Brittany with Vince

Heath and I visited Vince in Rennes for the Spring Break.  Vince and Marie were nice enough to put us up for a week and take us all over Brittany.  

We started out visiting some of the historic towns around Rennes including Dinan and St. Malo. Both cities have walled historical centers with leaning wooden buildings and a large tourist trade.  At St. Malo, which is on the coast, we got to watch the tide come in.  In the course of twenty minutes the tide will go from low, where you can walk along the tide pools to the small islands right off the coast, to high tide where you can get stuck on said islands.  The residents of St. Malo congregate on the walls at this time and thoroughly enjoy watching the tourists scramble to get back to the mainland, laughing and pointing.  Unfortunately for us no one got so stuck as to need the boat to go get them.  That would have been really funny!

Dinan

Me and my massive Pain au Chocolat

The crepe I ordered

The crepes we made

St. Malo

On Marie's day off they took us to Mont St. Michel which was incredible.  It truly is as amazing

as you'd expect.  It looks like the Disney castle but it's really a church set upon the cliffs and surrounded by a small village of curio shops and cafes.  The tides are extreme here as well and if you're not careful you could come back to the parking lot and find your car under water.  The

opposite though allowed us to venture our onto the flat endless sand and walk around the island.  The church it's self is perched on the topmost point and built up out of the rock.  The stones are covered in a beautiful yellow lichen.  Go to Mont St. Michel if you get a chance.  It's amazing.

Mont St. Michel

Because the weather was unpredictable and we didn't relish the idea of sleeping out in the rain, we opted out of backpacking and decided to just do some day hikes.  These included the coastal trail as well as the menhirs of St. Just.  Brittany is famous for it's menhirs (which are giant prehistoric stones set in rows) and we went to St Just to hike among them.  Heath and I also traveled to Carnac to see the most famous menhir site with over 4000 stones.  

St. Just

Coastal Trail

Carnac Menhirs

The highlight of the trip however was the menhir of St Samson which you're supposed to climb up.  Legend has it that girls who wish to be married within the year must climb up and slide down in their knickers.  It's nearly impossible and I certainly couldn't do it.  It's fun to try though.

Before we left Marie took us to the gaufes place in Dinard.  Gaufes are huge belgium waffles that you cover with nutella or caramel and whipped cream.  They're amazing and so bad for you!  I never thought I'd find anything to rival churros y chocolate but I think these take the cake.  I could barely make it through half of mine.