This seems to be the biggest town we’ve stayed in since leaving Paris. The Hotel Beaumont is right on the water, and our room has a terrace. We walk out and there’s the pounding surf! It pounds into the curved stone wall that creates a break, and occasionally splashed up and covers the walkway that follows the whole line of houses and hotels along the shore. What a great sound!
We walk along the “boardwalk” into the old town, enjoy the logged trees that have been inserted in the same (some kind of erosion protection?)
and here we came to the ancient walled city on one side
and a beautiful harbor filled with old seagoing double-masted schooners on the other. We walk through and around the city, filled with more creperies per hectare than I’ve ever seen, shopping, of course, and churches, of course. A bit of breakfast at a lovely place,
then we head out to walk along the ramparts, and see that the tide is getting lower and lower (low tide at 1:30 pm). It gets to the point where we can walk along the path to an old fort, and you can see in the photo below two of the several forts perched on various islets/rock mounds that protected this city – a very important one in defending Brittany.
Interesting factoid: Jacques Cartier set off from St. Malo quite a ways back, and he discovered Canada! That’s what led to the french-speaking province.
There’s even a swimming pool that naturally fills with seawater:
and it’s so easy to see why this place must be bustling in the summertime. We have lunch at a lovely spot – so french and so cozy:
lovely tea service:
and my seafood stew with herbed mashies presented beautifully (and great comfort food!):
le dessert? bien sur! gateau au choclate aver noisettes et amandes:
don’t you just love the beach-swept hair?
A leisurely walk back to our hotel for an afternoon rest. The tide is so far out, it makes us thing of what the beach looked like in the move “The Impossible” as the tidal wave that his Thailand was preparing to make its way in. People were out walking, collecting mussels (?) and enjoying the rocky terrain that had been uncovered.
Here’s the beach shown above with the tide in – quite a difference!
A nap, and then Lance heads out to see the largest hydroelectric plant in the world that draws from the power of tides, I laze a bit more, then head down to the tea/breakfast room in our hotel to update the blog. The water is amazing!! It has come all the way back in (remember, high tide around 6 pm?) and is pounding up against the wall. No more than 20 feet from where I sit in the windowed salon, when a mighty boom sends frothy water up over the wall to cover the boardwalk, the hotel clerk goes onto the back patio and inserts wooden boards between the opening (for walking out onto the boardwalk from inside) in the back wall to prevent their little terrace from being soaked. The sun comes out from behind the clouds (it’s been raining off and on all day) and I look out at the sea, which has returned to hug the city once again. Amazing.
We have quiet evening in, preparing for our visit to Dinan tomorrow (another medieval, walled town) and then 4-hour ride to Charles de Gaulle for an overnight and morning departure. Thanks for visiting with us while we’re away. I will update with more pictures when I return – suddenly the internet stopped allowing me to upload!