Promenading on the beach is a popular pastime.
It's about 180km from Morlaix to Saint-Malo, so this day would be the biggest drive of our trip, but a long way short of mammoth 6 hour drives we have done in the USA, for example. The road was a motorway the entire way, so we made short work of the distance, even though it rained almost the entire journey. Towards the end of the drive we crossed over the department boundary into Ille-et-Vilaine, although we were still in the region of Brittany. We arrived planning to have a baguette and cheese for lunch at a nice spot opposite the beach only to discover this city is an overdeveloped nightmare. There's nowhere to park or even stop and overlook the beach. For much of the beachfront, the road running alongside the coast (as shown on our navigators) has been converted to a footpath, not a bad thing, but it means that you can't approach the beach even for a glimpse when in your car.
Fort National, just off the walled city, was built by Vauban in 1689.
This guy and others were tame and used to being fed, we think.
The western end of downtown (where our hotel turned out to be) did have a street, Chaussée de Sillon running along the beach but there was no parking available there, and even if there was, any view was obstructed by a huge seawall. Depressed, we found a grotty spot in a nearby port area to have our picnic lunch, and then went looking for our hotel, Le Nouveau Monde, another inspired "damn the expense" choice, but in a fabulous location overlooking the water. At last we could see the beach! The hotel has its own paid parking, but we were extraordinary lucky and sprung one of few free and unlimited spots directly opposite. This is a walkable town, so we left the car there untouched for four days.
Our hotel bedroom, real comfortable and fabulous beach view.
Buildings along the Saint-Malo seafront all appear to be for holiday accommodation.
The beach at Saint-Malo, wow! The tidal amplitude here is up to 10m and the surface slope is shallow, so at low tide it's a vast expanse of drying sand, ideal for the French habit of promenading. Luckily, the sand is fine enough and yellow, making it great looking and good walking. At high tide, the water comes right up to the seawall, and if the sea is rough (as it was on one night) it's a spectacular sight as waves crash over the wall and flood the footpath and street until it flows away. The waves are tempered by attractive artificial groynes of tree trunks, but they are no match for big seas. This sight, of the entire beach waxing and waning, will be our enduring memory of Saint-Malo.
At low tide the beach is wide...
But high tide and a storm is an entirely different look/
Tree trunk groyne walls seem designed to manage big seas.
Taking advantage of the wild conditions.
Saint-Malo is a huge tourist destination, maybe the first we have come to on this driving trip. We read that its population swells by about 400% in summer. The port has a huge ferry terminal which receives arrivals from Portsmouth, Poole and the channel islands of the United Kingdom. We can imagine how crowded with English tourists this place becomes, and wonder if there's an equivalent number of French tourists visiting England? It's winter here, and all those overseas visitors were missing, we didn't hear anyone else speaking English, but the town was still buzzing with French visitors who presumably drove here, and lots of locals probably enjoying the pre-season lull.
Lovely old posters encouraging visitors to Saint-Malo.
Notable Brittany intellectual François-René de Chateaubriand (d1848) who thought of himself as the greatest greatest writer, philosopher and lover of his age is buried in St Malo and celebrated here greatly.
But this attention meant something we haven't seen before on our drive of Brittany, businesses being open! Not all of them by any means, but it was a pleasure to be able to walk the streets and have a real choice of bars, cafes and restaurants, and a decent number of other stores. And the rigorous dining hours enforced elsewhere seem to be relaxed somewhat - now you can get lunch outside the slender 12:00-13:00 window, and have dinner befor 19:00. We took advantage of this flexibility to eat and drink at hours which better suit our stuck-in-the-mud stomach habits.
Bars in Intra-Muros were popular especially with local college students during their breaks. We avoided them to stay away from their cigarette smoke.
Open creperie inside the walled city.
Cute shopfront for a store selling products manufactured in Brittany.
Shop inside the walled city.
The first township at what is now Saint-Malo was established by the iron age Celtic Gauls in the 100 years BC. After the fall of the Roman Empire, Amoricans arrived in droves around 600AD+- from Britain to escape instability there, becoming the Bretons of Bretagne. Wikipedia says that the modern Saint-Malo originated in a monastic settlement founded by Saint Aaron and Saint Brendan early in the 700'sAD with the name coming from a follower of Brendan, Saint Malo or Maclou, who immigrated from Wales. Much later, the town was notorious for corsairs, French privateers and sometimes pirates who extracted tribute from English ships passing up the Channel. Breton native Jacques Cartier (d1557) from Saint-Malo was the first European to describe and map the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the Saint Lawrence River, which he named "The Country of Canadas", after the Iroquois names for nearby settlements, gaining credit for the "discovery" of Canada.
Inside the Saint-Vincent cathedral of the walled city.
Somewhere in that history, a large and fantastic walled city, La Ville Intra-Muros, was built in or around Saint-Malo. It's a real city, much larger and more impressive than the one we saw in Concarneau, and is packed tight with apartments, shops, cafes, churches, schools and colleges. It is a live city, with its own population, and we saw schools and colleges with many students operating inside the walls. This city, which the buses call Intra-Muros, was a great highlight of our stay in Saint-Malo.
Main entrance to Intra-Muros at night.
Chimney pots as an art form!
Architectural detail within the walled city.
Fort National just off Saint Malo beach reflected in the wet sand.
Interesting ceiling detail in the walled city fish market.
A sad true story lies behind this restored statue of an "ugly woman with baby".
Symbol of the old walled city may refer to the guard dogs set loose after gates were shut at night.
The Germans occupied Saint-Malo during World War II, and refused to surrender even towards the end when defeat was inevitable. No doubt the walled fortifications provided a great defensive position. So, in late 1944, the historic walled city of Saint-Malo was almost totally destroyed by allied shelling and bombing. After the war, the city was rebuilt over many years and, by looking the the buildings, its possible to identify the ramshackle buildings which survived the attack in amongst the orderly (but tight packed) new constructions. The Germans did apparently allow French citizens to escape the bombing, and its interesting to read the (excellent and comprehensive) interpretive signage all over the city. The French were being defended, of course, and so the signage mostly refers to a "fire" politely without much reference to how it came about.
Memorial to victims of hatred and genocide in WW2.
Blocks and blocks of new apartments all built after the bombing on WW2.
Magnificent dormer windows and chimney structures on the post WW2 walled city apartments.
There is an elevated walk around almost the whole of Intra-Muros. We walked it several times - it gives a great view of the inside of the city, of the port area outside, of statues of notable historic figures, and of the beaches and offshore forts. It's good exercise, being several kilometers in length with lots of steps. And, when it's sunny and not blowing a gale, its very pleasant up there.
The walk along the ramparts goes around 90% of the walled city.
Ferries bring in masses of visitors to Saint-Malo, especially in the season.
Panorama from Saint-Malo's walled city.
Only the ducks were using this rockpool on the Plage de Bon Secours.
There's probably a lot more to Saint-Malo than we saw, but that beach and the old city were enough to keep us entertained (and fed and watered) for four days. We took the opportunity to do some laundry too, with everything within easy walking distance of our hotel, so our rental car had a nice rest, and a good wash in the rain, while we were here.
An amusement park suddenly burst into life one midweek afternoon - no school?
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