Wide Beach and a Walled City...

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?

Kyoto - coffee, alcohol and more shrines...

A Kyoto bus turns around Gion Corner in front of the Yasaka Jinja Shrine.

Our hotel for 5 nights has been the Okura Kyoto, at the corner of Oike and Kawaramachi Streets, was a taxi ride from Kyoto Station for us and our luggage. The Okura is possibly the best we have stayed at so far on this trip. Our room is a big suite, the bathroom was spacious, the shower was hot and forcefull etc etc. Thanks Alan for arranging this stay! A great buffet breakfast was in the top floor restaurant with a great view to the east across the river, and a leaflet explained what all the landmarks are. The Okura let us check in early, and has direct underground access to a shopping centre and a subway station.

One of the very best hotels on this trip, the Kyoto Okura.

Origami cranes let for us by staff at the Okura.

The Kamogawa River travels in a straight line south down the east side of Kyoto and no doubt helped to define the rectangualr grid of this city.

Earlier crossings of the Kamogawa River have been replaced by modern bridges and even stepping stones.

Early cherry blossoms at a high school in downtown Kyoto.

Most of the tourist hotspots are in the hilly rim surrounding Kyoto, but this shrine is right in downtown on Oike-dori.

Coin laundry we used in Kyoto was tiny, modern, clean & tidy and we had to take our shoes off.

After some exhausting days on Kyoto buses, we decided to have a relaxing, walking day assisted by the subway. Higashiyama Station is only a few stops away from the hotel, and from there we walked to Shoren-in Temple just to look at its very old sprawling camphor trees, and we found a nice quiet little zen garden there too. This is a pleasant spot bypassed by most visitors, it seems.

Ancient camphor trees outside the Shoren-in Temple.

Serene zen garden at Shoren-in.

Virtually next door is Chion-in a huge and popular temple complex where the major shrine Mieido is undergoing a massive renovation and is entirely covered by a huge scaffolding shed which almost dominates the skyline. The works are not discouraging visitors - the place was quite crowded with both visitors and worshippers. Chion-in has yet another massive san-mon gate at the front steps.

Another huge but characteristic san-mon gate at Chion-in.

Bamboo grove at the Chion-in Temple complex.

Mossy ramparts on the hike upto Chion-in.

Created from wasteland only 300 years ago, Maruyama Park is very popular year round.

Under guidance of a walking map, we found Maruyama Park, a wasteland when developed some 300 years ago, now a paradise of a Japanese garden whose cherry trees must be a picture in spring. But our main objective of the walk was a giant buddha backing into the hills that we could see from our breakfast room, and which (from the hotel's annotated flyer) we figured out to be the Ryozen Kannon temple, which doesn't feature much in Kyoto highlights.

Considering the crowds nearby, it was very quiet at Ryozen Kannon, and maybe we discovered why. It memorialises some unleasant truths. The 24m high buddha is "A Tribute to The Unknown (Japanese) Soldier - World War II" according to the brochure, and an adjacent memorial is for unknown allied soldiers who died on Japanese soil or occupied territories during the war. A large card index purports to contain the names, one to a card, of every such allied soldier. And, within the temple, there is a sad memorial to miscarried babies. There are cases of tiny statuettes, which now number just under 5000.

Giant buddha at Ryozen Kannon is a tribute to unknown Japanese soldiers who died in WW2.

This memorial at Ryozen Kannon is for allied soliders who died on Japanese territory during WW2.

Side view of the buddah Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara.

Making wishes at Ryozen Kwan-on Temple.

Many of nearly 5000 statuettes at the memorial to miscarried foetuses.

Just south of Ryozen Kannon we stumbled on a shopping/cafe area which is one of the prettiest we've seen. The main street in this area was labelled Ninen-zaka Path and in that area we also saw the Yasaka Pagoda, apparently the third highest wooden structure in Kyoto.

Unheralded Ninen-zaka Path is one of the most pleasant streets in Kyoto.

We figured we would walk home from here, even though snow was still falling. We passed through the area called Gion, a very popular touristy district, found some lunch, and walked along Shimbashi Street, a reputedly beautiful historical street. It was virtually closed - obviously Sunday is not a working day along here.

These two schoolgirls asked us to participate in a survey about our favourite foods in Japan and at home.

Drip falling from a bamboo pipe at a frozen washing fountain. Note that trapped leaf!

Tasteful craft store near Gion.

The "Happy Bicycle" shop specialises in tiny models like these.

The Yasaka Pagoda overlooks a popular shopping lane near Ninen-zaka St.

Endless selfies by young ladies in kimonos.

On another day we did some socialising and visited friends of Alan Gibson in the Kyoto area of Saiin. Saiin is towards the middle of Kyoto, so well away from the touristy rim, but near the Kyoto University of Foreign Studies. Eddi (Australian born, Italian by heritage) and his Japanese wife Hiromi own a cafe called Caffellatte in Shijo Street and gave us a great welcome. We enjoyed paninis, espresso coffees and gelato, and great conversation. You can find Caffellatte at http://caffe-llatte.com/index_e.php, we can recoomend it. Thank you Eddi and Hiromi!

Hiromi and Eddi at Caffellatte in Saiin.

In the evenings in Kyoto, when not after coffee, we usually wanted something stronger, but found bars were often expensive and (worse) smoky! We know that Japanese are renowned as heavy smokers, but frankly, have scarcely noticed smoking at all, wherever we have been, until we went into a bar. Smoking is clearly now discouraged in cities, and is outright banned in some streets. Restaurants have no smoking, or at least no-smoking areas. But bars! Well, that discourages us from having another drink, which is a good thing!

Steep cover charges are apparently common, and when you are not drinking that much, makes it an expensive tipple. Frankly, we paid too much for a drink or two in several places. Tourists' dislike of the cover charges must be becoming known - we now notice places advertising no cover charges for foreigners.