Jamie and Scott Go Francing: Day 2

Sunday, 18 May 2008

We began the day with a relatively early morning walk down by the marina in Dinard. Desperately, but futilely, in search of coffee. Being somewhat opposed to paying over the odds for average breakfasts at hotels, we’d decided to skip the €36 option at the hotel. We did finally grab a pain au chocolat and a croissant in a boulangerie on the way out of town.

We gathered our things, collected Isabelle and headed towards St Malo, just across the bay. St Malo was once a famous privateer stronghold where Jacques Cartier was from. Now it is a walled tourist town, full of naff shops selling swords and monogrammed soaps. Well, maybe that is a little harsh, but we prefer the realness of Dinard. Fortunately St Malo redeemed itself by having good espresso and fantastic views from the ramparts.

The city was destroyed during WW2 and has been completely redone, which they have done very well. We wouldn’t have even noticed this if someone hadn’t told us. We walked the ramparts and along the edge is a group of Quebecois flags, so of course, as Canadians, we stopped to take a picture of Jacques Cartier (he ‘discovered’ and claimed Canada for France in 1534). Turns out that it wasn’t Jacques…it was a famous privateer called Surcouf. Why he was standing amongst Quebecois flags is mystery we still haven’t solved! We did find Jacques later but he was off by himself in a park. Hmmm…perhaps a mix up when putting up the statues?

After wandering around the ramparts for a while, we loaded back into Isabelle and drove the Emerald Coast towards our next stop – Le Mont St Michel. After stopping at a lookout point along the way we headed towards Cancale for some famous oysters for lunch. We found a bit of Cancale inappropriately labelled (they have signs when you enter a town and then have a sign with an X through the town name when you leave) as it wasn’t the REAL Cancale, it was Basse Concale…but it had lots of restaurants overlooking the Bay of St Michel. You could even see Le Mont in the distance. We managed to have a very tasty lunch in the sunshine. Later we drove past the real Cancale and it looked very nice. Damn French, first the mustard, now this!! (See previous Francing trip report for mustard story http://www.fodors.com/forums/pgMessages.jsp?fid=2&tid=34889327&numresponses=119&start=0&searchText=bikerscott )

We drove along the Bay to the Mont. All along we caught spectacular views of the famous abbey on its little hill in the middle of the Bay. We arrived at the official parking and found a spot for Isabelle, then ascended into Hell.

Le Mont St Michel (actually in Normandy) is a beautiful village which has been completely overrun with massive hordes of tourists and the horrible sword-selling shops that they attract. Of course, we don’t consider ourselves to be tourists ha ha ha. We arrived around 3pm and checked into our hotel, Auberge St Pierre http://www.auberge-saint-pierre.fr/ and wandered around for a bit until we found a nice vantage point to watch the ‘galloping horses’ of the tide come surging across the bay. After 2 cold hours we realized that the horse would probably have to be dead to be out-galloped by the tide! We now have what will most likely be the most boring time lapse photography ever. I blame Jamie for this, as it turns out we were a couple hours early for the tide and she got the time wrong!!!

After 2 hours freezing in the cold we found a suitable bar and I had a grog and Jamie tried a Kir Normande (crème de cassis/cidar/calvados), followed by a bottle of cidar. Yes, a whole bottle. We then headed out for dinner. By this time the day trippers had left and the town was serene and beautiful…exactly why we chose to stay there overnight!

There is really only 1 road on the Mont leading up to the abbey, and what everyone says is true…there is no good food. We settled on Les Terraces de Poulard where we had the worst service ever. Our waiter opened the wine, put it down on the table, and immediately walked away, all without saying a word! Jamie enjoyed her mussels in cream and lobster, and I an omelette with ‘wild’ mushrooms from a tin and the leg of lamb. The wine was delicious anyway, a yummy Chateauneuf du Pape.

We are avid photographers, so after finishing our average meal we dragged out the tripod and got some lovely shots of the abbey all lit up. Absolutely worth putting up with the tourists!

Pictures from Day 2: