After a restful night in Jugon we detoured east to the picturesque castle town of Dinan before continuing north to our overnight stay in Saint-Brieuc.

  

I wouldn’t say I was comfortable that second day driving in France, but I was starting to feel a little less terrified about everything. I still shook intensely after every stint behind the wheel though. So we endeavoured to stop at any quaint passing village that caught our eye. As it happened we ended up stopping a lot…the first of these brief stops was in plelan-le-petit.

  

As we hadn’t been given a blue parking disk when we rented the car I tried to buy one at Plelan’s local cornershop. After our descriptions and inquiries were met with a lot of blank looks they eventually said they didn’t have any but they might have on Monday. We gave up trying to find one after that and opted to find free parking wherever possible. This meant a lot of back alleys but it was a lot less stressful than timed/paid bays.

  

I’d researched parking as much as possible in advance so knew where to head for a free spot in a great location in Dinan. It was pretty crowded but the castle-side parking was perfect.

  

Dinan felt like a very layered town. Beyond the castle walls  we walked past many hotels and paid parking areas to the clocktower, behind which was the old-town proper.

  

  

  

  

    

  

After the small size and relative sleepiness of Jugon, Dinan felt really big, and it was almost a surprise to leave the pedestrian streets and be confronted with cars again.

  

  

  

  

Our midday break took us briefly back to the car for provisions before we picnicked in a beautiful sprawling park.

Venturing back to the castle we tried to find the way onto the ramparts but being the cheapskates that we were refused to buy a tourist map to find out how so we just walked vaguely along the perimeter until we saw a ramp up.

  

  

By this point it was hot and we were tired but the views cheered us on and encouraged us to keep going. We weren’t disappointed – the view down onto the port is truly beautiful and we admired it and took many photos, as did all the other tourists.

  

Abandoning the circular route along the ramparts (and the crowds) we took a straight line back towards the car which took us around the back of the church.

  

 

  

    

  

This is a lovely church and it’s beautifully grand inside and out.

  

It was quite a distance to Saint-Brieuc on the highway and by the time we approached the off-ramp to the town I was verging on a panic attack – it must have been rush hour because the traffic was standing very still and the ramp was a very steep incline. I was still coming to grips with the car and was struggling with the handbrake and my right hand so it actually came to a point where I was yelling at my mom when to release it for me so we could inch our way through the gridlock. Not fun.

But before we went into the actual town we headed to the outskirts to see the Douvenant Viaduct. It was huge and really beautiful. The sound of hunting rifles in the distance was pretty unnerving though and we didn’t stay too long.

  

  

  

– – –

BZH 2017: Intro  |  Pt 1  |  Pt 2  |  Pt 3  |  Pt 4  |  Paimpol 2017 – Festival du Chant de Marin 
Pt 5  |  Pt 6  |  Pt 7  |  Pt 8  |  Pt 9 |  Pt 10  | Pt 11  |  Pt 12  |  Saint-Malo: La Route du Rock Festival
Pt 13  |  Pt 14  |  Pt 15  |  pt 16  |  Pt 17  |  Pt 18

If you travel and you don’t use Booking.com you really should it’s the best! I’m not 100% sure how the referral codes work but try mine if you haven’t used one before for a discount after your first trip: https://www.booking.com/s/35_6/rattsi32