Tags
amber trader, ecluse, finland, Grand Passerelle, lock, romania, Saint-Malo
Sunday April 17, 2017 was a “sleep late” day for us. Sandy didn’t make it up until almost 9 am which is very late for her.
Sandy got a croissant and baguette for breakfast. Then we worked on homework until close to 14:00. It was a beautiful bright sunny day but cool. The wind was blowing off the ocean and the high temperature for the day reached 10 C or 50 F.
On our way to a photo exposition, we took a walk through the parking area by the Vauban basin. As we walked through a parking lot we usually look at the license plates. The French license plates even though they are all basically the same design and colors have information on them that tells you which department the car is registered. French departments are slightly similar to states in the USA. The really interesting plates are those from other countries. Today we spotted two out of country license plates. First we spotted a license plate from Finland (FIN). Helsinki the capitol of Finland is 2746 km (1706 mi) from Saint-Malo. The other license plate we spotted was from Romania (RO). Bucharest the capitol of Romania is 2709 km (1683 mi) from Saint-Malo. Somebody drove a long ways.
We walked to the Grand Passerelle for the photographic exposition. The Grand Passerelle is across from the Gare/train station. Its official name is “la Médiathèque La Grande Passerelle de Saint-Malo.” It is a multimedia library, with 6-8 movie theaters, and exhibition rooms inside. It is a modernistic, large, nice looking building. We wanted to see the exhibition of photographs called “Belle Epaque” showing Saint-Malo in it’s “heyday”. The photographs were from around the early 1900’s. Horses, mules, and wagons were being used to help the fishermen with their nets. Many buildings looked the same then as they do today and we found the exhibit very interesting. It was also free!
On our walk back towards the Intra-Muros we could hear a band playing. There were about 24 brass musicians entertaining a large crowd just outside the tourism office.
mystery band on the esplanade Saint-Vincent
After listening to them for a few minutes we walked towards the harbor to see if we could spot any of the returning sailboats from the regatta yesterday.
Before we reached the harbor we spotted a very large ship in the lock/ecluse. We watched the tanker named “Amber Trader” (pictures below) come out of the lock/ecluse and make a complete 360 degree turn. It was docking across from the exit of the lock/ecluse in preparation to load up tomorrow. It was VERY high in the water and had to be empty.
We finally made it to the harbor and sat on a bench for a few minutes. We saw the Corsaire Ferry arrive, depart and watched people come and go. The sun was very warm. We did not see any of the sailboats from the Regatta.