St. Malo by the Sea

We drove up from Carnac to the lovely city of St. Malo.  It was a relaxing drive, especially for me, because Ian did the driving.  This place is a testament to the resilience of people:  over eighty percent of the city was leveled in August 1944 -- even Cartier's tomb was blown to smithereens.  Still as one walks the cobblestone streets, it can be difficult to tell what is original -- and some is five hundred years old -- and what is new.  As Canadians, we were interested to learn of the importance of the Newfoundland fishery to this town.  One of the recruiting posters for fishermen was from 1925 -- the year my father and Ian's mother were born. Of course, this was also the birthplace of Cartier, who "discovered Canada" and we are looking forward to visiting his museum.  While there are lots of reminders of the horrors of war in the area, the stunning beaches and restored town are wonderful.

This small square has one of the oldest houses in the area.  Anne of Bretagne apparently stayed in the house with the tower while her castle was being built.

Our hotel room wasn't quite ready when we arrived, so we walked down to the walled old town, and spent our afternoon "intra mures" (within the walls).  Our hotel is just beyond the second group of pilings -- we are about halway through our walk.

An ocean just smells like an ocean.  One thing we keep forgetting is that most businesses and even the restaurants and tourist offices close between 12 and 2:30.  We had so much fun walking around on the beaches and the pathways -- this one was underwater soon after we were there -- that we missed our stop at the tourist office, and walked the ramparts without a map.

 This is the castle, which also houses the municipal museum, which we visited later.

 Walking the ramparts -- all the way around!

This is the statue of Champlain -- of course, no one really knows what he looked like.  Neither did we, as we had to look straight into the sun.  We shared this terrace on the ramparts with a class of children and their harried teacher.

 A cannon on the rampart.  The island in the background has a fort on it, and is called Petit Bas.

The tower on the right hand side is one part of the rampart that survived the August 1944 attacks.

 This is a piece of a ship that Cartier had to abandon in Quebec.  It shows the stylized ermine tails of Bretagne, and was presented to St. Malo by the Quebec government in the 1820's.

This fishing line is from a dory.  Each fishing boat that went from St. Malo to Newfoundland carried 20 dories, and each carried two men.  I remember having fishing lines that looked a lot like this on our boat, the Durham Belle, growing up.

These are from the rebuilt cathedral.  The spire was completed in 1972, and the cathedral was reconsecrated at that time.  Of course, the stained glass is all modern, and this is the window dedicated to Cartier.

Cartier was re-interred here in 1949.  We didn't ask what was left to re-inter.  The cathedral was beautiful with a soaring gothic arches, and much of the original material was reused.  Still, with very little in the ambulatory or the niches, it had a bare feeling compared to the medival churches we visited.

Of course, our visit to St. Malo was punctuated with tea and crepes, and we spent a nice amount of time just getting lost -- the nice thing about a walled town that is quite small is that you are never really lost at all.

One of the square we came to had a memorial to the First World War, which, ironically, had to be restored when it was damaged in the second.  There was a series of WWII memorials, to those people of the town in the services, the merchant marine, and civilians who were killed in the battle of St. Malo.  The memorial above is to those of the resistance, killed fighting or in concentration camps.

We marched quickly, clutching our dinner in a paper bag, in the very cold wind coming from the sea to our hotel.  When my hands began to ache, I asked Ian to carry our "sac" for a while -- and that's when he remembered that he had gloves in his pocket.  He found that really funny.

Our room is nice, and the first order of business was to phone Mom and wish her a happy birthday -- we sang to her en francais.  A nice treat is that the BBC comes to us from the Channel Islands.  Right now we are watching Mary Berry make Easter dinner.