Wednesday, June 25, 2014

St-Malo, France--Outside the Walls

St-Malo is a coastal town on the French side of the English channel. Like many coastal towns that date back centuries, a good portion of the town sits behind stone walls to protect it from invaders by land or by sea. We visited the town one afternoon and enjoyed both the inside and the outside of the walls. Today's post will talk about what we saw outside.

Being centuries old, there is very little parking inside the walls (the buildings are all crammed in together with only the occasional plaza). We parked by the marina, giving us a nice view of both boats and walls.

Your standard marina

A huge anchor they just left there!

Carousel by the Porte St-Vincente

Porte St-Vincent proper

We went through Porte St-Vincent, which was the main entrance for the town. The walls are 23 feet thick here and a walkway goes along the top. After wandering through some streets, we went out to the seaside beach where the Fort National sits.

View of Fort National

View of the bay

Several forts were built along St-Malo to protect the bay. Fort National was built in 1689 and can be explored in the summer. We were there in the spring so we could only scramble around on the rocks.

J and L lead the way

Close to the fort

View back from the fort

Us by the fort

L the patriot

We didn't stay by the fort too long but we did enjoy the beach.

J enjoys the waters

J enjoys drawing

L draws pac-man

Self-portrait with pac-men, L. R., stick in sand

We headed back into the city to explore the walls and some of the buildings, which will be in the next post.

St-Malo from the beach

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