Malouin first, Breton sometimes, French never!

This weekend, my program took a trip to Mont St. Michel and the town of St. Malo, both located on the northwestern coast in the region called Brittany (“Bretagne” in French). It’s about 3 hours by TGV outside of Paris, so we once again had to leave the apartment at 6:30 am to catch our train! It never gets easier…

We arrived in St. Malo before lunchtime and loaded onto a charter bus to drive for 45 minutes to the small fishing village of Cancale. Bretagne is famous for its seafood, especially oysters and mussels. It’s right on the beach so it was ridiculously windy – probably the strongest wind I’ve ever been in! We were blown about the street until we found a cute little restaurant that didn’t only serve shellfish, although Connie and Maddie ordered oysters (“huitres”) for their entrées. They are braver souls than I… For dessert, we had a piece of “far breton,” which is essentially a slice of cake with a flan-like texture, made usually with prunes on the bottom. It was very good – not as sweet as many desserts but hearty and yummy!

After lunch we drove another half hour and across a long bridge to Mont St. Michel, where we trekked up to the top of the mountain to take a tour of the abbey. It was built in 708 when a bishop had a sanctuary built to honor the Archangel Michael. In the 900s, Benedictine monks settled in the abbey, expanded the building and a city sprang up behind its walls. It was a French stronghold during the Hundred Years’ War against the British and it became a symbol of French national identity. I thought it was an amazing feat of architecture and its location on the mountain on an island was beautiful and very remote, but the actual structure itself is not that impressive. A LOT of gray stone with no adornments of any kind (I guess the monks weren’t big on interior decorating, and if they were, it wouldn’t be in such good shape after 1000 years), so we all finished the audio tour rather quickly! We had another hour free to explore the town, but it turned out to be a giant tourist trap with tacky souvenir shops and overpriced crepes and waffles. We decided a nap on the bus would be the best use of our time.

After visiting the island, we drove to our hotel (in the middle of NOWHERE) and had dinner at the hotel restaurant. It was not exactly great food, and reminded me of all those awful meals on band trips. It’s kind of comforting to know that the French can have cheap, bad food too :) The next morning, we took our bus to the town of St. Malo to spend the day touring a maritime museum and the old city and have lunch and free time. We all kind of grumbled, “St. Malo? I’ve never even heard of it!” but surprisingly, this was my favorite part of the trip!

St. Malo was an island first used as a retreat by a Welsh monk named Macloud who came to convert the inhabitants of the nearby mainland to Catholicism. Sometime later, the town on the coast was moved to the island to better protect it, and in honor of the monk it was named St. Malo de l’Ile (“St. Malo of the island”). Our guide explained that it was hard for the locals to pronounce “Macloud,” so it deteriorated quickly to “Malo!” Anywho, St. Malo eventually turned into a HUGE trading port that was the object of envy of the English (just 200km across the channel), Bretons and French (at this point Bretagne was still an independent duchy). They obviously had a lot of clout and a LOT of money, so the Malouins toyed with their larger competitors and were at one point Breton before agreeing to join France – ONLY after the king converted to Catholicism, they were exempted from taxes, and they were given the privilege of flying the Malouin flag higher than the French national flag. Hence the well-known saying that is the title of this post :) Bretons in general, although they are technically French, really don’t identify that way and they have a very strongly rooted independent streak and their own distinct culture from the rest of the country, especially Paris. Every other store in the city sold regional products such as butter cookies, hard apple cider and salted butter caramel (spreads, candies, crepes, waffles, you name it!). I asked our guide why the caramel was so prevalent, and she explained that in order to hide their salt from the tax collector – it was a precious commodity at the time that was highly taxed – the Malouins mixed it with their butter! I was in the town that invented salted butter!! Truly a historic moment and a very important marker in modern history, don’t you agree?

We had a guided walking tour of the city, during which we learned that it was 80% destroyed in a three week long fire caused by American bombings aiming to free the city during WWII. I’d call that a failure of planning… But they rebuilt the city in 6 years and did a very good job of making it look very old. Could’ve fooled me! The ramparts are the only original structure that remain, and they make a nice elevated walkway on which to see the ocean and the island forts that secured the city. We also got to see the dramatic tide change – at 2pm the nearest fort was connected to the city by a strip of sandbank, and by 6pm the water level had risen to completely submerge the land and rose up to the top of the rocky hill the fort was set on. Apparently St. Malo sees the largest tide change in all of Europe, with a difference of 30 meters of depth between high and low tide!

Low-ish tide at 2pm, high tide at 6pm!

Anywho, the old town of St. Malo (inside the ramparts) was ADORABLE and didn’t feel as cheaply touristy as Mont St. Michel. There were chain stores such as Esprit and Subway, but also We found a tiny creperie for lunch where we enjoyed lunch and a crepe covered with warm caramel sauce for dessert, and spent a leisurely hour and a half inside a café with tea and a regional pastry called “kouign amman” (pronounced “koogamen”). It’s hard to describe but is basically a spiral of dough layers that’s brushed with sugar syrup before baking and can come with thin layer of apple baked in. After a long but relaxing day that I found very interesting and informative, we hopped back on the TGV to Paris and I finally got home at midnight last night! Whew :)

It’s hard to believe that I only have 34 more days left in Paris! After this weekend, when my friend Helena is visiting from Spain, I don’t have any more full weekends in Paris! I honestly have no idea where the time has gone, but when I think about all I’ve done and seen and eaten in the past 2 months I’m quite proud of myself. I’ve completely checked off my original “to see and do” list, so I’ve added a couple more, smaller sights and will probably start to revisit some of my favorite places. Thinking of you all and hope you’re having a great November!

It’s weird not having any Thanksgiving here to mark the time between Halloween (which actually doesn’t really exist here either…) and Christmas, so I’m guessing I’ll really start seeing “Joyeux Noel” (Merry Christmas) at the beginning of December. The street decorations are starting to go up, so I feel it’s appropriate to begin playing Bing Crosby and Dean Martin Christmas songs :)

This is pretty representative of the weather at Mont St. Michel. Also why there are few to no pictures of any of the girls on the trip.