A steep climb brought us to the heights of Dinard. Nothing could be more romantic. Here were no traces of antiquity; everything was aggressively modern; all beauty lay in scenery and situation. Humble cottages embowered in roses and wisteria; stately châteaux standing in large luxuriant gardens flaming with flowers, proudly secluded behind great iron gates. At every opening the sea, far down, lay stretched before us. Precipitous cliffs, rugged rocks where flowers and verdure grew in wild profusion, led sheer to the water's edge. Land everywhere rose in a dreamy atmosphere; St. Malo and St. Servan across the bay in the distance. It was a wealth of vegetation; trees in full foliage, masses of gorgeous flowers, that you had only to stretch out your hand and gather; the blue sky over all. A scene we sometimes realise in our dreams, rarely in our waking hours—as we saw it that day. On the far-off water below small white-winged boats looked as shadowy and dreamy as the far-off fleecy clouds above.
But we could not linger. We passed away from the town and the sea and found ourselves in the country—the station seemed to escape us like a will-o'-the-wisp. Presently we came to where two roads met—which of them led to the station? No sign-post, no cottage. We should probably have taken the wrong one—who does not on these occasions?—when happily a priest came in sight, with stately step and slow reading his breviary. Of him we asked the way, and he very politely set us right, in French that was refreshing after the patois around us—he was evidently a cultivated man; and offered to escort us.
As this was unnecessary, we thanked him and departed; and, arriving soon after at the station, found our deaf and dumb porter had not played us false. He was cunning enough to ask us three times his proper fare, and when we gave him half his demand seemed surprised at so much liberality. Conversation had to be carried on with paper and pencil, and by signs and tokens.
The train started after a great flourish of trumpets. We had a journey of many hours before us through North Brittany; for Brittany is a hundred years behind the rest of France, and however slow the trains may be in Fair Normandy they are still slower in the Breton Provinces. In due time we reached Dinan, when we joined the train that had come round from St. Malo.
Nothing in Brittany is more lovely and striking than the situation of Dinan. It overlooks the Rance, and from the train we looked down into an immense valley.
Everywhere the eye rested upon a profusion of wild uncultivated verdure. The granite cliffs were steep and wooded. Far in the depths "the sacred river ran." A few boats and barges sailing up and down, passed under the lovely viaduct; Brittany peasant girls were putting off from the shallow bank with small cargoes of provisions, evidently coming from some market. Under the rugged cliffs ran a long row of small, unpretending houses, level with the river; a paradise sheltered, one would think, from all the winds of heaven: yet even here, no doubt, the east wind finds a passage for its sharp tooth to warp the waters.
Further on one caught sight of an old church, evidently in the hands of the Philistines, under process of restoration, and an ancient monastery. The town crowned the cliffs, but very little could be seen beyond churches and steeples. We left it to a future time.
The train went through beautiful and undulating country until it reached Lamballe, picturesquely placed on the slope of a hill watered by a small stream, and crowned by the ancient and romantic ruins of the Castle which belonged to the Counts of Penthièvre, and was dismantled by Cardinal Richelieu. A fine Gothic building, of which we easily traced the outlines. The present church of Notre Dame was formerly the chapel of the Castle.
Here we longed to explore, but it did not enter into our plans. So, also, the interesting town of Guingamp had to be passed over for the present.