St. Malo is in the department of
Ille-et-Vilaine on the north coast of
Brittany, 248 miles northwest of Paris, 21 miles north
of
Dinan and 41 miles north of
Rennes. We have visited it twice, once a long time ago and again on our 2006 trip.
The first time we stopped there after visiting
Mont St. Michel for an overnighter and were enthralled by it. It had a wall
facing the sea that you could walk on, which we did in the evening. The restaurants featured fresh seafood. In fact the
seafood available in an open market here the next morning certainly had to be the freshest we have ever seen (possibly barring the
Far East where you buy fish swimming in tanks). On a counter of a fish vender was a display of whitebait, tiny silver
fish, and they were alive and jumping! When we were in Rennes and then Dinan we drove the short distance to see St. Malo again.
It did not disappoint. Just look at the
photos and read the
letter we wrote after our visit.
There were hordes of
tourists, but we have a high tolerance for such as these. And it seemed that in those restaurants we remembered so fondly,
a variety of seafood seemed to have been displaced by ubiquitous moules-frites (mussels with fries). These were prepared
in a variety of ways, though, and those that I had were excellent.
St. Malo has been notable for being the birthplace of the
writer
Francois-Rene Chateaubriand, whose cook is credited with inventing the steak dish of the same name, and who is buried
on a nearby island. Perhaps better known to Americans and Canadians, the explorer
Jacques Cartier sailed from St. Malo on his voyage
across the Atlantic and down the St. Lawrence River to Quebec and Montreal. And St. Malo was notorious for the
Corsairs--French
pirates, or, if you prefer, privateers-- who adopted St. Malo as their home base and harassed British ships sailing in the Channel and
also brought in booty from farther away.
