Place du Maréchal Foch

The Place du Maréchal Foch is a public square in Dinard, the Belle Époque seaside resort on the Emerald Coast of Brittany, facing Saint-Malo across the mouth of the Rance estuary.

The name honours Ferdinand Foch, one of the great French soldiers of the First World War. Born in 1851 in Tarbes, in the Pyrenees, Foch rose to command the Allied armies on the Western Front in 1918, when the Allies were threatened by the last German offensive, and he led them to the series of victories that brought the war to an end. He received the armistice from the German delegation on 11 November 1918, in a railway carriage in the forest of Compiègne, and he was made a Marshal of France that year, and later a Marshal of Great Britain and of Poland. After his death in 1929 he was buried at Les Invalides in Paris, and many French towns gave his name to squares and streets, which explains why a resort like Dinard has a square in his honour.

The square forms part of the urban fabric of a town that grew in a short time. Until the 1830s Dinard was a fishing village. The arrival of British families, who admired the mild climate and the views across to Saint-Malo, transformed it into a fashionable resort, and by the end of the nineteenth century hundreds of villas had been built along the cliffs and promenades, in a variety of styles. The centre of town grew up around the beaches, the casino and the streets that lead to them, with hotels, shops and cafés.

A small square in a resort like this one is usually a place to pause, with benches, trees and perhaps a monument, between the beach and the shops. It is free to enter and open at any time. From the area, it is easy to walk to the Casino de Dinard, the Plage du Pâquis, the Quai des Indes and the Église Saint-Sauveur, and the Promenade du Clair de Lune, a path along the shore lined with villas and flowers, is among the most attractive walks in Brittany. Boats cross the Rance to Saint-Malo in a few minutes, and the Île de Cézembre can be visited in summer.

The square suits visitors who like to explore a resort on foot. Allow half an hour.