Expediccionado: The Siren Song of Saint-Malo

We meet our host Paul outside the Saint-Malo train station. He is a sixty-something year-old man with wavy white hair, a charismatic face, and crisp French diction. He could have been an actor. Despite the supposed language barrier between us, we communicate with ease and Paul gives us the general run-down of Saint-Malo on the short drive to our apartment. The intramuros or historic walled-in area of the small city comes into view and we cross a bridge and breach one of the east-facing arched city gates on Quai Saint-Louis. My excitement builds as the scenery suddenly becomes a maze of narrow stone alleys whose tops rise to meet the clouded November sky, casting mysterious shadows and concealing the secrets of this very old place. It feels like a place where people have lived for over 2000 years.

Paul miraculously maneuvers the car into an impossibly narrow alley, carefully reversing under an archway that opens into a small courtyard. We unload our belongings and he ushers us up two flights of stairs to the apartment. There, his friendly wife Chantal is just putting the finishing touches on freshening it up for us. They hand over the keys, give us some information, and leave us to our devices. The apartment is bright and clean, decorated in yellows, blues, and nautical-themed decor. To our delight, we discover that the bedroom has metal black-out blinds that cover the window by means of a crank, hermetically sealing the room from any outside light. This will help us to finally get some sleep, we agree. And just when we thought it couldn't be any better, we discover that the king-size bed, already a rare occurrence in France, is adjustable. As a teenager I began referring to this type of bed as a "fold-up-your-old-people" bed, owing to the Craftmatic TV commercials depicting elderly couples being folded in half by simultaneously raising both the head and the foot of the bed. We take full advantage of this particular bed by folding and then unfold ourselves many times over the next couple of days.

Almost immediately we shed our belongings and head back out the door and down to the street, our internal compasses leading us west to the ramparts. Charlie has been to Saint-Malo before as a teenager, so this is all somewhat familiar to him and he leads the way. We emerge from one of the narrow streets and are met with a rampart wall rising up before us. Looking left and right we observe that we have a choice: at regular intervals are small archways leading directly to the beach that alternate with stairs to take us up to the top of the ramparts. The nearest option is stairs so we begin to ascend. As we are nearing the top I am engaged in yammering about something or other while Charlie maintains a knowing silence. Then our heads rise above the obscuring stones and the scene outstretched before us meets my eyes. I gasp and, mid-sentence, am instantaneously struck mute, a sob catches in my throat, and my eyes shine moist. After a moment I manage a quiet, "Oh my God." Charlie smiles. He was expecting this reaction.

The high city wall drops terrifyingly far down to an expanse of fine tan sand etched with the wavy ripples of the outgoing tide. Curving lines of tidewrack meet rocky outcrops filled with tide pools. Beyond lies a shimmering silver-blue sea reflecting the patchwork of pristine sky peeking through clouds above. Off to the southwest distinctive white rays of sunlight beam onto the still surface of the water where sailboats nudge along at a lackadaisical pace. Most notable are the numerous fortified islets that interrupt the expanse of sea. One stands proudly just off shore, only accessible during low tide by means of a stone footbridge, while others seem to be phasing out of view in the mist far out on the horizon. No camera could ever hope to do it justice, but I attempt it anyway, if only to later remind myself of how much more beautiful it is than whatever image comes out.

I don't really try to compose myself and it takes several minutes of walking along the ramparts before the sniffling stops. Charlie is silently nostalgic as we begin a wander that lasts until dinnertime. We descend to the beach and Charlie lights up a cigar. We explore the clumps of rocks and their tide pools, handling small shells and red seaweed, and exclaiming over small crabs and mollusks. When the tide begins to urge us back toward to the city, we climb the stairs to the top of the ramparts again and continue our slow circling. Toward dusk we move our wandering to the maze inside the walls and begin looking for a place to eat. We find curious architecture, street names, and places where modernity stands starkly out from the historic. For dinner we settle on one of the many crêperies where we find the food to be about as good as one would expect from a tourist town in the off season.

The walkway to Grand Bé, with Petit Bé peeking over its shoulder

The ramparts

Narrow Rue Saint-Barbe

A tidepool inquirer

Saint-Malo intramuros from the rocky beach

Rue du Chat Qui Danse (Dancing Cat Street)

An odd piece of modern architecture in the historical district

Folding up my old man

After a night of being sufficiently folded up in the pitch black of our room, we don our armor and head for the ramparts again. At this early hour mist still obscures even the water's edge. We search for yet undiscovered new treasures in the morning's tide pools but find only the usual suspects from yesterday. We venture out onto a long man-made spit to investigate the diminutive Môle des Noires lighthouse that looks across the mouth of the Rance River to Dinard. There Charlie executes a handstand, a tradition we began when we first started traveling together but one that we have failed to uphold during the last several adventures. I am surprised and delighted that he is reviving it. Toward midday we find ourselves at the town's 15th-century chateau-fort, the Château de Saint-Malo, and take a quick spin through it. Later we wander into the Roman-Gothic Saint-Malo Cathedral dimly lit by the cloudy day's light filtering in through the blue and purple rose window. Four local women are huddled near the central altar practicing their plainchant.

Morning fog on the ramparts

Edible sea creatures revealed by the outgoing tide

A rooftop garden in a town where space is limited

Buttresses behind the Chateau

Taking the castle with nothing but my finger gun

Cathedrale de Saint-Malo at night

The rose window bathes the nave in soft purple light.

Oh, they meant the other Marie.

As we explore the town's narrow cobbled streets, we pop into a few shops to purchase the succulent items on display in their windows. In particular we are after kouign amann (pronounced kween ah-MAHN), a Breton butter cake made by rolling an obscene amount of butter and sugar into multiple layers of viennoiserie dough and then baking it until, assuming you've done it correctly, you have a weepingly moist pastry with a crispy caramelized top. We find one that is just okay, but a far cry from the quality of others we've had in the past. For dinner, we scope out one of the town's many seafood joints serving giant platters of boiled crustaceans with sides of butter, lemon, and the tools you need to crack their shells. Later on, Charlie will bravely take on a massive pile of sea creatures while I opt for a simpler pre-shelled dish of scallops. We will both leave happy and full.

No langoustine shall escape intact

As soon as the receding sea has sufficiently uncovered the walkway to the nearest fortified islet, Grand Bé, we cross and ascend the path that spirals up to its summit. On its north side we find the grave of French writer Chateaubriand, although we only learn this later as it is just mysteriously marked "Un grand ecrivain français (a great French writer)." We continue along the gravel path to the summit and then drop down to the west-facing side of the islet. There a park bench waits for us and we sit and gaze out into the distance beyond Grand Bé's smaller companion, Petit Bé, with its own 17th century fort. On the horizon the sun slowly sinks, creating bands of blue, orange, and purple as it falls behind the curvature of the earth. The sea shimmers its colorful reflection while boats slice long lines in its surface. Quiet descends on the evening, interrupted only by the evening song of nearby wild birds and a gentle wind rustling the grass.