By Norma Hopcraft
My French friend Martine, her little white dog Tibou, my sister Chris and I went from solemnity in the abbey of Mont St. Michel to hijinks in Dinan.
We'll get to the hijinks. First I'll show you picturesqueness. Walking through the center of the village of Dinan, we found the side street that descends to the river Rance and the port of Dinan (this village is quite a ways inland but it does connect to the ocean eventually). The street knocked us sideways, it was so powerfully charming.
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Everywhere on the descent to the river we enjoyed charming scenes.
The descent to the port on the river Rance is steep, but that adds to the charm. Can you imagine living your life in one of these houses? What a beautiful scene to come home to.
The roofline is so French too.
I experimented with black and white on this same shot. What do you think? Which do you like better? Comment below!
Hydrangea in glorious bloom graced our time in Brittany and Normandy.
The perfect windowbox and the perfect sculpture for a home.
A half-timbered home dating from the Middle Ages, maybe 1200 or 1300. Just down the hill, we enjoyed an amazing lunch of galettes (crêpes in the Brittany style, made with buckwheat). Mine had honey and goat cheese in it. So fabulous! A very memorable meal.
The French gift for making beauty against old stonework.
When we got to the port, we saw that teams from Kiwanis clubs in the region were practicing rowing toward each other and then knocking the jousters (note: on a tilted platform) off each other's boats.
Even though these boats were rowed by men and women, they moved fast, and each jousting encounter was over quickly. There was only one opportunity, one thrust, to knock off your opposition.
The next day, Sunday, we went back to the port for the actual competition. The boats' teams were now dressed in costumes, like these characters from a famous French comic book series, The Adventures of Tintin.
Here's a sea captain, Captain Haddock from the Adventures of Tintin, with a fake pipe that glowed. There were Native American teams in loincloths, teams dressed as zebras and other zoo animals, etc. The Kiwanis teams used their imaginations.
This team is dressed as construction workers, plus the caller, standing at the bottom of the jouster's platform, dressed as a ....?.... traffic cone?
Bagpipe music (we are, after all, in Brittany, with strong Celtic roots) played at the start of each jousting session.
Here's a team with the King of England, his subjects -- and polo ponies.
Here's a joust in full costume, with bagpipe soundtrack.
This guy was shoved into the water, which was the whole point of the day.
How about you? Would you participate if your local Kiwanis or Rotary or Lions Club got up to such hijinks? Comment below!
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