Well that about wraps it up for France for this year. They have treated me well with interesting places, good food, good wine occasional good conversation and, let’s say, variable weather. Today felt like I had started coming home with the longish drive from Rennes to Ousitreham for the ferry tomorrow morning. I picked a few places generally along the route to stop for a walk or two, take some photos and grab a snack. I headed north from Rennes on a day when an efficient heat pump in the car was required. 10ºC for the first hour of two. I chose to stop at Combourg with a lake, a chateaux and a small old town. It was fine but the chateau was essentially invisible from in the town itself. As I approached Combourg It was like someone had pulled a curtain across the middle distance and by the time I had parked and started walking it was total cloud cover. This remained for most of the day with occasional bursts of sunlight. My next stop was Dinan or rather my next planned stop was Dinan. It is market day and all of the city centre car parks were either full or one is actually the market. I could find no street parking so decided to drop down to the port. no joy there either. It was not just that there was nowhere to park but there were lots of cars looking for spaces so the result was some bizarre driving, last minute braking, last minute turns and gesturing. I was pleased to get away and headed up to the coast at Dinard, opposite St Malo, on the Rance estuary. Parking was a doddle in a nice, free for one hour, covered car park allowing a nice walk around the coast to the beach and restaurants. The Rance estuary has an interesting place in engineering and environmental history with the worlds first tidal barrage opened in 1966. It has proved marginally successful from an engineering viewpoint, showing that it can be done and what to expect from it. After recovering the cost of construction which was immense it generates electricity a little cheaper than nuclear. The environmental impact has been negative with loss of some species of fish and reduced support for water birds. The fact that it has operated for nearly 60 years tells use everything we need to know about tidal barrages and demonstrates why one in the Bristol channel is overall a bad idea. My next stop was the port at Cancale on the bay of Mont St Michel. It was very busy and I got one of the last 2 parking places. It is pleasant but the haze prevents the view of the tip of the Mont on the other side of the bay. It was also time for a change of jacket as a brisk chilly wind was blowing in. That was about it except for a stop for coffee and a madeleine close to the Mont itself. I have taken the trip across the causeway and enjoyed the mount on a previous visit but it is always an impressive sight and I have enjoyed a snack in this same place before. Then all that was left was a burn along the A64 for a final charge for the car before getting to the hotel by the ferry terminal in Ouistreham. I’ll go in reverse order with the photos. First Mont St Michel. The car has dirt from most of western France on it somewhere. The next two photos are from the port at Cancale followed by three at the Barrage on the Rance Estuary. The whirlpool is the entrance to a turbine and shows that the tide is comeing in as this is the sea side. There is a nice view up to St Malo. I have included six photos from Dinard including Alfred Hitchcock and the birds, statue and real. The final six are from Combourg.