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Dinard

Posted by Jim St. George on July 14, 2024

Posted in: Europe, France. Leave a Comment

We stayed at the Grand Hotel Dinard, still the grand dame of the city. Here I am, late at night and jacketed to protect from the cold, but perfectly happy on our balcony.

After our two very quick stops in Normandy we crossed into Brittany where we plan to spend two weeks. The first stop was three nights in Dinard, on what is known as the Emerald Coast. It became a prime destination for British and even American aristocrats in the late 19th century and is still considered one of the premier seaside resorts in all of France. A town of just a tad under 10,000 people, the population soars to some 40,000 in the summer.

Now I have to admit, I didn’t quite get it. The town is nice, and indeed has some great architecture presumably as a result of those 19th century aristocrats, but it didn’t seem like such a great seaside resort. First, well, we’ve been to Sardinia’s Emerald Coast and it was way more beautiful and beachy. Second, because the tides in this part of the world are just enormous, for large stretches of the day the tide is too low for swimming. And finally, it’s just too darned cold! Here we are in mid-July and the temperature never goes above maybe the mid-60s. I looked it up and that’s somewhat unusual; the average daily high in July is 72 degrees. That would have been pleasant, but that’s hardly “Oh god, I need to go to the beach!” kind of weather.

The walls of Saint-Malo as we approached on the Corsair

So we didn’t go to the beach in Dinard. There was, however, plenty to do. First off, on arrival we caught a boat across the bay to Saint-Malo, Brittany’s most touristed locale. It is a beautiful old walled city on the English Channel that got wealthy off of pirating. Apparently that was a good business back in the day. (And amusingly, the boat that takes you across from Dinar to Saint-Malo is called the Corsair, an archaic word for pirate. They’re not ashamed of their past!) At any rate, the old city was almost totally destroyed by Allied bombing in 1944, something a tourist like me would be totally unaware of, insofar as it was rebuilt during the 1950s. Honestly, to me it looked like it was all old and historic, when in fact lots of it is no older than I am! At any rate it’s a great place to walk around for a couple of hours and then to sit down to a beautiful lunch. There were lots and lots of probably not-so-good touristy places, but we managed to discover L’Entracte, a lovely and creative place on a bit of a side street. Very pleasant!

Some of the delightful historic buildings in Dinan

The next day was a little laid back, getting some laundry and gym time in, but then our last full day in Dinard we took a local bus an hour south to Dinan. We have a rental car and certainly could have driven but we don’t like driving and hate having to figure out parking in a new town. The bus, on the other hand was simple, cheap, and comfy. Dinan it turns out is an absolutely stunning old walled town above the Rance River. We didn’t do a lot there besides walking around, gawping at the really old buildings and streets and all that. We walked down – and down and down and down – to the river front, where we had a relaxing cup of coffee, before heading back up – and up and up and up – to the main town for lunch. Then back on the bus to Dinard.

So much for three nights in Dinard. Next up, a couple hours west to Roskoff.

Mark up on the ramparts protecting Saint-Malo. It turns out ramparts are great for protecting from ancient armies but not so good at protecting from bombs.

And our charming lunch in Saint-Malo

Here we are in Saint-Malo. A tragic story about that shirt I’m wearing. I bought it in Hawaii and loved it. Just a few hours later I was walking to the gym in Dinard, looking at my map, when some bush reached out and snagged the shirt, ripping a big tear in the shoulder. Sad!

A big highlight of our stay was the view from our little balcony overlooking the Rance estuary

Another view from the balcony. Because we’re still so far north and now pretty far west in the time zone, it stays light well past 10 PM. This picture was under natural light at 10:15 PM.

Perhaps the most complete and perfect rainbow ever

Our room, the balcony, and the estuary

We didn’t get any great pictures, but the northern section of the town, along the coast, had a bunch of beautiful old stone houses and mansions

Some of the “feel” of Dinard

As always, food is a big deal on our travels, like this watermelon gazpacho…

…and these razor clams

Mark liked the way I fit in so well with the hydrangea

A small section of the long walk down from Dinan’s town center to the river, all lined with ancient buildings

Mark at lunch in Dinan. To be honest I liked the setting better than the food…

Just a beautiful street scape in Dinard

Charming beauty everywhere you turn around here

One last view from the balcony

Lille

Posted by Jim St. George on July 6, 2024

Posted in: Europe, France. Leave a Comment

Mark in front of the Opera House, in Lille’s Old City

OK, so after a quick visit to Paris this is the real start of our French trip, the first of 22 stops that are new to us. As Mark mentioned we’re going to be moving fast, so this was a two-day stop. The quick summary is that Lille (pronounced “leel”) is a lovely, lively town worthy of a two-night stop, but not more than that to be honest.

First was a fast and fabulous hour-long train ride north from Paris. The TGV, France’s high-speed rail, really moves. I don’t know what the average speed was, but it takes two-and-a-half hours to drive between Lille & Paris but little over an hour on the train. Heck, I barely had time to take a nap and *snap* we were pulling into Lille.

Morning in the Old City

On arrival you notice a couple things quickly. First, you’ve gone a long way north; suddenly it feels almost Nordic. Now, Paris itself is surprisingly far north, north of Duluth, Minnesota, and that’s up there. But Lille is another 120 miles north of that, further north than anything in the U.S. except of course Alaska. So here we are, arriving on the 4th of July, and the temperature is in the 50s in the morning and almost never reaching 70 degrees. After late June in New York this is pretty nice!

Second you quickly notice that the train station is only minutes from the center of the Old City. A lot of Lille was badly damaged during World War II but the center was largely spared leaving this cute, historic district with some beautiful buildings. It’s worth nothing, of course, that it’s a pretty small district; after an hour or two of wandering around you’ve pretty much seen it all.

What else is there to see in Lille? There are two major sites, the cathedral and an art museum, and they were both kind of busts. Mark went to the cathedral (I was doing laundry) and quickly texted me not to waste my time when I was free. It was built to replace Lille’s major church, destroyed during the French Revolution, but took some 150 years – from 1854 to 1999 – to complete. And while much of the church is classic Gothic, the façade is a truly ugly modern structure. He hated it and since I’d already walked past it and seen that weird front I didn’t go to see it.

The Palais de Beaux Art was a gorgeous building. Sadly the architecture was the highlight.

And then the art museum, the Palais des Beaux Arts, has the second largest collection in France, behind only the Louvre. Apparently the gap between numbers one and two is pretty large; there just wasn’t much there to impress. A kind of second-rate El Greco, a few Reubens and that was about it. They had an exhibit linking Monet to Joan Mitchell, one of the giants of abstract expressionism. So they had three of her late-in-life works and six of his. Interesting but … modest.

My favorite – the walking/running trails in the Citadel Park

With that said, there were still some highlights. As I said the Old City – especially the central square, the Grand Place – was nice. The food was nothing short of great; every meal was a treat. There is a wonderful park maybe half a mile west of the city center, perfect for walking, running, and reading … and I did all three there. A really nice gym that sold day passes for just €10. And then one thing we love about traveling in France: laundromats everywhere!

That’s it, then. A quick, rewarding stop in Lille. Next up, Amiens.

The quaint Old City

More Mark

It’s a city made for outdoor drinking and dining

Lunch at Brasserie Campion, a crazy good restaurant we stumbled on

Another great lunch at Jour de Pesce, a fish restaurant

While Mark was distinctly unimpressed with the cathedral, the Church of St. Maurice had that old European church smell and some beautiful stained glass windows

A quick outdoor espresso on arrival in Lille

See? I said it was a city for eating outdoors

So many interesting buildings

Another church in Lille, but this one was closed for renovation

Dalat

Posted by Jim St. George on February 28, 2024

Posted in: Asia, Vietnam. Leave a Comment

Here I am in a sea-themed room in the Crazy House. Crazy indeed.

D is for Dalat. And for Disappointment. We first read about Dalat back in 2001 in anticipation of our first trip to Vietnam. At an elevation of nearly 5,000 feet it’s a colonial hill-town, first settled by the French in the early 20th century as a place to escape the heat of Saigon. Studded with old French villas and favored with a spring-like climate, with lots of opportunities for adventure tourism in the area, it sounded like someplace we would really like.

As we had to make choices of where to go during our 2001 vacation, it got struck from the list. Then we came back in 2014 … and it got struck again. This time I was determined to make it to Dalat. The result? Meh… More quirk than fabulous.

One of the joys of traveling in Southeast Asia is getting your laundry done. This lovely woman did maybe a week’s worth of laundry for us for a total of about $6.50. And folded it way better than I ever could.

Speaking of quirky, how do you like this little water feature in a park by the train station?

I was expecting some of the beauty of Hanoi and Hoi An, and we just never found it. There was some colonial architecture sprinkled around, but what there was was always surrounded by distinctly inferior stuff. The morning and evening temperatures were quite pleasant, but in mid-day it was just too hot to really enjoy being out and about. And 20+ years after we first anticipated coming here – with age and bad knees inhibiting us – we were way less interested in climbing around in canyons and so on.

Oh, and one other strike against Dalat. We made a rookie mistake and took a nice hotel but that was too far from the center of the city to just hang out in the tourist zone. It was about a 50-minute walk from our hotel to what seems as though it was the city center and while that’s doable, you don’t want to do it very often. On the other hand taking a taxi – or actually Grab, the Uber-equivalent here – was ridiculously cheap and easy, maybe $2.25 or so for the ride. I should add that while the hotel was nice enough, it was quirky. Just weird stuff about how the room was designed and how the grounds were nice but had no place to sit. Just kind of quirky.

Ok then, if it’s hotter than you expect, you’re further away from things than you want to be, and it’s just not that pretty a place, what do you do in Dalat? We found a few things. First up, you have to see the Crazy House. Yup, that’s what it’s called, and it is very aptly named. It’s crazy. I can describe it no better than to just quote Lonely Planet. “Imagine sculptured rooms connected by superslim bridges rising out of a tangle of concrete greenery, an excess of cascading lava-flow-like shapes, wild colors, spiderweb windows, and an almost organic quality to it all, with the swooping handrails resembling jungle vines. Think of Gaudí and Tolkien dropping acid together and designing their own version of Disneyland.” Definitely raising the quirk factor for Dalat.

Atop one of the crazy winding slim bridges with a couple new friends

That pretty much sums it up. The book describes it as a private home, but these days it seems to be a small one-star hotel. The woman who designed it over a number of years has a PhD in architecture and is the daughter of the second president of Vietnam, the guy who succeeded Ho Chi Minh. We were distinctly skeptical about what we would experience there, but we both loved it. Another example that when you think perhaps you’ve seen it all, you haven’t. And a crazy way to spend an hour or so.

Then there was this cog train that takes you about 30 minutes out to a town called Trai Mat. There are only two reasons to go to Trai Mat: to ride the train, because it’s a tourist attraction (described in the English translation at the train station as a “fake antique” car), and to see the Linh Phuoc Pagoda. The train ride itself was fun – on narrow tracks with buildings and farms built right up along the tracks. And then the pagoda was … quirky. Extravagantly colored tiles everywhere, a dragon made from more than 10,000 beer bottles, a seven-story pagoda that you climb to the top of to see … not very much.

The dragon made of 10,000 beer bottles. Quirky, right?

That was about it for sights. Of course our favorite thing to do in a city is to scope out the food scene. This was seriously hit or miss. Lunch at the hotel on arrival, when we discovered how far we were from the city center where we thought we’d find nicer restaurants, was just awful. A Mexican restaurant where we had dinner one night that was the second-highest rated restaurant on Trip Advisor was worse, way worse. Like the worst guacamole I’ve ever had. Just terrible.

I don’t think I’ve ever had pizza this good outside of Naples

The team at Gemination Eatery & Bar

Ah, but then there were some real finds. Like Primavera, a small Italian restaurant run by a real Italian. We stopped for lunch and Mark decided to splurge on a pizza. The second the waiter brought it out and I smelled it and saw it I said out loud “Oh my God, that’s the real thing!” It was a true Neapolitan pizza. We chatted a bit with the owner/chef who talked about getting the crust exactly like they do in Naples. So the next day we went back and both got pizzas. I can spend weeks in Italy without splurging on a pizza, but this was worth it.

And we found what has to be one of the great bar/restaurants in all of Vietnam, a place called Gemination Eatery & Bar. Just a very cool space, well designed, and bartenders who seriously knew what they were doing. As in knew the difference between a Manhattan and a Perfect Manhattan without being prompted. Even knew the proper garnish! The first night we just stopped for drinks, but with every round they brought us some tasty little bite of something-or-other. So the next night we went for drinks and dinner and were thrilled with the food. A place that good, that we loved – you just know it’ll be out of business too soon.

So yeah, Dalat was a disappointment. But D doesn’t stand for Disaster – that would be way too much. Just not as exciting or pretty as I’d long hoped. I will, however, dream about that pizza for a long time. Now get ready for a lot of pictures of the Crazy House.

The Crazy House

A view inside one of the rooms at the Crazy House hotel. It’s only a one-star hotel and I’m pretty sure the rooms didn’t have en suite bathrooms. On top of that, of course, I’m not sure how I’d feel staying in a room with tourists poking their heads in all the time.

Very weird architecture

Crazy winding stairs connecting various spaces

Weird designs on the exterior of one of the buildings

Mark outside one of the first buildings we saw in the complex. It got weirder and weirder.

These narrow, winding stairs are in no way child-friendly

One last picture of me on the stairs of the Crazy House. Gaudí must be in a jealous rage.

Here I am at our Italian lunch spot with a plate of tagliata. That’s before I discovered the pizza.

And that was my little friend for lunch

Our wonderful bartender at Gemination. He could be working at any bar in Manhattan.

Our “fake antique” train to Trai Mat

Korean ladies in a tour group on the train. We were always amused at how insistent so many women here are about keeping their skin completely covered and protected from the sun. You can see the woman near the window wearing gloves. And it was 80 degrees!