Travel Diaries: St Malo + Mont St Michel

One of my absolute favourite days, while in France, was when we spent the day at a place called Saint Malo and then the evening in Mont Saint Michel. 

We started off the day in Saint Malo. We mostly explored the old town, which is also a walled city and a popular tourist destination. Inside Saint Malo, there are lots of tall buildings all joined together and cobblestone streets. It looks old fashioned but also sort of modern at the same time. When we first entered into the town through the wall, the first things to see were bustling restaurants/cafes/bars and little stalls selling artwork and other knickknacks. 

Since Saint Malo is a walled city, you could actually go up sets of stairs to the top of the wall and walk right around the city on top of the wall. We didn’t walk the full way around the wall, but from the parts we did walk, we saw some spectacular views of beaches and of the rest of the town itself. It reminded me a little of exploring old castles. 

This was a view from the top of the wall of the town. 

There were lots of different shops which we went looking around. My favourite was one that sold all sorts of chocolates and nougats. The lady of the shop was really lovely and let us try lots of samples of all the different goodies that were there. We ended up leaving that shop having bought almost 50€ worth of chocolates and sweets (worth it😄). 

After taste testing lots of sugary goodness, we then went for lunch. We weren’t too sure where to go since there were so many different restaurants to choose from. We found a little bagel shop by chance and got food from there. It was such a cute little place inside and the food was great, especially the homemade chocolate chip cookies!

Montréal Bagel. We sat in the small upstairs part of the little restaurant.

After lunch, we climbed back up to the top of the wall to have a further look around. While we were up the wall, we noticed that there was a boat giving tours of the bay of Saint Malo (Baie de Saint Malo) so we decided to go on it. We had originally bee planning on getting a little tour train (Le Petit Train de Saint Malo) that gives a tour of the actual town, but the queue’s were always so long and the boat tour turned out to be brilliant. We got to see other parts of France that we wouldn’t have otherwise seen had we not took the boat tour. It lasted about an hour and a half. The weather was amazing, the views were incredible. There was a tour guide on the boat but he only spoke in French so I didn’t fully understand everything that he was talking about but it didn’t really matter because it meant that I could just fully focus on the views.

After the boat tour, we went back into the old town of Saint Malo and had a look around more shops. I got myself some souvenirs to take back home. We then went to a hotdog place for dinner. After dinner, it was time to head to Mont Saint Michel. 

Mont Saint Michel is a little island located near Avranches and in the bay where Normandy and Brittany merge. To get to the island, you need to get a shuttle bus as cars are no longer allowed near or on the island itself as all the floods of tourists/cars had been causing damage. We went at around eight o’clock, which wasn’t even peak time, but yet the bus was still completely crowded with as much people as would possibly fit. Upon first seeing Mont Saint Michel, I was immediately blown away. 

It looks like something from a fairytale.

The island was surrounded by beach and sea and when the tide comes in, it looks like the island is just floating on top of the water. It was a stunning view from what we got to see. 

The island itself reminded me a little of Saint Malo as there were similar cobblestone streets and high buildings. There were lots of quaint little shops, but most things were closing by the time we got there. We explored the full island and there were lots of little side streets and lots of steps to climb since everything (houses, shops, roads) were built into the actual island itself. There was lots to see and little places to explore. We were going to see the big Abbey which sits at the very to0 of the island and the place for which the island is most famous for, but we didn’t leave ourselves enough time to properly see it. I’m really hoping that there will be a “next time”for me to actually go and see inside the Abbey. There was still plenty of other sights to see around the island. Such as the little streets themselves and all the old fashioned looking buildings. 

After exploring everything we could, we left the island to stand just outside of it to watch the sunset. We got really lucky with the weather and the sunset was amazing. It was the perfect way to wind down after the amazing day we’d had. 

It was such a touristy day, but I loved every minute of it. Everything looked amazing and there was so much to see and lots of lovely food to eat. It really made me want to travel more and to see more and to just have more days like that. It wasn’t even that we did anything spectacular during the day, it was just the fact of getting to see so much and be there with my family. 

What’s been your favourite travel destination?

Bye for now, xo