Driving and skipping

Today, mum wanted to visit five towns - in one day! I told her it was a little unrealistic, but we went ahead with the plan. There was an  outrageous amount of driving to do - in addition to visiting five places it was simply going to be too much. The main destination for today was Saint-Malo, which was a little over twice as far from Avranches as Le Mont Saint Michel.

You can see the Saint-Malo and Combourg collections on Flickr:

Combourg: https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157646136465150/
Saint-Malo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157646502752201/

After driving for nearly an hour, parking at Saint-Malo turned out to be a bitch. We drove and drove looking for a parking spot, and eventually found one right on the bay. It was right across from one of three of Saint-Malo's forts. The whole walk down to the old town was a view across the beaches and the fort:

The view of the fort and the beach

Eventually mum went toys out of the pram with my photography, so we arranged to meet after two hours. I went off up to the ramparts, and saw that the tide had gone out. When the tide goes out, all three forts (which are out on the sea) become walkable from the beaches. I headed for the nearest one, Le Fort National, and paid my entry fee. I'm loving still technically being a student, I've scored discounts to many different places so far. There was a fair bit of history to the fort, I followed a little of it and took some photos - the contrasts in the colour of the water and the colours of the fort were amazing:

Le Fort National

Eventually I headed back across the beach and towards the ramparts and old town of Saint-Malo. The old town area was a bit grungy for my liking, compared to other towns it was all concrete and granite, not much colour thrown in. The main shopping street was interesting, all sorts of local delicacies available. I ended up trying a pastry that was like rolled-up crepe mixture deep-fried and drowned in sugar. Delicious.

The part of the ramparts I walked was the western part, which looks out over some of Saint-Malo's picturesque beaches. Think Fiji or the Caribbean, but with granite instead of palm trees:

Looking out over the west of Saint-Malo

By that stage it was high time to move on to the next town. We agreed to skip town number 2 and move on to Dinan. We did stop quickly for a photo stop at a bridge before heading off. The traffic at Dinan was just awful - the weather had fouled up by this stage as well and we decided to make for Combourg, which had a castle to visit.

Combourg's castle was refreshingly bustle-free, with quite a few parking spots. We paid for the entry fee (student prices again!) and were told the next tour would start in half an hour. Unfortunately we couldn't explore the massive grounds properly as it had just started to rain. By the time the tour started it had stopped raining, but only just.

Unfortunately there was no photography inside the castle during the tour, but we were allowed to (or we just didn't get caught) take photos outside up the top, with views over the town. Some pretty decent views, but nothing too spectacular. On the way out the grounds were closing, so even though the sun was now shining we didn't get to take many photos.

Chateau de Combourg

We had a little bit of a wander around town afterwards as well - nothing much to it, 'just another old town'. Probably didn't help that we were all tired and only walked a few blocks. We decided that tomorrow we would turf much of the original plan, in favour of going back to Dinan and doing it properly. Maybe we'll also get some time to tour Avranches properly. Until next time!