June 20 Dinan to St Meen le Grand 52 km
Helpful young woman at the information centre in Dinan gave us a brochure of the Route Verte - rail trails in the region, so we are heading off-road today. Headed under the town wall on the cobbled road and lost the map. At the bottom of the steep hill I also lost the way. Went in to a bar for assistance to be met by a very frosty reception and no help. A more helpful man pointed us in the right direction, into the beautiful, picture book township of Lehon. Would have liked to have a better look around the town, but the trail beckoned - if only I could find the start. Asked a fellow working in his garden, who called his daughter to assist, as she could speak English better than I could obviously speak French. Actually, I think that father was just wanting to show us how clever his daughter is - she had been in Sydney for 6 months working as an au pair. Nice girl who walked us to the start of the trail.
Easy riding alongside the river for about 8 kms which was followed by about 3 kms of country road, much of it uphill, to the small town of Trevron, where we located the rail trail. The trail was shady and pleasant, but Sue's legs were having a holiday today. Around 1 pm we headed off the trail into a small township called Plouasne, which seemed somewhat depressed. Had a coffee at a small, unusually unclean bar attached to a bakery. As we were having our coffee, the owner came over and presented us with 4 small pastries as a gift.
Another 4 km and the rail trail ended so it was back on to the road for the last kms into St Grand where we booked in to Les Trois Pliers, in the centre of town, which was very basic - furnished cheaply, the carpet doesn't fit, the bathroom is huge but the bath has no plug. However he beds are clean and the shower was good, and the hotelier is very pleasant.
Our walk around the street revealed lots of houses of dark stone in a mixture of styles, and a strange little war memorial church filled with memorial stones of the fallen.
The town hall was an amazing building, like a wedding cake, with towers, spires, chimneys.