Sojourn by the Seaside

Tuesday October 11th
In Which we Sojourn by the Seaside

Our four days in Paris went by far too quickly, but still served to remind us of all the reasons we love this place so much. This morning we packed up our belongings from our tiny hotel room in the Sorbonne and rolled our bags about 1.5 km to Montparnasse Station. We arrived in good time and settled down to wait for our platform number to be announced. The procedure is that the platform is announced exactly 20 minutes prior to the train departure time and this invariably results in a stampede of luggage wheeling travellers all trying to charge to their carriages at the same time.

We actually would have made it easily if we had remembered to validate our tickets at the entrance to the platform, but we hadn't. By the time we remembered this important step we were already halfway along the platform and right in the middle of the stampede. I risked being trampled while looking after our luggage, while Maggie fought her way against the tide back to the validating machine.

Finally we were reunited and in our allocated carriage. The only problem was that a couple of Canadian women were sitting in our seats. "Would you like us to move ?", one of them asked, stating the bleeding obvious. "Well yes", I replied, "these are our seats after all". They shuffled to their correct seats with much huffing and puffing and relocating of bags and other paraphenalia. Eventually we were all in the correct seats and ready for the 3 hour ride to St Malo.

European trains are so far ahead of Australian trains that it almost seems unfair to class them in the same transportation class. This trip was no exception. It was serenely quiet, fast and smooth. The seats were comfortable and it was almost impossible not to fall asleep. Actually it WAS impossible and soon both of us were dozing peacefully.

We arrived at the modern St Malo station and started to walk towards our hotel at the seaside. The weather was absolutely delightful with clear skies and no wind. The sunshine was actually warm on our shoulders and we were relieved when we found our hotel about 30 minutes later. We were even more relieved when the receptionist told us that our room was ready.

I had ordered an ocean front room with balcony and we were delighted to find that we were only about 50 metres from the water's edge with an unobstructed view right out over the ocean.

We could see several small islands not far off shore and the walls of the old city were only a short walk away. We even had a very friendly and extremely curious seagull waiting to welcome us to our room.

The ocean was as smooth as the proverbial mill pond and in the near distance we could see the modern ferry departing for Portsmouth in the UK. In four day's time we will be catching that same ferry ourselves. Scattered out over the calm seas were a number of small pleasure boats and a group of sailboats conducting some sort of race. On the wide sandy beach there were a number of small dogs enjoying a frolic in the sand. It really was a picture postcard perfect scene.

The rest of the first day in St Malo was spent wandering the old city and marveling at just how pretty this location is. At this late stage of the season, most of the dreaded tourist groups have now departed the scene, and we were able to enjoy the city in relative peace and quiet. This is a town that would be extremely easy to fall in love with.Read more