As promised, here is my Saint-Malo post! I had a fantastic time, got really sunburned and dehydrated, and came back covered in salt and sand. What a great last France trip! Glorp on some sunscreen, grab a beach-towel, and come along with me to gorgeous Saint-Malo!
I had to change trains (and train stations) in Paris. I was mildly concerned until I realized that I had an hour and a half to do so, and decided to enjoy myself.
STARBUCKS!!!! Sweet, sweet North American coffee. Even here, it's overpriced. So worth it. I also found a market between the two train stations that was awesome. I bought fresh fruit, bread, and cheese for lunch, and then meandered my way over to catch my train north.
Saint-Malo! What a beautiful city, and the weather was fantastic almost all weekend.
My hotel, Hotel Gambetta. Less than awesome, and smelling like smoke, but I had my own room with a huge comfy bed, and there was excellent breakfast every morning, so it balanced itself out.
After I dropped off my stuff at the hotel, I decided to find the beach. This guy looked like he knew where he was going, so I followed him.
These huge anchors were everywhere. I love the way that cities here decorate their flower beds!
Once I got to the beach, I was floored by all the gorgeous houses! The huge logs are there to break waves before they get to the walls underneath the houses. The tide gets pretty high here. Apparently it almost gets to the top of the logs!
When I win the lottery I'm totally buying this castle/house. Right at the end of the beach, with an excellent view of the ocean and the rest of the city. I want this house so bad. It has ramparts, for crying out loud! And turrets. I love turrets.
I really like this house. All the houses along the beach look like castles, with stairs down to the beach.
Darn right, I took off my boots! The sand was amazing and irresistible. My poor boots have just about had it. I've nearly worn the treads right off the soles, and I'm going to be so sad when the time comes to get rid of them! Not yet, though. We still have a lot of adventuring to do together.
The Atlantic Ocean. So dang pretty!
The tide washing over my toesies. During my stay now, I've had my feet in the Mediterranean Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, and several rivers and streams. But not the Seine. I refuse. It's dirty and icky.
Barnacles! Kind of gross. They make yucky sounds when they're out of water.
My footprints in the sand. I was feeling poetic when I took this.
Wind-surfing school! This reminded me of Cuba, when Dad and Jason tried to wind-surf. Good times.
This was really cool. I thought these guys were going to be doing land-wind-surfing. Instead, they sat in the little land-boat things and went zipping down the beach! It looked like a lot of fun.
Sandy tootsies. The sand here has a bunch of granite in it, which makes it sparkle like gold. Even after my feet dried off and I brushed off the sand, they sparkled. It made me happy.
Beach soccer. There were a ton of people on the beach, doing a bunch of different activities like badminton, wind-surfing, kite-flying, and epic sand castle-building. People here really know how to enjoy themselves. Joie de vivre is something I'm learning, and hope to bring home with me.
As I wandered down the beach I was in awe of all the gorgeous houses. I love the colours, and can only imagine how hard it must be to maintain a paint job like this with all the wind, sand, and salt that attack the house daily. That explains why there's so much stone and so little metal involved with the architecture here.
The National Fort. Charlemagne's tomb is inside, but I didn't get a chance to check it out. Charles I, aka Charles the Great and Charlemagne, was the King of the Francs from 768 to 814, and was over 6 feet tall, making him a giant in that time period. He conquered a lot of territory for the French Empire, and was one of the first emperors to create a currency system to unite his people. The fort is part of the land at low tide, and is an island at high tide.
Why Not Street. Almost as awesome as the Street of Lost Time. I love street names here!
An enormous stone cross by the beach, with the fort in the background. I'm not sure what the reason is for these crosses (there were a lot of them), but I imagine that they're for the sailors that died in service for their country.
Mmm, Ice cream. Dark chocolate and strawberry. Pretty fantastic together.
This city boasts a yacht club. For people that have yachts and a ton of spare time. When I win the lottery and buy my fabulous castle-house, I will also have a yacht and belong to the yacht club.
These guys stopped me on the street. They're getting married, and so they have to make total fools of themselves in the streets. Apparently it's very uncommon for the bride and groom to do this together. They offered me candy and then asked for money for their wedding. Of course I obliged! And then I wished them every happiness, and was on my way with a smile on my face and chocolate in my tummy.
Such a beautiful house! I bet the people that live here are super cool and/or artists. Every inch is covered in awesome mosaics and beautiful stonework. Click to enlarge the pictures.
I found this on the roof of a house while I was wandering through a residential area on the way back to the hotel. I love that people here are so into their houses! But apparently the population is very old and/or retired. So I guess that explains a lot.
The gardens here were also fantastic. These roses smelled amazing!
And they were enormous. This one would barely fit into both of my open cupped hands. I wish I could garden like this.
When I got back to the hotel, I met up with Frédéric's cousins Noël and Sandrine, and their son Élois. We wandered back up the beach together, checking out the biodiversity in the tide. This is an adorable little hermit crab. There were oodles of them!
The beautiful, sparkly sand and seashells on the beach. We collected shells as we wandered. My purse was (and still is) full of sand, and now I have a bunch more shells to bring home.
The walled city (Inter-muros) of Saint-Malo. The King hired a bunch of corsairs in the 11th century to attack his enemies, making them protected pirates. The corsairs would bring their loot back to Saint-Malo, and were entitled to a portion of their winnings. In 1144 a bishop granted the right of asylum to the city, which encouraged tons of thieves, rogues, and other unseemly sorts to move there. The city was constantly under attack because of the pirates and riches that were housed there, so it had to be heavily fortified. I think Saint-Malo has the most colourful history of any of the cities I've visited thus far.
Sandrine with an enormous chunk of seaweed. The water looks gross, but felt amazing. People come from all over to go to spas in Saint-Malo to have seaweed and algae treatments. Apparently it has some magical property that draws toxins out of the skin or something. I just liked the way it squidged between my toes. It was warm and felt really neat.
We had to walk across this to get to another part of the beach. It was slippery, but really soft.
More Atlantic foot-soaking. This was more of a rinse to get the sand and algae off. So warm!
Me in front of the fort. There's not actually a path to get to it that I found. It must have been really difficult to get supplies into it for the people that lived there.
Me and the walled city! Notice the enormous poles in the background again to break waves. I wish I had been able to see this place at high tide.
Someone was flying a colourful butterfly kite on the beach. I love this picture.
Yes please. We could all use a bit of this right about now.
Pirates! I love that there are still ships like this in use. Apparently some of the ships here are hundreds of years old, and are maintained for the tourism industry. I saw Captain Jack Sparrow wandering the streets of Saint-Malo. Neat.
"Sandcastles in the sand..." I couldn't get that song out of my head all afternoon. Thanks, How I Met Your Mother. Grumble.
Westward ho! This is a statue of Robert Sarcouf, one of the more famous corsairs that lived here.
Me, Élois, and Noël chilling with Jacques Cartier. He left Saint-Malo to discover Canada. Way to go!
Evidently people are too stupid to realize that high water and strong tides are dangerous. It's the freaking OCEAN, people. Get with the program.
Québec House! This little building hosts expositions of Québécois art, theatre, and films. Right on, eh?
If it's good enough for Jack Sparrow, it's good enough for us. This is where we ate dinner.
The Crêperie of the Caribbean. It was small and empty (not usually a good sign), but the food was awesome. I'd go back.
This was supper. The "Canadian" galette. Not sure what made it canadian. It was full of apples and cheese. So good! Dessert was a crêpe with orange juice and sugar. Again, yum.
Cider! Saint-Malo is in Bretagne, where the specialties are galettes (crêpes made with black wheat) crêpes, cider, mussels, and oysters. I could get used to this.
Musical pirates! These guys were way too much fun.
A little garden outside the walls.
This beauty is called the "Étoile du Roy", or the King's Star. "Roy" is an old way of spelling "Roi", or king. For a fee, tourists can wander around the boat.
We just took pictures. It was cheaper and faster. The night cooled down considerably.
Obligatory Captain Morgan dork photo. Yar.
In 709, the Archangel Saint Michael appeared in a dream to Archduke Aubert, demanding that he build a church here. Aubert didn't, and the Archangel bore a hole into his skull. His successors built an abby. In 966, a group of Benedictine monks were installed here and started adding on to the Abby. It's been growing ever since, and now it's a huge tourist attraction, but people also live here.
I love this. You can leave your car in the parking lot until 9:00pm. After that, your car better be a boat.
This place is so famous! Mère Poulard was from Mont-Saint-Michel, and her technique for making omelettes is incredible. First, the cooks break about3 dozen eggs into a bowl. Then they whip the eggs by hand, with whisks, to a musical rhythm. Click here to watch a video of the eggs being whisked. Then a woman working in front of an enormous wood fireplace cooks the omelette in copper pans over an open fire. If I had a little more time, I would have loved to try one of these omelettes! I got some awesome photos, though.
The guy whipping the eggs. He seemed to be pretty into it.
The girl who cooks the omelettes. The handles aren't actually attached to the pans. She can unhook them and leave the pan right on the fire so the handles don't get too hot. So cool!
Yet another keyhole photo. There were some awesome ones in the Abby at the top of the hill.
The outside of the Abby. It looks more like a stronghold than a monastery.
Gargoyles inside the walls of the Abby. I was floored by the sheer size of everything. The only word that accurately describes this place is "immense".
"Imposing" is another good one.
The very tippy top of the Abby. It's a golden statue of Saint Michael killing the dragon.
A little covered bridge attaching two parts of the Abby. This was solidly 50 feet off the ground.
The road leading up to the Mont, with perilous parking to the right and left. When the tide comes in, "with the speed of galloping horses", as the saying goes, it completely covers everything except the middle stretch of road.
More of the inside of the Abby. I love that plants can grow through cracks in solid stone, like the little one here.
A newer addition to the Abby. Running water. Some of it was even drinkable!
This blew my mind. A church service held by monks and nuns.
This guy wandered around swinging his censer, filling the chapel with the smell of burning incense. It was incredible.
Little runes carved into the stones that make up the chapel (and most of the Mont). And now I know why! The monks hired "jobbers" to construct the buildings, and they were paid by the job, or by how hard they worked. They carved the runes into the stones they laid to mark how much work they did in a day. The more they accomplished, the more they got paid. The mystery is solved! Phew, that's a load off my mind. That also explains the neat little runes in all the churches I've visited so far. I had a Da Vinci Code conspiracy thing going on in my mind before. It's good to lay that to rest. Or can I...
Beautiful architecture in the chapel. I love all the different colours of sandstone in the walls.
This is a series of marble-and-sandstone columns and arches that surrounds a garden in the middle of the Abby. It took me a long time to get this photo, as there were constantly tourists and their children ducking in and out of the arches.
The windows of the chapel as seen from the garden.
There were a bunch of rooms attached to the gardens. This is an immense eating/gathering hall.
A little alcove off the hall for quiet reflection. I adore the walls here.
I like to imagine that whatever was behind this door was so secret that it took two high-ranked monks with two different keys to access it. Dan Brown had it all wrong. This is where the Holy Grail is.
I was amazed at the stairs here. There is a ton of wind at Mont-Saint-Michel, and almost none of the stairs had handrails. These monks must have been fearless. Or young. Or both.
I loved all the moss on the rocks. You can see the places that feet and hands never touch.
This confused me. Why the huge arches for one tiny window?
For a monastery devoted to Saint Michael, there was almost no artwork depicting him anywhere. This is the only thing I found that represented him.
The garden again. How on earth can grass and bushes survive on the top of a huge hill surrounded by rocks? I imagine that they had to haul soil up here, but it can't be very deep. Can it?
Another immense hall. This one was more for reception of guests and royalty.
Just one of many gorgeous windows in the Abby. This one is adorned with seashells and... urns?
This room was awesome. A huge tomb with enormous arches and pillars everywhere!
A really gorgeous little garden just outside the tomb. Again, I have no idea how things can grow here. And the well confuses the heck out of me. How on earth did monks in the 10th century find clean water on an island in the middle of the ocean?
One of the simple altars in one of the smaller chapels.
This blew my mind. This giant wheel is at the top of the Mont, and monks would climb inside it and turn it to haul up provisions, materials, or whatever else needed to be brought up. I wonder how they decided whose turn it was. That must have been an awful job.
This whole place is incredible. I can't say it enough. And I really do love all the little plants growing out of nowhere! There were birds all over the place. There's so much life here!
The North-South Staircase. Incredible. All the stairs are totally uniform, and you can still see the marks on the fronts of the stairs made from the tools that were used to carve the stones. The ceiling looks like it was carved from one solid piece of stone, or into the earth itself. I am getting so into architecture here!
I couldn't help but think that some of the rooms here would look awesome in a video game. Either a Tomb-Raider type treasure hunting first-person shooter, or a Resident Evil style creepy as heck first-person shooter. Either way, I see it as a first-person shooter. Think about it, BioWare. Let's talk.
Another small altar. This is kind of neat, and the symbols on it are Alpha and Omega, representing a quote from the Bible. In my video game, this would be a story point. There would be a hidden staircase or something under the altar that could only be found by solving some crazy hard logic puzzle.
Yet another really cool room full of incredible arches and columns. The centuries of work that went into building this monastery blow my mind.
More support for my video game idea. There has got to be something sinister down those stairs. Maybe a boss fight? Be sure to reload before heading down.
I wish I knew what the function of this room was, and why there's a walkway along one side of it.
This is an earlier version of the statue that's on the top of the Abby. I don't know how I feel about the dragon being so small. He really doesn't look that fearsome. I kind of feel bad for him here.
An awesome view of the Abby from the village below.
A supercute bird that I shared my lunch with. I threw him some crumbs of my baguette.
One of my favourite pictures from Mont-Saint-Michel. There's a little cemetery in the bottom of the picture, with the sea and a palm tree in the top half. Such a pretty village.
This statue of Saint Michael looks way more impressive than the other one, I think. At least the dragon looks like it'd pose some kind of challenge.
The altar in the little chapel. I love the chandeliers.
Awesome gargoyle. Hardly scary at all.
One of the main reasons that the beach around the Mont is so dangerous. Quicksand. I didn't think it actually existed except in movies and jungles. Crazy!
"Drivers, today the sea doesn't cover this parking lot." Tomorrow, however...
Me on the beach at the foot of the Mont. So pretty, and so dangerous! I'm so hardcore.
This made me laugh so hard. Clearly this kid gets into some serious shenanigans, and is also crazy strong. Hence the two straps on his harness. Ha!
I walked out away from the village to get some pretty decent photos from the parking lot. What an incredible place. I was shocked that there were so few tourists there! I think I lucked out, and got there before the tourist season hit its peak.
I didn't have time for omelette at Mère Poulard, but the ice cream was awesome. Caramel with crunchy bits and dark chocolate chip. Even the waffle cone was amazing.
No, you cannot wash your feet in the drinking water fountain, tourists. Stop trying.
Coming back from Saint-Malo we stopped in a little village called Pontourson. This house is by the train station where we changed buses. It made me think of the house where Vampire Bill lives in True Blood. It's very old and overrun with wild vegetation. Evidently people actually live here. There were windows open and noises coming from inside. I hope they're vampires.
A very cool water-tower looking building attached to the vampire house. I love the staircase and the supports for the guest house/water tower! What the heck kind of building could that be?
Back in Saint-Malo, I had a few hours Sunday afternoon to wander the beach again before dinner. This is the way to travel. That looked like way too much fun.
Apparently people actually do this. Again, I thought that people only had metal detectors in movies.
Kite-surfing?! How much cooler can beach life get? I need to win the lottery. Soon.
This picture turned out way cooler than I thought it would. There were a lot of seagulls hanging around this one spot on the beach. I don't know why they were there, but it made for a neat photo.
I almost started crying uncontrollably when I saw this on the beach, and even moreso when I saw the picture I took. This really reminds me of when I was younger and my dad used to build these kites. We would go to the park across the street to fly kites on windy days. Those were good times.
Sandrine told me I needed to try this traditional cake while I was here. So I did. I still can't pronounce it.
Supper Sunday night! Mussels, fries, and cider. Messy and fantastic.
Dessert was a butter and sugar crêpe. A wonderful combination of sweet and salty. I wrote postcards while I ate dinner. Check your mailboxes, family! They should be there sometime this week.
As I was wandering down the beach on my way back to the hotel after dinner, I took oodles of photos of these sailboats. They were so pretty.
After I win the lottery and buy my beach house, I'll spend my evenings like this lady, chilling out on the beach with a blankie and a good book. What a wonderful way to live.
Catamarans on the beach on Monday morning, my last morning in Saint-Malo. What a beautiful day.
At first I thought these guys were surfing, and then I saw that this one had a paddle. I was confused.
Almost every house I saw had a name painted on it, except this one. What will I call my beach house?
The flags flying at Inter-muros. Saint-Malo is one of two cities in France that has its own flag. Nice is the other. The flags on the bottom, from left to right, are Saint-Malo, Bretagne (the region), France, the European Union, France, Bretagne, and Saint-Malo again.
I love this gate! All the houses here are so fantastic.
As I was wandering the beach, I noticed that the tide was coming in. This is the fort that was part of the beach on Saturday. Now it's an island.
An enormous ferry in the ocean. I heard its horn before I saw it.
Soccer school practicing on the beach Monday morning. I would love to go to beach soccer school.
A little video I made for you all. Enjoy!
Chilling out in the sand, watching the tide coming in. I really want to go back. Mathilde asked me if I preferred Provence or Saint-Malo. I really can't say that I have a preference. They're both incredible in their own way, and I really would love to visit both again. Sigh. One day I'll be back.
Oh, and the salt caramel in the title of this post is there because I bought some. It's amazing, and I bought a huge bag of candies. Sandrine also bought me a jar of salt caramel spread to take home. Yum.
In academic news, I PASSED THE DALF!!!! I'm so freaking happy. I was really worried that I wasn't going to pass, because I was sitting behind the speakers for the oral comprehension part of the exam. I found out last Thursday that I passed, and have been on Cloud Nine ever since. Mathilde even made me a cake when I told her I passed!
How awesome is that? Chocolate hazelnut cake with DALF spelled out in hazelnuts on top. Success never tasted so good.
School is winding down now, but exams are getting hairy. I have 3 Monday, 3 Tuesday, and one Wednesday. 7 in 3 days. Ick, but after that I'm donezo! And I'll have 2 1/2 glorious weeks of vacationing before I come back home to not so awesome weather and anglophones. Hm. If I didn't have such amazing friends and family to come home to, I'd seriously think about staying. But I miss you all so much! And I NEED to eat beef. Soon, or I'll go crazy. I actually am getting excited to go home. I even have my airport outfit all planned out. I know exactly what I'll be wearing on the long trip home.
Before that, though, I have Ireland to look forward to! 7 glorious days in the Emerald Isle, seeing and doing everything I can. I'll see the Giant's Causeway and kiss the Blarney Stone, drink myself silly at the Guinness Brewery, see the Cliffs of Moher, and take about a million pictures. I'm so pumped! And I'm trying really hard to not think about how sad I'll be to say goodbye to all my Dijon friends who are leaving right after exams are done. I'm going to miss you all so much! Friday is going to be way too much fun. We'll worry about being sad then.
À bientôt!
