Day 20, Sunday, September 17, 2023

We are on our way early this morning to catch the ferry to Saint-Malo. Yesterday’s walk  was at low tide and there was no water here.  High tide was at 9:30 this morning…what a difference. It is cloudy, much cooler and there is a chance of rain today.The ferry loads right at the top of the ramp, yesterday it was down near the bottom of the ramp.

After a ten minute ferry ride, the captain docks effortlessly at Saint-Malo Take note of how high the water is.

Soon we are walking the ramparts of Saint-Malo. The walls below are as thick as these walkways.

There are still some cannons protecting this walled city..Checking out the view… …and here is the view.  The tide is already starting to go out and more beach is visible.

That dark line on the pillars and the wall is where the water reaches at high tide!

The Etoile du Roy  is the second largest replica tall ship in France. For most of the year, she is moored in the port. The Etoile was originally built as the Grand Turk for the British ITV series Hornblower, and has appeared in several films and TV series.  it was closed to visitors when we were there, too bad.  It would have been very interesting to climb on board.

We visited and art exhibit in a very strange venue…it was full of very large, very old, very smelly engines.

After lunch we  visit the Saint-Malo Cathedral. This cathedral was heavily damaged in the liberation battles at the end of WWII where nearly 80% of the city was destroyed.  Somehow the walls protecting the city remained undamaged.  The cathedral has been restored, keeping faithful to its original form. The stained glass window are beautiful…

and the sunlight shining through them throws colour over the interior of the church.

There are several beautiful modern Biblical paintings.

The rose window is magnificent and the unique altar and podium are glazed ceramic. 

Saint-Malo’s most famous seafarer was not a corsair (pirate) but the explorer Jacques Cartier. Born in Saint-Malo in 1491, it was from his home port that Cartier set out on his first voyage of discovery to the New World, where he was to establish “New France” on the Gaspé peninsula of the North American continent, now a part of Quebec. On a second voyage, Cartier sailed up the Saint Lawrence river, as far as a point where a hill rose up on the north bank of the river. He named it “Mont Royal”… or to use the phonetic spelling of the age, “Mont  Réal”.   Cartier is buried in the cathedral at Saint-Malo. ~AboutFrance.comBack to the beach where it is getting closer to low tide.  These pillars are wet higher than I can reach.

The tide is low enough to walk to Fort National.  There is a flag flown at the fort when it is safe to do this.

We walk to the fort and Bob finds more old cannons to examine.

The view from the fort to the walled city of Saint-Malo. Just a few hours ago all those rocks were under water and boats were able to sail through here!

This man’s wife was fixing the scarf around his neck as we walked by.  Bob chuckled and said this was going to be us in a few years, having our picnic lunches with tea towels on our laps!  

Walking back to the port there is now a swimming pool visible where earlier we could only see the top of the diving board. This is the same ‘island’ that we saw earlier…

when the tide is higher, and we see boats crossing between it and Saint-Malo. When we arrived the water was almost up to the white part of this lighthouse..

…and we got off the ferry just above the red arrow on the right of the photo.  When we leave to go home we get back on the ferry way down on the bottom left of the photo.  It is hard to believe that the water level can change that dramatically in just a few hours.

We have to walk a lot further when we arrive back at Dinard because the ferry could not sail into the main dock.  We boarded at the top of this ramp this morning!

A lot of the boats that were in the water this morning are now beached on the ocean floor.  We were lucky, the day turned out warm and sunny…no rain.