June 28 we arrive at st malo. a walled city with an amazing sea wall for miles, built with stone. In the outlying neighborhoods all of the street ends come out to meet it and you can walk or bicycle quite a ways.
It was raining pretty good all the way up to St Malo and when we got out of the gare at Saint malo it had stopped, but threatened more. The camping was far out of town so we opted for a cheap hotel. We made reservations at two different ones and after riding through suburbia and freeway strip mall apartment craziness trying to find one we decided to Head to the fortress cite And look for a place nearby. So along one quiet street, near a large church (the church area was under renovation) we stopped at a small neighbor hood bar for a cofee(read-use the restroom and consult Google). They had a sign on their window for rooms to let at 30 to 60 depending on if you wanted a toilet and or douche. Similar to our last hotel, but here the toilet was only a couple of doors down. So we got a small room which had been outfitted with a shower box and unpacked out bikes and hauled everything up(only one floor!). We got permission and a key to stash our bikes in the cave.
my first experience was going to the water closet (toilet) to pee and hearing someone come to the door and say merde! Quite loud. It was a scraggly looking older rotund French gentleman who obviously had not expected to have to share his floor.
Our first thing out was to go to the fortress and walk the ramparts. It is a stunning vista of the Atlantic Ocean and surrounds with little rocky islands that are buried when the tide comes in. Cold windy powerful.
(ps. I am writing this from a campground near mont Saint Michele and as it is the first of July school is out and about 30 teenagers are camping next to us having a million conversations AND a song bird(grive musiciennes is singing its heart out in the bushes next to us. It is a beautiful sounding bird)
we had a bite to eat and browsed the antiques, clothing shops(such cool women's clothing, items from the region, etc)
we finished the evening at our hotel bar where I had a cidre from the region. Big distinct flavor of wood and stone and an aftertaste/smell of Camembert cheese. Strange but very good. We called it a night and went to bed.
day 2
ran into our neighbor in the morning wearing his pajams(tiny black underwear and bright red shirt), we found the neighborhood weekly market outside the hotel on the streeT and hung out on the sea wall along the neighborhood and town outside of the fortress. We went back into the fortress city in the evening for one last look and had a cidre overlooking the water. A lovely sunset and evening sly happened.
