Todays adventure was a 3 hour cruise up the La Rance river to the town of Dinan, an old buildings enthusiasts paradise as most of the buildings in quite a large town are 15th & 16th century. 

It is an amazing town, I am afraid I was expecting a few picturesque houses, there are hundreds of them spanning quite a large area and on a slightly damp day out of the main season there were not too many tourists to spoil the views.

To get there we had to pass through a lock in the tidal barrage. In the 1960's, way before wind  and wave power became fashionable the French built a dam right across the river which supposedly generates power from the river flowing out and the tide flowing in. It was thought to be a white elephant at the time, the French HS2, but all the building costs have been recovered and it generates 0.1% of Frances electricity for free. As we were passing through at high tide I was expecting a drop into the river but we rose about 20ft. Wikipedia says it is a tidal system (the largest in the world for 45 years) so perhaps with all the rain we have had the river is just very high and the flow is always out to sea.  

Not sure what we are doing tomorrow, that will be decided over dinner and a full report will be posted in due course.