Saturday 3rd April

When we opened the blinds this morning, the sun was rising over the hills directly above the town on the river below our B and B. Despite the promising start, the weather forecast was for more rain today and a better day tomorrow. Therefore we decided that today we would go to St Malo and Dinan and then tomorrow we would go to Mont St Michel.

I'm now getting used to somebody serving me coffee and croissants at 8:30 every morning. I'm not sure how I'm going to adjust when I get back to Sydney.

We set off from the B and B for St Malo at 10am. After about 30 minutes we were in the "new" part of St Malo trying to find the ancient part (the walled town). It turned out that the first route we took to get to the walled town was shut because the bridge was open to let shipping through. After waiting for a while, we went off in a different direction and the TomTom successfully found another route.

As we approached the walls at the St Vincents portal, Suzy spotted the entrance to an underground car park. When we went in, we found it was almost empty. It must be a new car park because it was clean and high-tech. Not only did they have detectors indicating which parking spots were taken but there were lights built into the pavement to show you which direction to go. After parking the car, I heard music that I thought must of being coming from the only other car nearby but it turned out to be piped music.

As you might expect, the streets of the walled city are narrow and made with cobblestones. The shops in the old buildings are very modern and elegant. They really know how to present their goods in these French shops - particularly the food shops. It is all very tempting. Here it is also pretty expensive.

Before midday we were ready for a coffee break in one of the many coffee shops. Then we tackled the ramparts - the walkways on the walls around the city. The ramparts give you a great view of the city, the port and the ocean. Unlike some other wall-top walkways that we have seen elsewhere in our travels in recent years, these walkways were flat and easy to walk on. I even saw a few people in wheelchairs.

Many of the buildings are made of old stonework but some look much newer. In fact, some looked like they are built with concrete blocks that are made to look like stone. Apparently, the city was badly damaged by bombing in World War II and the authorities have gone to a lot of trouble to rebuild the city in its former glory.

When we got back towards St Vincents, we walked down onto the sandy beach. If you stood there and watched, you could see the tide going out before your eyes. Suzy said she had read that you could walk to the fort on one of the nearby islands when the tide went out but she expressed concern about getting caught there when the tide starting coming back in.

We had lunch at a creperie in the St Vincents area. Apparently Brittany is famous for crepes and galettes. I had a galette with ham, cheese and an egg accompanied by a large mug of cold beer. It suited me right down to the ground.

After lunch Suzy went off to look at the shops. I was quite happy not to go along (and I think Suzy was even happier for me not to come). Instead, I finished the tour of the ramparts and then walked along the wharf outside the walls. When I looked out towards the fort, I noticed that the tide had dropped so far that people were walking out there and so I decided to do the same. It also gave me a good view back to the walled city.

I had arranged to meet Suzy at St Vincents at 3pm. We had a hassle leaving the car park because the machine didn't accept my MasterCard. By the time with sorted this out with my broken French and the various attendants in their broken English, it had started to rain.

Although the next stop was the walled town of Dinan, we decided to go via the B and B - partly because it was not far out of the way and partly because we wanted to get some warmer clothes and some more wet-weather gear. When we arrived at Dinan, the weather was miserable - very cold, very wet and very windy. Suzy suggested that we should wait in the car for a while until it improved.

Dinan is an attractive town and I'm sure that on a warm sunny day that it would be even better. We explored the cobblestone streets shops and sites. Once again, Suzy was particularly interested in shops that sold baby clothes. We found the ramparts and took lots of photos. One corner of the ramparts gave a great view of the Dinan Port below (the town on the river) and the stone arched bridge over the valley. Unlike St Malo, the ramparts were only in sections rather than all the way around the town.

While Suzy was in the last baby clothes shop, I walked down to a peaceful area outside the walls where there was a garden with caged exotic birds including peacocks.

At one stage we had planned to have dinner in Dinan but were starting to feel tired and we decided to drive back to the B and B. Besides, I think we had already covered all the ramparts and baby clothes shops.

For dinner we went to a restaurant that was only about 200m down the road from the B and B. Most of the food was OK and the wine was good but it wasn't as nice as the restaurant we went to last night (or the restaurants at Saumur).