A travel and lifestyle blog about Arizona, Spain, and everywhere in between.
Saint-Malo, France: Brittany in a Mussel Shell
Get link
Facebook
X
Pinterest
Email
Other Apps
Before I began researching what to see in France, I had never even heard of the city of Saint-Malo (pronounced “san mah-loe” [sɛ̃.ma.lo]), which sits on the northwestern corner of the country in the region called Brittany. But friends and guidebooks kept saying great things about this place so I thought it would be a natural stop along my route westward from Paris after Bayeux and Mont-Saint-Michel. Upon exploring this fortress of a city known for being a home base for pirates, I realized how right everyone who praised it really was.
Most people come to Saint-Malo for the old city which is snuggled behind its vast stone walls, the part of town called Intra-Muros (Latin for “within walls”). Apart from shopping and eating delicious food (I only partook in the latter, see the Food section below), there’s not much to do here apart from simply exploring the gray avenues and hiking across the ramparts, where you can get a better, elevated view of the city streets. The ramparts were just plain fun: I had plenty of opportunities to people-watch, I enjoyed a walk where I knew exactly where I was going (you can’t say that for most places!), and I could take a detour back to the ground level whenever I wanted, for example, to see more of a rocky island (see below) or check out some street food. You can find a small cathedral in the town’s center that’s got some pretty postwar stained glass, but when I visited it was dark and dank inside so I didn’t linger too long there.
Saint-Malo was basically leveled by Allied bombing in 1944 as the Americans, British, et al. attempted to liberate the city from the occupying Germans. Around 80% of the walled town was destroyed, and it wasn’t until 1972 that they had completely rebuilt. Thankfully, they decided to reconstruct their houses and businesses in the same architectural style (more or less) as they tried to return to normalcy after the war. If you look closely, you can figure out which buildings were built before and after the war, depending on how natural or sharp-looking the stonework is.
For hundreds of years, Saint-Malo was a haven for the Corsairs of the king of France—a.k.a., pirates, who were a thorn in the flesh to England but protected by the French crown. So it was a cool coincidence that in the harbor outside the walled city I got to visit a replica of an 18th-century frigate ship that is currently used for TV episodes, films, or sailing shows. I don’t know what this last bit means, but they were selling specialty onions on the deck to unsuspecting tourists. Moving on…
The cheapest place I could find in town to stay at was Hostelling International’s Patrick Varangot center, approximately half an hour’s walk from the old walled town and the train station. Despite being so far away from anything worth seeing, I still enjoyed walking from the hostel to the old city along the beach, even though it was freezing cold and I couldn’t play in the water or anything. Along the waterfront, dozens of colorful, traditional houses face the sea, some of them restaurants, some of them hotels, and they made for an appealing stroll across the beach.
On the outskirts of the Intra-Muros part of town you can see a handful of tidal islands: the Fort National, the Fort du Petit Bé, and the island of Grand Bé. That last one was perhaps my favorite part about visiting Saint-Malo; this large, craggy hill with bleak, windswept grasses was a lot of fun to climb up and down and get some nature and hiking in my life after a week of nonstop urban tourism. (And it isn’t beneath me to admit I almost got stuck on the side of a cliff while hiking back down to the beach...)
For lunch I had a massive pot of moules marinières, or “sailor’s mussels.” Mussels make up a big part of the coastal, Breton diet, and I even saw great clumps of small, blue mussels glued to the rocks of the Grand Bé island. They were served by themselves with a few french fries (simply “fried potatoes” in French). I was surprised I was able to eat them all, but perhaps the bulky shells disguised the fact that the mussel bodies would take up much less space on their own.
I enjoyed trying two traditional Breton desserts while wandering the streets of the walled city. The first thing I tried was the ker-y-pom, a dense biscuit filled with baked apple between two layers of shortbread dough. Next was the kouign-amann (pronounced “kwee-nya-mahn” [kwiɲaˈmɑ̃n:], a disc-shaped pastry of sticky, buttery dough rolled into a flaky spiral. I also bought some macarons at a candy store for later. There’s just no hope for me and my sweet tooth!
What are your thoughts about Brittany, this isolated corner of northern France? Would you visit a coastal city in the winter even if you couldn’t visit the beach? Join the conversation below!
Galicia, located in Spain’s northwestern corner, is one of the country’s greatest regions. When I lived there from 2013 to 2015, I couldn’t get enough of the glorious, fresh food , the green, lush countryside, and the grand, granite architecture . But I could only take canned sardines with me back home, we’ve got enough humidity here in Texas, and sadly the oldest buildings in suburban Plano date back not to the 1070s but the 1970s. View this post on Instagram Okay, but really, y'all, where are the fairies??? This place has got some serious magic about it... // #flowers #spring #park #santiago #santiagodecompostela #galicia #spain #vsco #vscocam A post shared by Trevor Huxham (@trevorhuxham) on Mar 13, 2014 at 1:29pm PDT But what has stuck with me the most has been galego , the Galician language that I quickly picked up on after being immersed in it from day one at the elementary school I worked at. Clo
As you head down a curve of the busy San Pedro street, you catch your first view of the twin bell towers of the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela—and you catch your breath. Petite hatchbacks rattle across the cobblestone as your feet seem drawn farther down the path, although that might just be gravity pulling you downhill toward the old zone. You cinch up your backpack’s sternum strap for the final approach of this multiple-night pilgrimage. For not the first time on your Camino, you lose your sense of direction as you enter Santiago’s old town: granite flagstones at your feet, stone-and-graying-plaster houses on either side, and overcast skies above disorient you—yet your eyes eventually lock on to a spray-painted yellow arrow on the side of a building. Once you’re back on autopilot, you start to reflect on why you started this crazy, 70-mile-plus hike in the first place. Rúa de San Pedro, Santiago de Compostela Maybe you hiked from Sarria farther inland as a cheap and hea
After Paris and the Bayeux Tapestry , the third thing I wanted to see while traveling in France was Mont-Saint-Michel , a towering monastery built on top of a mountainous island off the coast of Normandy. Before visiting, I really didn’t know much at all about the Mount except that it was only accessible when the tides were out…and that it looked just plain cool. During the visit, I ended up learning a bit about French history and why the Mount is such a big deal for the French people. Mont-Saint-Michel It was by sheer luck, though, that I was able to visit Mont-Saint-Michel at all (pronounced “mohn san mee-shehl” [mɔ̃ sɛ̃ mi.ʃɛl]). The very day I had chosen to visit Mont-Saint-Michel was the first day in weeks that the tourist bus was running between Saint-Malo (where my hostel was) and the Mount, with maybe one or two other runs more for December. I paid 20€ for the round-trip service but didn’t complain because this really freaky coincidence made the whole visit possible.
