Chateau Bonaban + St Malo
Camilla was feeling poorly, and after the slightly dingy accommodation
in Rennes the previous night we wanted something nice, so we booked
ourselves into a chateau. Leaving Mont Saint-Michel, we headed for the village of La
Guesniere and the Chateau de Bonaban.
We didn't have time to stop in Dol-de-Bretagne, but we did stop at Mont
Dol, a hill which offers great views over the flat surrounding plains.
the manor at Chateau de Bonaban
At €85 for the night the Chateau de Bonaban was the most expensive
place we stayed in in Brittany.
We weren't in the main chateau building, but rather in one of the
manor buildings on the side of the open space in front of the chateau.
We were sold on it as soon as we walked in, to find the windows opened
over the river and a grey- or green-headed woodpecker was just outside!
We didn't want to eat in the rather posh looking chateau, so we drove into
La Guesniere to find somewhere to eat. After some confusion in the place
that was open, we gave up and went into St Malo instead. This turned out
to be a great move -- there were plenty of choices for food and much more
was happening, with buskers and live street performances and a festive
air despite a light drizzle. We had seafood hotpot and roast salmon in
La Dent Creuse, wandered around some more, and then had drinks and a cake.
a St Malo street corner |
St Malo street performance |
22nd June
I got up early and wandered around the chateau grounds — the site
had apparently been a Roman villa in the 4th century.
La Guesniere was more attractive than it had been the previous night,
and we bought croissants, bread, and tarts from a boulangerie and sat
next to a playing field to eat them.
We would have liked to have gone back to St Malo, and to have visited
Cancale, but we just didn't have that much time. We did however fit
in a visit to the Rance Tidal Barrage, which was the first large scale
tidal power system, built in the 1960s.
The
official EDF site is poorly laid out, but has basic information about the Rance tidal power plant.
We had coffee in the cafe attached to the boathouse where the river
cruises head upstream, then went that way ourselves by road, driving
to Dinan.
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