Travel Blog – 1st May 2023

We left Rennes and made our way to St Malo on the northern coast of France. On the way, we stopped for lunch at a tiny little town called Dinan. This place was breath-taking: A village perched on a hilltop behind an ancient fortress wall, leading down to a valley where cafes and restaurants lined a canal that snaked its way to the sea, where St Malo is perched on the corner of the estuary.

We entered Dinan over a massive, arched bridge that looked like it belonged in a Harry Potter movie.

After parking, Rob hired a boat and we floated down the canal for an hour, enjoying the serenity and the views of the ancient town above us. Rob did an amazing job as the skipper, even though the battery powered boat was so slow there were joggers on the banks running faster than us. We floated up to a small lock, then turned around, went back under the massive arched bridge and disembarked directly in front of the restaurant that we had pre-booked for lunch. Bistrot Pilote was a delightful little restaurant and the owner, Guillame was very friendly and attentive. We started with a bottle of champagne from a small champagne house and it was super delicious. The meals were fantastic, among the best we had experienced so far.

After lunch, we climbed the steep, cobble-stoned lane up to the top of the hill. There were plenty of interesting, boutiquey shops on the way, which kept us amused for a time, but eventually the girl’s stamina for shopping outlasted the boys, so the men stopped in a small al fresco bar for a cider and watched the world go by in the sun.

After strolling the ramparts and marvelling at the expansive views, we drove on to our home for the next three days, St Malo. This place is a completely walled and fortified town, with numerous forts offshore on small, rocky islands. Inside the walls are narrow, cobble-stoned streets with hundreds of shops, creperies, restaurants and hotels, one of which we stayed at for the next three nights.

The next morning we walked around the ramparts, enjoying the views of the fortresses and islands. We observed the usual tourists taking their posey social media photos and I tried out a couple of moves. I think you’ll agree they look very stylish.

Flashback: Before we left home, Ian decided that he could do his 8 week trip with only two pairs of shoes. Of course, the inevitable happened and one pair broke while we were in Rennes. He borrowed some glue from the concierge and tried to do some home repair on them, however that failed and he was left with one pair. All of us had been bugging him to buy more shoes, which he staunchly refused to do, insisting that he wanted to wait to buy a pair of shoes from “Geppetto in Sicily”, who will apparently be hammering away out the front of his shop in a tiny Italian village. We don’t know if this Geppetto actually exists.

While were were walking on the beach below the walls of St Malo, he took his only pair of shoes off to walk on the sand. Rob ran up behind him and stole one of them. I offered Rob 20 euro if he could toss it on top of the ramparts, 8 metres above us. Rob drew his arm back to give it his best lob, but Ian managed to sneakily pilfer it back mid-throw.

After the usual lunch of galettes (can’t get enough of those things), Lidia decided to go and rest her hips, while the rest of us hopped a small ferry over the mouth of the estuary to the town of Dinard. The town itself is beautiful and the views of St Malo from over there stunning. When we returned, Lidia announced that she had been waylaid by a tiny boutique where the owner couldn’t speak a word of English. They managed to communicate using hand gestures. They communicated so well that Lidia managed to buy a jacket, two shirts and a pair of jeans. They laughed, carried on and had a great time; so great that the shop owner gifted Lidia a scarf as she left the store.

The next morning, we left early to drive out to Mont St Michell. We were happy we left early because we parked close to the shuttle that drove us the three kilometres to the walled village and hopped on the very first bus. There were hardly any people there, which enabled us to enjoy walking around the tiny streets and ramparts without massive crowds. We all split up and Lidia and I walked around inside the town, enjoying the ambience. We passed several small museums which looked incredibly dodgy and I commented to Lidia how bad they looked, wondering aloud who would be silly enough to pay money to go into them. We then wandered out onto the sand outside the walls and took some fantastic pics. Meanwhile we started receiving photos from Ian and Carmel showing us what they were up to. Guess who was silly enough to buy a four museum pass? The museums turned out to be dodgier than I thought, with pathetic mannequins of monks, rusty old suits of armour and the entire commentary in French! Some of them consisted of only one room.

When we left Mont St Michell, we were thankful we came so early, because there were literally thousands of people coming in. We were all left wondering how they all fit into the tiny town. We took the shuttle back to the car park and there was a line of people at least 500 metres long waiting for the shuttles. It was 1:00pm by this stage and I’m sure it would have taken hours to even get to the shuttle. To top it off, it started raining just as we arrived back at our cars, so there would have been thousands of wet people standing in lines when we left.

We headed back to St Malo, taking a short detour to visit a tiny village called Saint-Suliac. This village is situated directly on the shores of the estuary and it’s 900 locals live in 15th century houses kept in immaculate condition. It has been voted one of the most beautiful villages in France. We had some lunch here (galettes again!) and walked down to the foreshore and along the 100 metre long boat ramp. There were thousands of oysters clinging to the sides of the concrete boat ramp. Rob was disappointed that he didn’t have a screwdriver on him so that he could pop some open and eat a few of them.

After that some of us headed back to St Malo and Rob, Caitlynne and Ian decided to visit Cancale, a fishing village on the northern coast. Apparently, there were street vendors lining the foreshore selling fresh oysters and Rob partook in a few before returning to St Malo.

Before dinner, we decided to get together in our room for a sneaky bottle of Ruinart. Ian had far too many zero alcohol beers and Carmel took advantage of his obvious drunkenness to whisk him off to the shops. He came back with a new pair of pants and not one, but two pairs of new shoes! We were flabbergasted. Lidia was all liquored up on champagne and took herself off to her favourite little boutique, who had already earned a years revenue from her and bought another pair of pants. We then troddled off to a local seafood restaurant for dinner. Lidia, Carmel and myself had seafood platters. They included massive sea snails and tiny little sea snails called periwinkles. They weren’t my favourite, but the prawns and langoustines were beautiful. I may have embarrassed myself slightly when the waitress came over to our table and announced she was half English and half French. I said “You must hate yourself!” It sounded funnier in my head.

When we arrived back at our hotel that night, Lidia suddenly realised that she had left her handbag in the little boutique while she was trying on her new jeans. I tried texting, messaging and WhatsApping the owner and had no reply. The concierge also left a message on her answering machine. The issue we had was that it was our last night in St Malo and the following day was a public holiday for May day. The shop was going to be shut. Lidia had a sleepless night worrying about her bag, which had her mobile phone and her prescription sunglasses inside it. The next morning the owner rang me back, but unfortunately couldn’t speak English. My French is also a little rusty. When I say a little rusty, I mean that I may know six words in French if I’m lucky. While trying to explain to her that I was going to run down to the concierge, I stopped, put on some pants, then raced down to the foyer. The concierge, Maria, took the call and spoke to the lady who explained that she was shut today and lived too far away from St Malo to open the shop. She would endeavour to contact her colleague who lived locally, but couldn’t yet raise her. We spent a nervous hour waiting for news before a lady turned up at the hotel with Lidia’s bag. Lidia was so relieved she gave her a hug.

So, with handbag secure and Ian in new treads, we left St Malo and headed West towards the pink granite coast.