Tropical Bretagne

We are visiting friends who have a vacation home in Dinard, a small village in Bretagne with a front row seat to the walled town of St. Malo.

What most surprises me is the color of the water, which reminds me much more of the tropics than of the Atlantic beaches I grew up seeing in the Northeast of the US. Technically, this isn't the Atlantic either, I suppose. It's really on "La Manche" -- meaning "The Sleeve", which we know as the English Channel. The water is crystal clear and turquoise, but one thing that isn't tropical is the temperature.  Brrr! It's around San Francisco's Pacific water temps, about 17°C, or 62°F.

 

 

Below: the signature blue-and-white-canvas changing cabanes of Dinard, and the red-and-white-wooden cabanes of nearby Saint Lunaire, a town I keep mistakenly calling Saint Nectaire, which is a not a town but rather a stinky cheese.

 

 

Low tide phenomenon: boats parked on mud. They'll be floating again at high tide.

 

 

Going out at low tide to fish in the tidepools.

 

 

 

Another low-tide favorite: digging their own hot tub. Which is cold. But fun!  

  

Pippa and her school friend, whose family has invited us to stay at their guest house. Her mother is one of my favorite new French friends, and she has an older brother in Gigi's class who plays a mean game of YAHTzee (or, in French, YahtZEE), so it's like a full family playdate! Too bad Anthony's back in Paris at work, because the dads get along famously, too.