(Vitré, Brittany, France)

When planning this trip, I had no problem establishing our first three destinations of Rouen, Bayeux, and Saint-Malo. It was also obvious that we should spend the last few days in Paris. However, it took a little longer to fill in the two days between Saint-Malo and Paris.

I had originally intended to select a town on the Atlantic coast of Brittany. Perhaps Carnac, with its prehistoric tombs and standing stones?  However, we really didn’t want to spend so much time on trains.  I love rail travel, but it can wear you down if you have luggage and need to change trains frequently.  So, searching for something near the TGV line between Brittany and Paris, I stumbled upon an interesting medieval relic called Vitré.

There was a castle, it was old, it had regular trains to Rennes (the biggest city in the area), and it looked to be somewhat undiscovered.  Without any more than that, the decision was made to visit Vitré, a town that was literally at the gateway to Brittany…being some distance inland from the coast and only a few kilometres from the historic boundary between Brittany and France. 

Yes, Vitré was somewhat random and we didn’t know much about it.  After arrival and check-in, we started to wander around without really knowing where we were going or what we would find.  For today’s post, I’m going to continue that theme.   Here are our jumbled first impressions of this mysterious place!

Compared to Saint-Malo, hotels were smaller and much harder to find.  We also weren’t surrounded by camera-toting travellers or dodging buses once we left the protective walls of the old city.  We got the impression that real people still lived here.  After visiting beach resorts on the coast, that realness was quite appealing.

Not all of Vitré was polished and sparkling.  Some of the medieval half-timbered homes were leaning precariously, as in Rouen, but the risk of collapse seemed just a little bit higher.  A few of the buildings were downright scruffy, something you would rarely see in a coastal beach resort.

After ensuring that we could visit the castle at pretty much any time, and ascertaining the location of the July 14 (Bastille Day/fête nationale) fireworks display, we continued our wanderings and ended our first afternoon with dinner at a highly-regarded local crêperie.  Another galette seguin…filled with chèvre, honey and nuts…this is becoming a delicious habit!  We also discovered a new beverage called cidre blanc (white cider).

We may not know much about  Vitré  yet, but our visit here has had a great start!