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Dinan is a French commune, a sub-prefecture located in the
Côtes-d'Armor department in the Brittany region. It is a town in the
Poudouvre, a traditional country in the northeast of Upper Brittany.
By order of the Prefect of Côtes-d'Armor dated September 30,
2017, published in JORF No. 21 of January 26, 2018 of September 30,
2017, the new municipality of Dinan was created in place of the
municipalities of Dinan and Léhon ( canton of Dinan, arrondissement
of Dinan) from January 1, 2018.
The town of Dinan is
fortified by a belt of ramparts and was defended by an imposing
castle. Strategic point for traffic between Normandy and the north
coast of Brittany, Dinan is built mainly on a hill. The city
dominates by 75 m the Rance which flows north to flow into the
Channel between Saint-Malo and Dinard. Dinan long proposed the
northernmost bridge to cross the Rance and its wide estuary.
Dinan is the headquarters of Dinan Agglomeration, an agglomeration
community created in 2017.
Its 14,222 inhabitants (in 2016)
are Dinannais and Dinannaises.
The castle of Dinan is a former fortified castle, from the
fourteenth century, having replaced an ancient fortress, altered
several times, which stands in the French commune of Dinan in the
Côtes-d'Armor department, in the Brittany region. The castle is
classified as historical monuments by decree of July 12, 1886.
An ancient fortress stood in Dinan before the castle erected in
the fourteenth century. In 1064, William led an expedition against
Brittany in which Harold Godwinson actively participated, who would
then be his opponent at the Battle of Hastings. The Bayeux tapestry,
scene 18 to 20, relates the successive captures of the fortresses of
Dol-de-Bretagne, Rennes, where Conan II of Brittany took refuge
after having fled Dol-de-Bretagne, and Dinan, where Conan made the
keys to the city at the end of a spear.
Having emerged
victorious from the war of succession in Brittany, John IV the
Conqueror, Duke of Brittany, decided to build a main tower in Dinan
in 1380 in order to assert his authority in a city that had long
supported his rival Charles from Blois. Under the supervision of the
master builder Étienne le Tur, the site was completed in 1393 and
perhaps even as early as 1384. Made up of two round towers adjoining
the junction of which is reinforced to the west by a square front
section, the building rises to more than 30 meters. The crown is
reinforced by consoles of machicolation with four projections. The
lower projection, very stretched, allows the console to rely on a
larger number of seats, while offering a high quality aesthetic
rendering. Originally, a slate roof covered the whole.
At the
end of the 16th century, Dinan became a stronghold of the Catholic
League and, under the impetus of the Duke of Mercœur, governor of
Brittany, major modifications were undertaken. In order to reunite
the main tower with the Coëtquen tower (an artillery tower erected
at the end of the 15th century), a military sheath called “the
Mercoeur underground” was fitted, leading to the condemnation of the
Guichet gate which was then walled up. At the same time, a high
courtyard, protected by spur structures, was built. Very
significantly, it is towards the city, and not towards the outside,
that the embrasures are then turned.
Abandoned in the 17th
century, the castle is the subject of two reports, in 1693 and 1701,
by the military engineer Siméon Garangeau. Boasting the
architectural quality of the building, he suggests work to transform
the main tower into a military prison. Throughout the eighteenth
century, English sailors lived there by the hundreds. As a result of
these transformations, the roof is permanently replaced by a terrace
while the apse of the chapel is pierced to accommodate a new front
door.
Having become a common law prison in the 19th century,
the castle was bought at the beginning of the 20th century by the
town of Dinan which set up its municipal museum there in 1908.
Dedicated to the history and crafts of Dinan and its territory, the
collections of the Museum of Dinan include many ethnographic objects
collected in the municipalities of the edges of Rance. Gradually
withdrawn from the castle in 2015, the collections are now kept in
the municipal reserves.
In 2014, the City of Dinan wished to
carry out an ambitious program of restoration and enhancement of the
monument made possible thanks to important historical research which
allowed another look at the castle. Inaugurated on June 9, 2019,
this project includes major work on the monument - starting with the
opening to the public of the "Mercoeur underground" and the
restitution of the influence of the main courtyard - but also the
implementation of place of a new scenography whose two themes "the
art of war in the fifteenth century" and "daily life in the princely
residences" are at the service of the understanding of the castle
and its architecture.
By train
Take the TGV towards Saint-Malo and get off at
Dol-de-Bretagne. Take the Dol-Dinan line (quite bucolic route)
Dinan station
By car
Car parks (underground and outdoor) paying at 1 € per
hour.
Free car parks: Porte Saint-Malo, Grands Fossés, Place
Duguesclin (all year except summer from mid-June to September)
By bus
Bus lines are not numerous.
In 2006, the single
ticket was 0.76 €.
The main lines are:
Line 2: Place
Duclos / Station / Hospital
Line 4: Place Duclos / Le Port /
Youth hostel