An Unplanned Year

This morning we headed to the ferry terminal to catch the ferry to France.

A few hours later we arrived in St.Malo.
It had been our intention to park up and look around, but being a lovely sunny Sunday afternoon, all carparks were full, so we rerouted to Mont Saint-Michel.
After parking up we hopped on the shuttle bus to the causeway.

We headed in to the commune and started up the hill. It was very crowded, something we really have not been used to for the past few months!

We popped into a bar for a beverage and some lunch, a delicious charceuterie plate.
We then braced ourselves and went back into the throng and headed up to the abbey.
Approximately 999 steps later, we reached the entry!

We followed the tour path through the abbey. Our highlights were the terrace where we could see the receded  shoreline some 14km away (according to the leaflet) and the mudflats that went on forever,

and the scale of the abbey, especially impressive given it is 8 years younger than the Battle of Hastings!

When we were done we made our way back down the street, past all the shops, to the shuttle buses and headed to a supermarket that we knew was open, did a quick shop for dinner items and then drove to our accommodation for the next few days, a gite at the end of a long gravel road.

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This morning we headed back to St.Malo and found parking easily. It was a good decision to swap plans yesterday.

St Malo is such a pretty town, that was once a stronghold of privateers, pirates basically, but approved by the King.

St.Malo is also very near where Sarah’s great-grandfather’s first wife lived. She was the person who made the French lace christening gown that has been worn by 4 generations of her family.
We wandered around the walled city for a while, browsing the various market stalls, visiting the cathedral and locating one thing Sarah wanted to see. It ended up being a bit of a food day.
The cathedral was unique as it was multi-level, we’ve never seen that in a church before.

There were two clear parts to the church, the upper part had much older, more traditional stained glass windows. The lower part had much more modern stained glass windows.

The cathedral was badly damaged during WW2 and the spire collapsed into the “newer” (i.e. rebuilt) part. In fact, 683 of the 865 old town buildings were destroyed in August 1944 as Allies attacked German strongholds.

We stopped for brunch at a cafe serving crêpes, gallettes and the local drink ‘le Cidre’ served in a coffee cup! The dishes were delicious!

We were pleased to remember enough French to conduct the entire transaction without using English.
We then looked for La Maison du Beurre Bordier, a place Sarah wanted to visit after seeing it in a french class video several years ago. It was a combined museum and shop all about butter. They still hand shape the butter using wooden paddles. The museum also has an aerial photo post August 1944 showing total destruction of entire blocks of the town, but with this building still intact.

We bought some butter to take home to have with some yummy bread this evening, and some madelines. Yum!

We then walked around the town ramparts, the water looked amazing, and there were multiple forts built on rocky islands in the bay nearby.

Leaving the ramparts we started heading to the car and had to pass through an artists market. We bought one painting fewer than we wanted to!

We then headed to Cancale, a town with a huge history of Oyster production. We had a late lunch there, oysters obviously, they were so delicate compared to other oysters we’ve had – we’re not big oyster eating people, but may have been converted today.

Lunch also comprised of hot camembert, risotto and a poorly chosen sausage dish. It smelled and tasted awful. After leaving the restaurant Kevin checked the menu and re-translated the dish name. Yep. It was a tripe sausage. Must pay better attention to what the sausage is made from in future! Credit to him, he ate over half of it.

We then located a place to go for a swim, a lovely little bay village beach called Plage de Port Mer. The water was cool but very refreshing.
We then found a supermarket, grabbed some bread for our butter and some eggs and headed back to our accommodation.

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Today we headed to Dinan. We were told yesterday that it was a lovely ancient walled village perched on a hilltop.
And it is.
We eventually found a park just outside the historic Porte de Guichet and went in to explore.

The tourist info office had suggested routes so we followed one.

We passed the Château de Dinan, walked down Rue de l’Horloge past the Tour de l’Horloge, past and into L’Eglise St.Malo, down Rue de Jerzual which used to be the main thoroughfare and the went in search of the ramparts.

These are only partially intact so you can’t walk all the way around the old town.

From there we started to head back to the car via the Basilique Saint-Sauveur.
Part way through our walk we stopped for gallettes, crêpes and le cidre.

We then drove the scenic route to a church we had seen from a road the other day.

It was quite large for being seemingly in a generic small town. It turns out that Dol-de-Bretagne, was the original capital of the Kingdom of Breton when it was formed in the 9th century. Cathédrale Saint-Samson was built in the 13th century.

Of interest, All the stained glass windows were removed at the time of ww2 as they feared damage from bombings. It took 6 years to put them back.

In early August 1944 an American colonel arranged a meeting with the German officer in command of the are la and negotiated the German withdrawal to as to prevent the Dol-de-Bretagne area, town and cathedral being bombed.

We headed back to our accommodation from there to do some bookings for our time in Paris which starts tomorrow.