Cap Fréhel - mixed media study
Overview
Notwithstanding the pre-hols flap and our bitty / rusty French, we had a great week , exploring the Rance valley and coast between St. Malo and Cap Frehel. We were based in Dinan Port, by River Rance. It had been nearly twenty years since either of us had visited France, so it felt very much a novelty. This trip's now wetted my apetite for more. We'd like to explore the Finisterre area. As a river lover, I'd like to revisit the Seine and Loire, which I haven't seen for nearly 30 years. Certainly a stimulating, refreshing change. Because of the language thing, we did have to think more than we did holidaying in the UK, but in many ways that was good for me. One of the main things which had put me off trips to the Continent until now has been car travel. I don't like it at all in the UK, but in Europe, everything's on the "wrong" side of the road, or rather driving on the right, in a right-hand drive car. This can make a crucial difference overtaking trundling tractors or joining dual carriageways from slip roads, but the lower traffic volumes were easier. Memories of my parent getting very aggitated driving / navigating on those camping hols in my early teens hadn't helped either, especially the second trip to the Loire valley, "I'm looking for a socking great town called Tours!" We had a minor prang but that was on this side of the Channel, within a mile of home, as someone opened a door at a flappy road junction.
Generally, we were lucky with the weather, changeable both sides of the Channel: turning autumnal at home during the week before we left; then back to summer again, with temperatures on the Tuesday as high as 24C; then, in the words of the Ouest France newspaper, Degradation automnale, with heavy rain on Thursday afternoon and part of Friday. Both camping holidays in the early 1980s had been partly in Brittany. It was good to revisit places I'd been to then, with an adult's perspective, rather than that of a sulky teenager. The Chief Chartered Engineer, C.CEng. had been cycling here in the early 1990s, though missed many of the best bits, being on the road and inland for much of the time.
Rockwise, I missed having the access to geology maps and guides. This meant I wasn't really sure what I was looking at; though I did pick up a bit about the geology of the Rance valley from the Maison de la Rance exhibition. Also found some info online when we got home, from the Farnham Geological Society http://www.farnhamgeosoc.org.uk/archive/pdffiles/brittany08.pdf
Seems from this that the crystalline, mainly metamorphic rocks we saw and the hard red sandstone beds at Cap Frehel were formed during the latter part of the Precambrian era, around 600Ma. For a time, there was an island arc, later a continental collision. The Variscan geology (late Palaeozoic) was further to the west, the granites here being the most southerly extension of the granite batholith which outcrops in Devon (Dartmoor), Cornwall and the Scillies. Gather there are similar Precambrian rocks on Jersey. The water towers just to the west of St. Malo, must have tapped more permeable sedimentary layers in the much younger cover (Miocene periods and after).
This was our itinerary
17th /18th September - overnight ferry crossing - Portsmouth - St.Malo - Brittany Ferries, aboard the Bretagne (Brittany Ferries). Arrival at St. Malo, travel to Dinan.
Sunday 19th September - Dinan - walk along the Rance to Ecluse Chatelier (a lock / barrage)
Monday 20th September - Cap Frehél and Fort la Latte
Tuesday 21st September - the Rance tidal barrage - Rance cruise (Chateaubriand)
Wednesday 22nd September - Dinan - walk along the Rance to Léhon
Thursday 23rd September - Dinan - Maison de la Rance
Friday 24th September - Pointe du Grouin - Cancale
Saturday 25th September - return Channel crossing St. Malo - Portsmouth
