The birds here don't coo or chirp; being gulls, they mew and moan.  Rather than honeysuckle or new-mown hay, the smells are salt and seaweed.  Fair enough, since this is a seaside city.  Yes, except that Saint-Malo is not just beside the English Channel.  Originally, an island and today linked to the French mainland by two causeways, Saint-Malo's old town is literally in  the sea.  Some sea it can be, too!  With an amplitude that can reach 13.5 meters, the tides here are the highest in Europe and a strong contender for number two in the world behind the waters that periodically rip into the Bay of Fundy which separates New Brunswick from Nova Scotia.  Egged on by storm, high high tide here can be a breathtaking spectacle.

Perhaps these facts help explain the rather insular sense you get of the people and the place as you wander through the squares and alleyways.  The island-like quality is enhanced by the fact that Saint-Malo is a major site in Brittany.  The Bretons are France's equivalent of America's Down Easters – a bit tight-lipped on occasion, but head-over-heels in love with their traditions.

Take food, for instance.  True, there are – given the influence and visitors from across the Channel – more pubs than cafés.  But there are many more crêperies than pubs, crêpes being Breton fare from way back.  You can make a whole meal with crêpes.  Dessert, of course, with jam-filled crêpes.  Before the sucré (sugary), though (and this often comes as a surprise to Americans) you can fill up on one, two or more courses of salé (salty):  buckwheat galettes stuffed with gruyère and/or eggs, and so on.

There's the drink:  more beer than wine, despite the quality of some local vintages.  That's the British influence, again, although while visiting Saint-Malo for FRANCE On Your Own I was unable to confirm a tale told me by one wag according to which the Malouins have started making their own whiskey.  Given the prevalence of apples nearby, there flows much, much more cider than beer.  Again, a surprise for many Americans:  bottled or on tap, Breton cider is decidedly not non-alcoholic, and over indulgence can leave your head heavy, heavy…   A morning-after stroll along the ramparts offers the tang of wind-borne salt as a cure.

Even more strident than the seagull's cries is the almost-daily skirling in the streets of binious, those diminutive cousins of Irish and Scottish bagpipes.  They are played by men with beribboned round-brimmed black hats and danced to by lassies sporting starched white coiffes.  You see, in the beginning were the Celts.  The saintly Malo was, in fact, a monk who is said to have sailed over from Wales in the sixth century to evangelize the fisher folk eking out a living from the sea on this inhospitable coast.  His name wasn't really 'Malo' -  'Mc Law' was probably more like it (and today a street here bears his name), which in fact may itself have been a corruption of 'McCullogh'.  More Irish than Welsh?  Keep in mind that a contemporary of his was that other sailor/monk, the oh-so-Irish Saint Brendan.  There is solid evidence that the legendary isle Brendan discovered could have been America, three centuries before the Vikings landed, and thus knocking Columbus down to the lowest step on the three-tiered podium.  Be that as it may, SaintMalo's history is inseparable from the sea.

Thirst street (where did the sailors head upon landing?) has recently received a less unseemly name:  rue Jacques Cartier, for the 16th century native son who, on fetching up at the St Lawrence estuary, thought he had discovered the much-sought Northwest route to the riches of Asia.  The Hurons did look a bit Asian, and Cartier named the territory with the word they repeatedly used and which meant 'house' – Canada.

The  Anglo-French rivalry in town, and at sea more generally, saw Saint-Malo and the Malouins play a major role over the centuries.  Given the town's vulnerability, the great wall-builder, Vauban, girdled it with protective ramparts in the 17th century.  Formidable though they loom still today, these walls inspired Britain's Royal Navy to ever-more-hardy attacks.

Le Chat Qui Danse  is the name of a Saint-Malo street.  “Hm-m-m,” I thought, “if etymology here is anything like Paris's,  The Dancing Cat in question must have been the sign of a shop or tavern.” 

Nevertheless,  tickled by doubt,  I went along to the Tourist Office.  Its director, Jean-Claude Weisz, got out the research.  No sign designed to stick in the mind of a largely illiterate population, the prancing feline in question has a tale (no pun intended) of its own.  On 29 November 1693, faced with the new and apparently impregnable ramparts, the Royal Navy's wickedest demolition experts stuffed an unmanned ship with explosives and shoved her towards the unsuspecting town.  She blew up all right, but prematurely – not a single living being in Saint-Malo was wounded, much less killed.  So, that evening and after a few glasses (kegs?) of non non-alcoholic cider, the relieved Malouins could jeer at the Brit artificiers:  “Even our cats are still dancing!” 

The Anglo-French rivalry continued well into the 18th century.  Saint-Malo was home port for buccaneers as well as legitimate sea-borne merchant captains.  A pleasing surprise came when the French monarchy began to commission and charter . . . the pirates!  In essence, the deal was "leave French shipping alone, but go out there and sock it to the Brits!"

The  cats were not dancing, however, in August 1944.  Two months after D-Day, the Germans had no intention of surrendering Saint-Malo without a fight.  Allied bombs destroyed about 80 per cent of the old town.  Lovingly -- and for the most part accurately -- restored, the city is today a reasonably faithful replica of its Old Self.  It is, however, far from a sterile museum since fishing and certain high-tech enterprises thrive here.  Tourism does, of course, also contribute to the local economy.  With a population of some 50,000,  Saint-Malo hosts about 2.5 million visitors each year for stays varying from a few hours to several days.  And while itself not a museum, the town does boast several interesting heritage repositories.  Located in a tower built half a century before Columbus set out to be (probably) Number Three, the City Historical Museum is a must.  If you're into Tall Ships, you won't want to miss the Musée au Long Cours in another tower as old and as sturdy.  It recalls the first French sailors (Malouins, of course) to round Cape Horn and showcases ship models, ship-borne instruments and objects crafted by the sailors on their long crossings, not to forget souvenirs they brought home.  There is also a World War II museum installed in the German blockhaus   and another devoted to dolls …  and teddy bears.

Know the origin of that toy?  Well, I didn't, but found it out.  It seems that on an outing in 1902 that intrepid hunter, Theodore Roosevelt, found a bear  cub within easy range.  His companions urged him to shoot.  He refused, given the animal's age, and thus gained the lasting gratitude of children pretty much everywhere – not least the Benevolent Protective Order of Mama Bears.

So, unlike the fishing villages evangelized by McCullogh fourteen centuries ago, today's Saint-Malo is anything but inhospitable.  By car, you are about four hours from Paris;  the same trip by train, with a change at Rennes, takes three-and-a-quarter hours – which is now reduced to two-and-a-quarter as the Brittany TGV opened a few years ago.  Summer can be lovely and not quite as crowded as Mont-St-Michel in neighboring Normandy.  During winter, you have the place to yourself with more seagull squawks than skirls, however.  Spring and Autumn are perhaps the most favorable seasons – seagulls and binious are about equal in number.  According to Tourism Office director Jean-Claude Weisz, the white sand beaches are not crowded then, you don't have to queue up to rent a sailing dinghy or sand buggy, yet the air is still (or already) a salty tonic.

To get  more information on Saint-Malo (partly in English) go to http://www.ville-saint-malo.fr and for practical visitor information, visit the new web site,  http://www.saint-malo-tourisme.com. 

Brittany is comprised of four départements, each quite different from the other in geography and even a bit dissimilar in climate.  Most western of the four is Finistère (29), which literally means 'lands end' and is  definitely a child of the Atlantic Ocean.   Notable towns and small cities, the primary one being Quimper, include Quimperlé, Pont-Aven, Douarenez, the port city of Brest,  and the ferry port of Roscoff.   It also offers the visitor some wonderful islands off its coast, namely Île d'Ouessant (the most westerly point in France), the tiny isles of the Regional d'Armorique served by seasonal ferries, the Îles de Glénan off Pont-Aven and the Channel island of Île-de-Batz. 

Finistère is home to Locronan, a fifteenth century town,  with its roots in ancient religious beliefs  and was once home to the Druids, becoming Christian at the hands of Saint Ronan, a fifth century Irish bishop on a retreat in Brittany.  The city's early fame came from the production of sailcloth, and today is a center of glass making and weaving.  Visit Église St-Ronan, a 15th century stone church with magnificent  carvings of  the Last Supper and a pulpit with panels depicting the life of St-Ronan.   The town of Guimiliau is about 30 kilometers south of Roscoff;  see the ‘calvary ’ of the church ornately carved with over 200 figures in 17 scenes from Christ's Passion.  As with other churches in Brittany, each building is unique, many typical of the Breton Renaissance and built of granite. 

In the south of Finistère is Quimper, founded by the Gauls and taken by the Celts in the fifth century BC,  and is along the Cornouaille, for the British region  of “Cornwall” from whence these Celtic people came.  Today, Quimper  is a lively city with a marvelous Musée des Beaux Arts at 40, place St-Corentin, a wonderful pedestrian area called Vieux Quimper   where visitors can enjoy crêperies, shops and very good little restaurants, and has the reputation as the faïence capital of France, if not the world.  This lively and brightly-colored  hand-painted pottery, primarily in blues and yellows, has been produced in Quimper since 1690.  Visit the  city's oldest faïence factory, Faïenceries HB-Henriot,  open to visitors from March until October.  The large  port city of Brest on the western coast became important  in the 13th century, has Europe's largest draw bridge, and is a city dedicated to the French navy, while  boasting  of a very good Fine Arts Museum and a château worth visiting.  Don't miss Pont-Aven, near the south shore of Finistère, the picturesque town whose charms  attracted Paul Gauguin and other painters in the late 1880s. The town today is still deeply involved in the art world and is home to dozens and dozens of galleries and the Musée de Pont-Aven.

The département of the Côtes-d'Armor (22) is in the north of Brittany,  its shore entirely along the English Channel.  The Côte de Granit Rose,  with its reddish pink cliffs, is one of Brittany's most popular resort areas.  It is along this Channel coast that you will  find wide river inlets, a shoreline  dotted with islands, and the charm of such towns as the beautifully situated Guingamp  (visit its basilica of Notre Dame de Bon-Secours),  and our personal favorite, Dinan, on a plateau at the head of the River Rance. This walled city, despite the throngs of tourists who flock to it, is worth any detour.  One and half miles of walls built by the Dukes of Brittany  were erected to protect Old Dinan from the Normans, the English, and eventually the French.   The 14th century castle of Duchess Anne is a must, both inside -- and out where you can walk along the ramparts.  We loved the view from the castle over much of the town.  A mixture of 15th and 16th century shops and 17th and 18th century homes with half-timbering and granite walls take you well back in time, so plan to do a lot of walking. You'll love it!

Directly south of the Côtes-d'Armor is the département of the Morbihan (56) - home to the ancient megaliths of Carnac.    We had the pleasure of a visit to Carnac in 1993 and recall the endless number of menhirs on the site. It is said there are over 3000!   Prehistoric sites dot France like freckles – if you wanted to see them all, you would probably need the rest of a very long life. In Brittany, these sites are many with megaliths erected by tribes as far back as 4000 BC and little really known about them, other than to understand that they were probably spiritual in nature while also serving as astronomical calendars. Stay at the chambres d'hôtes, Château de Talhouët, and stroll the grounds where you will its very own menhirs! 

Modern day Morbihan, however, in its fortunate southern position in Brittany, is also home to some coastal resorts and the large island resort of Belle-Île in the Golfe du Morbihan, a 45-minute ferry ride from the mainland. It is an interesting island with a rugged coast, beautiful beaches and a central valley.  A 16th-century structure, Citadel Vauban, is an interesting star-shaped fort in the main island town of Le Palais.  The Golfe du Morbihan (Morbihan means ‘little sea’) has a small connection to the Atlantic by a narrow channel between two peninsulas.  Ferries take visitors to the many islands in the gulf and the industry here is fishing – for oysters, as well as fish.

Vannes is the walled “capital” of the Morbihan  -  a noteworthy city for its interesting history and the well-preserved medieval quarter.  It was the ancient capital of the Veneti, a tribe defeated in 56 BC by Caesar.  It became important in the 9th century when it was made a base by the Dukes of Brittany, and only lost its power when Brittany joined France in 1532 and the capital city became Rennes.  Perhaps one of the best sights in town today is the Musée d'Archéologie du Morbihan in the Château Gaillard on rue Noé where one can view items collected from the many archeological sites around Morbihan which include weapons, pottery and jewelry, along with some more recent objets d'art.

A town famous for what is considered by many to be perhaps the most impressive bit of medieval architecture in the region is Josselin.  The three towers of the castle rise up from the edge of the river, and visiting the town by boat is quite dramatic indeed. On the banks of the River Oust, Josselin is a town filled with history, from the  reconstruction of the castle in the 14th century by Olivier de Clisson (today it is still owned by the Rohan family who has lived there since 1407) to the construction of the basilica of Notre Dame du Roncier on a site selected by a miracle –a statue removed from the site always reappeared of its own accord.   Visit the Musée des Poupées (doll museum) in the castle to view a collection of over 500 dolls. As with other Brittany towns, Josselin offers visitors a variety of things to do and see.
 

Rochefort-en-Terre, located in a scenic area where the D777 and the D774 cross paths,  is a unique town renowned for its little granite houses and the drama of the 16th century church and medieval castle in the background. Its hilly streets and flowers cascading from boxes under nearly every window provide a storybook quality to the town. The flowers have a story, too.  In 1911, an American who would buy the ruined castle and restore it, initiated a contest called ‘deck your house with flowers’  -- and the tradition has never disappeared.  We had a most enjoyable and memorable dinner and evening at this bistro in Rochefort in October.  Dinner was from a limited menu, but the food was exceptional.  And, the chef, Philippe, was also a potter who honored us with a small clay sculpture.  It is these little moments in France that tug at one's heartstrings. . . so many charming and friendly people who go out of their way to make their guests feel welcomed.

In the 1970s an effort was made by all inhabitants (probably no more than 750 people today) to restore the village to its past beauty.   Ancient houses were restored, streets paved and any semblance of the 20th century (such as television antennas) were removed.   Since artists always loved Rochefort, a day is set aside each year when artists come from all over Brittany to set up their easels in the streets to paint.  Their work is then entered in a competition!   With the absence of modern signs, if it weren't for cars moving in and out of town, you would easily believe you were living hundreds of years back in time.  However, artistic signs are abundant, identifying every shop, restaurant and even the tourist office.  The sign for this shop indicates it produces and sells items made of wicker.

The Îlle and the Vilaine are rivers in Brittany, and lend their names to the last of the four départements we will visit - Îlle et Vilaine (35).  This department borders Normandy on its eastern edge, the Pays de la Loire on the south, and on the north shares the Côte d'Emeraude channel coast with the Côtes d'Armor.   It is here that the capital of Brittany, Rennes, can be found.    Rennes is at the confluence of these two rivers and has been the regional capital since 1532 when Brittany united with France.  It suffered untold damage in a six-day fire in 1720, so today one can only find a small part of the medieval city remaining.  The rest of the city is pure 18th century in addition to modern office blocks and two universities. Most interesting is the market along place des Lices on the northwest side of the city, and the tiny, but significant, Old Rennes. Narrow streets and clusters of medieval houses of the Early Renaissance (before 1580) with upper stories cantilevering out over the streets, invite walking tours.  Later, building codes forbid the overhanging upper stories, and more and more houses were built solely of granite.  Credit for the rebuilding of Rennes after the Christmas fire goes to Jacques-Jules Gabriel.  He created wider streets, added simple new buildings of granite ground floors and stone upper stories, adding occasional  arcades, and succeeded  in  blending  the old and new quite nicely. One major building that somehow survived the fire is the Palais du Justice, built in the mid-1600s, is well worth a visit as are the nearby Tabor Gardens.  Also in the old part of Rennes is the Cathedral of St-Pierre in the old town, and across town on the banks of the River Vilaine is the Musée des Beaux Arts with a fine collection of Breton pottery  and paintings on the first floor, while the ground floor houses the Musée de Bretagne, home to historical documents, Breton costumes and furniture, and geology exhibits.

Fortified towns are not rare in the Îlle et Vilaine, and one that is most notable is Fougères sitting on a hill looking down on the River Nançon and the huge 11th to 15th century Château de Fougères.  A massive structure with walls ten feet thick sporting thirteen towers, the size alone will certainly impress every visitor.  It is open to the public every day from February until December.

Vitré  is not to be missed. This, too, similarly sits high on a hill overlooking a valley and has a château from the 13th century with later additions. An enormous drawbridge takes you over the river to the château gate. The winding cobbled streets of the medieval town, with timberframe houses clinging to the roadside, will long be remembered by visitors.  The 15th century Cathédrale de Notre Dame is built in Flamboyant Gothic style with an exterior stone pulpit from where priests in days gone by yelled down at passersby!  The château is open to the public daily from July to September, closed Tuesdays October to March and closed on Easter, New Year's Day and Christmas.

We have only touched briefly here on all that Brittany has to offer.  There are wonderful regional parks, delightful seaside villages, fine medieval towns with outdoor cafés in abundance, cozy Breton restaurants offering regional cuisine,  crêperies everywhere (to make sure no one goes home without having enjoyed at least one!) and fêtes and festivals to enjoy.  Best of all, the people of Brittany will charm you and you will like we, no doubt, want to come back time and time again.

WHERE TO STAY:

     Château de la Ballue, Ille-et-Vilaine           Manoir La Chaussée, Ille-et-Vilaine            Château de la Foltière, Ille-et-Vilaine

   Domaine de Moulin Mer, Finistère              Château de Talhouët, Morbihan         Château des Tesnières, Ille-et-Vilaine

Click on any of the above photos to visit their web pages.

[Above six photos copyrighted property of each château owner.  All rights reserved.]

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