View from the ramparts on the east side.
At the advice of Jane, co-owner of Au Bon Accueil, I took a short train ride out to Saint-Malo and booked my homebound journey to Paris from there, rather than spend my last day in the Pontorson/Mont Saint-Michel area which, according to her, "is not very interesting at all" once you've seen the island and the abbey. Good thing I listened, because the hours I spent wandering around the walled port city (still in use) were easily the highlight of my trip.
It was low tide when I arrived, so I wandered around the nearly deserted beach for a bit before mounting the stairs to the ramparts, and was instantly reminded of how much I miss living near the water. Maybe that's why Paris has begun to feel claustrophobic; it's too landlocked for me.
The entire loop around the city's walls is about a mile long, with spectacular ocean scenery on one side and a privileged view of the old, stately architecture on the other. If the weather hadn't kept fluctuating between drizzly rain and sun breaks I might have stopped to read my book up there for a while.
Below, some of my favorite scenes from Saint-Malo.
See the rest on Flickr.
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If you go...
Eat: Le Corps de Garde Crêperie. Sure there are crêperies everywhere (this is proper Brittany, after all), but this probably the only place where waiters dress in quasi-pirate garb with black pants, ruffled white shirts and red sashes, and the dining room is strategically placed such that customers can look out over the ramparts and across the water as they eat.