Castles and churches in Dinan

Today we started with  the castle.  It is referrred to in the literature as a castle but it is really  a donjon or keep - a large heavily-fortified tower in which people lived, entertained and  slept.  It had many floors and a narrow winding stone staircase linking them. We wound our way to the top, looking at the displays on each floor. The views from the top were very good over the rest of Dinan - the medieval part that we are staying in ( along with many , many others) and the ordinary part outside the walls. Attached to the keep by impressive walls was another tower which we looked at and in.

Before I go away I spend a bit of time gathering information about the places I am going to. This time some of it was in French which, sometimes with the help of my French teacher, I translated. Trouble is, I often didnot know the English word. This made for slow progress as I consulted Ms Wiki.  I have learnt a lot of architecture terms and medieval defence terms. One was machicolation ( machicoulis in French) . These are openings between the supporting corbels of a projecting parapet through which stones or burning objects could be dropped on attackers. Iwas very pleased when we found some on the tower.

After the castle we decided it was lunch. One of the nice things about Brittany food  are the galettes, savoury buckwheat pancakes. We had one for lunch. This weekend is a heritage weekend with free entry to some places, but also more entrants.  We didnot join the queue to get ino the clock tower.

We next looked at St Catherine's chapel, attached to an old Benedictine convent. It was small and quite peaceful with an interesting painting behind the altar, quite dark, shades of grey, but suprisingly friendly feeling. We wandered through the nearby English gardens and looked over the walls to see the river Rance way down below ( the old part of Dinan is high up on a hill)  and houses and fields on the other side of the river.

The Basilica Saint-Sauveur was next. A most odd church. The construction started in the 11th C.  Then was added a left side aisle, then a bigger transept, then a bigger apse  ( but I am not sure of the order). So now it is very lopsided. On one side a plain wall on the other side a largish Gothic aisle. Most peculiar from the outside too. We needed some restorative cider after the unsettling experience.

There is a narrow old street, Rue Jezebel,  winding its way down the hill full of small houses/ shops built in the 15th and 16thC . We walked down part of the way , then back up another street to another odd church, The English church of St Malo.  It was commenced in 1490, finished in the 19C in the Flamboyant Gothic style. During the Revolution all the fancy bits of the insides were pillaged . Now it appears quite stark compared to other Gothic churches I have seen, but more to my protestant taste. There were some interesting modern stained glass windows telling of the history of Dinan. The main entrance was into the south transept and on the plain wooden door to the nave there was several lines of what looked to me  like Hebrew etched into the wood.

We had another interesting dinner. We had a plate of local seafood, were given a set of instruments  and then had to enlist the aid of the waitress to show us what to use to get the little creature out of what we later ( with the aid of a neighbouring local guest and my dictionary) found out were periwinkles.