Vitri - 6/6

Alas, boys are gone. That said, what a day we had.

First, onto the Chateau de Fougeres, Europe’s largest preserved medieval fortress, it’s really an amazing site and very large. The castle is unusual in that it sits in a the valley with the lower village surrounding it and then up on a bluff is the higher village where the middle class merchant stayed.

Second, onto the Chateau de Combourg, a medieval castle converted to a chateau, and childhood home of François-René de Chateaubriand, the renowned writer and diplomat who pioneered French Romanticism. His most famous work is Memoirs from Beyond the Grave. "The book is suffused with a sense of loss and melancholy, as Chateaubriand mourns the passing of the old order and reflects on mortality, personal tragedy, and the fleeting nature of existenc." despite the Romanticism, Chateaubriand was a survivor who lived through the ancient regime, the revolution, the terror, Napoleon, and the restoration.

We had a public guided tour that was excellent. The inside has been updated for comfort including central heating.

Our hotel in Vitre is quite nice but I forgot that our dinner reservation was in town. So we ate a rather odd meal of prepared foods you select from a case (Before the concierge, came over and told us about our reservation downtown)😉. Sad, but we were pretty tired and happy to return to our rooms early for a change. In five of the nights on this trip, we’ve closed down the restaurant.Read more