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.com
Back 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.
The tapestry is located in a darkened room with only the tapestry illuminated, no photos allowed. It was created in the 11th century, so it is almost a thousand years old! It is actually an embroidered cloth, and not a tapestry. There is another room with a replica of the tapestry displayed where photos are allowed. The original tapestry is displayed in a very similar manner. This monumental work is almost 70 metres long and 50 centimetres tall. It depicts the events leading up to the Norman conquest and culminating in the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
One more view which shows the unique towers on the front of the church.
We must be tired because we have a hard time finding our apartment, in spite of driving right by it about 4 times! Google maps seems to show it in the wrong place, but we eventually manage to sort it out and our host is waiting for us. She only speaks French but I understand most of what she is telling us about the apartment. Here is our home for the next five days.
We discover a semaphore station built in the early 1900’s on the same site as an old lighthouse built in the early 1800’s. There are also more World War II bunkers here. Not surprising since they were built all along the coast of France. The three pillars were to hold radar equipment, but it was never installed, and there are several Tobruks, or machine gun nests.
One of several large bunkers.
“The Rouen Natural History Museum is the 2nd most important natural history museum of France after the museum of Paris thanks to its collections richness and diversity (ornithology, ethnography, botany).” ~from Rouen Tourist Information
The strange line on the back view is part of a tattoo. I usually don’t draw tattoos, but this one followed the contours of the back so I included it.
The Normandy landings took place on Tuesday 6, June 1944 . Code named Operation Neptune and often referred to as D-Day, it was, and still is, the largest seaborne invasion in history. This is a big museum with lots of displays. There are examples of the uniforms worn at this battle.
It is a small museum but there are lots of interesting items.
…and some views from just a couple of the 60 rooms in the museum. 
Then just two blocks later we see three of its siblings! These are the perfect cars for parking in France’s cities.
There is so much to see in Rouen. I thought this was the Notre Dame cathedral but it is the much smaller 
Rouen’s Notre Dame Cathedral was the tallest building in the world (151 m) in 1876, and still keeps the record of being the tallest cathedral of France. Photo courtesy Wikipedia.
This is just one small section of Rouen’s Notre Dame cathedral. It is enormous!
As is their pipe organ, but there was no organ music today.
The Gros Horloge (the Great clock) is one of the oldest clocks in France, the movement was made in 1389. 
It has a different face on either side and it rings on the hour, the half hour and the quarter hour.
This fellow spends his time on the street busking for money…only he plays the same song over and over and over. No variety at all to his performance.
Here is a little video that gives a better of idea of what we saw. 
trudymason.com 