St. Malo

St. Malo is an adorable beach town in Brittany. Brittany (Bretagne in French and Breizh in Breton) starts west of Mont-St-Michel and extends to the western edge of France. In 1491, the French King Charles VIII forced Brittany's 14-year old Duchess Anne to marry him. Brittany, with Anne as Queen, gained certain rights, including free roads. To this day, Brittany is the only region in France that has toll-free freeways.

We stayed near the beach to the east of old town. This place gets pretty crowded in July and August but in May, it was nice and tourist-free. It was a 6-minute walk from our hotel, along the beach, to the old city. 

There is the ubiquitous carousel, found all over France.

The town is surrounded by ramparts.

Enter the town through the main gate (Porte St. Vincent). The town has no major sites but the town itself is the attraction. We walked the town in the early evening when the locals were just coming out to play.

Follow Rick Steves' tour and troll along the ramparts. To reach the beginning of the tour, keep the Chateau on your right after you enter Porte St. Vincent and you will reach Porte St. Thomas. The stairs are just next to it. Walk the 1-mile tour counterclockwise. 

You'll see fortifications along the rampart.

The tree trunks in the water form part of St. Malo's breakwater.

There's even a park on the rampart

with a statue of Jacques Cartier, inaugurated by Canada in 1984 on the 450th anniversary of Cartier's first voyage to Canada.

You can catch a ferry to England from here.

Across the water, you can see the town of Dinard.

After you come down from the ramparts, walk around the old town. 

Even though the town looks old, over 80% of the town was decimated in WW II and most of the buildings were rebuilt after 1945.

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