Day Four- Brittany

The last day of our trip we stayed in a small town in Brittany called Dinan. We loved the town for many reasons but wow, the people were fantastically friendly. It was a beautiful, cobblestoned, half-timbered town with a river snaking through it. The town escaped the bombs of World War II so many of the oldest building are still intact. In the old part of town, the streets are named for the primary commerce that took place on that street. The signs all had the name of the street and a picture denoting the type of commerce.

Because the houses were made from the soft stone from nearby, timbers were inserted through each wall to make them strong. All the streets in the old town are narrow and charming like this one. The buildings date from the time when property taxes were based on the square footage of the ground floor. So to provide shelter from both the taxes and the rain, buildings started with small ground floors, then expanded outward with their upper floors.

Here's the view from one of our windows in our Bed and Breakfast.

The old city is surrounded by medieval ramparts, many of which could be walked along. Here is a picture taken from the top of one of the ramparts of the River Rance and the famous old bridge (Vieux Pont) that dates to the 15th century.