. It became the most important pilgrimage site in Western Europe, and due to its location on the boarder between Normandy & Brittany, was prominent in almost every historical event right up to modern times. Somehow it survived all the various wars that it participated in, and remained a functioning Benedictine Abbey for 1400 years apart from the revolution years, when all church property was acquired by the state. When Henry I took over this part of France it remained unconquered, withstanding a number of sieges. At times during it history it functioned as a sort of independent state, with its own army and navy. It sent three ships with the French armada to Waterloo, presumably they didn't come back. It has the ability to dissipate the huge crowds that visit it daily so that, if you are patient you can get a sense of the atmosphere and mystery of the place. We spent the whole day there and left reluctantly at 9pm.

Brittany

Hello all, I am writing this from London. We arrived yesterday after a full day traveling from Brittany. We have not been able to update our blog for a while because we did not have access to a computer. We had two magical weeks with Naomie in Paris. Noamie is as an amazing person, and she and her son Kevin were happy to accommodate a family of four into their two bedroom apartment! I have learnt that space is the prerogative of the (very) wealthy in these large cities. Noami took a week of work and showed us around, then we pottered around the city ourselves the second week. We left on the 2nd taking advantage of the Sunday morning traffic to make a quick exit of the city. It worked well, and we were out of the city within half an hour. We stuck to the tollways and had a uneventful (for us) trip to St Malo where we met the folks who were looking after the house we were to stay at in a little village called Plour St Rance, on the banks of the Rance river, Brittany. The fist impression of Brittany is breathtaking. It is an staggeringly beautiful part of the world green, lush, picture postcard stuff, with medieval villages, walled cities, Abbeys green rolling pastures in every direction. Its climate is like Tassie. We were fortunate and only had one day of rain, but judging by the amount of green mould that grows on anything that is left unattended (including boats) for a while, it is very wet in the winter. Also like Tassie, it is a superb boating area with a long maritime history, so I was in seventh heaven, with an anchorage or marina around every corner of the road. The photos I have posted are of our little cottage and the surrounding area. Ill update more later, with highlights; especialy Mt St Michelle, probably the most incredible thing I have ever seen, but I must head off now to explore the sights of London.

Love to all at home...

Peter