If you want to see the album of our pictures from June 2018, you can click on this link, June 2018.

le lundi 16 juillet 2018 – Monday July 16, 2018

France won the World Cup yesterday. People were celebrating for quite a while last night although Sandy slept through it.

In the morning she had to walk carefully through the debris on the streets from the celebrations last night on her way to purchase our breakfast this morning. By lunch time, the city workers had cleaned up all of the streets and everything was back to normal.

We walked in the ocean in the afternoon.  It was midway between high and low tide.

It was a lovely night to eat outside and we enjoyed our dinner at one of the restaurants on the Place du Marché aux Légume.

le mardi 17 juillet 2018 – Tuesday July 17, 2018

The temperature was 16 C or 60 F when we woke up this morning. After breakfast Sandy shopped  at our local marché. She bought “pêche plat” (flat peach), a melon, and tomato cerise, but forgot to buy “un pacquet des fraises” a package of strawberries. We took the bus to the Intermarché grocery store, did a little shopping and returned home.  Sandy went back to the marché to get some strawberries, but they had sold out.  Monsieur Alix’s son told her when she forgot something don’t get in the regular line, just come into the back of their stand and they will get what she needs. New information to remember!

In the afternoon we went to the boules court and found our friend Alain deep in thought examining the situation on the court.

le mercredi 18 juillet 2018 – Wednesday July 18, 2018

Sandy met with Christine for her first tutoring session this year. Phil went to Bricorama, the hardware store, to purchase a replacement curtain rod for the kitchen. When he returned to our street there was a knife sharpener tradesman working at the corner.  He appeared to be sharpening knives for the restaurant next door.

 

After lunch we walked in the water at the shore. The wind was so strong out of the north it was almost too cool to be enjoyable. The sun felt warm, but we didn’t linger.

In the evening, our friends Jean-Louis and Claudine came with their 4-year-old granddaughter for an aperitif. It was an enjoyable 2 hours catching up with them.

In his retirement Jean-Louis is the head of a local track and field organization.  He is headquartered at the local soccer stadium. He told us about a visit from the FBI to the soccer stadium here in Saint-Malo. Saint-Malo will host 3 games for the U-20 women’s FIFA matches on Aug 6, 8, and 12th. The FBI with sharp shooters will be present during the games played by the USA team.

We had applied to work as volunteers at the games, but were not selected. They had almost 1600 people apply. We had a SKYPE interview conducted in French back in March.  We just received our rejection letter last week. Quel domage, what a shame.

le jeudi 19 juillet 2018 – Thursday July 19, 2018

We took care of some things around our apartment before lunch.

We also walked around to get a newspaper at the local tabac and presse. The sign on the shop had been hit out-of-place by a large truck, luckily it is mounted to the wall with a spring. So it was not broken, just in the wrong place.   The owner of the tabac came out to push it back into place, but she was too short to reach it even with the metal bar she had brought with her. So Phil helped out by taking the bar, reaching up and putting the sign back in place.

Two hours after high tide we walked to the beach. The sun disappeared behind some clouds and we walked right into a strong wind. The walk in the water away from the ramparts was great, a little cool. The air temperature was 22 C. The walk on our way back to the ramparts was quite chilly. The wind was almost 15 kph and coming from the west, right off the water. Sandy was too cool by the time we returned home.

le vendredi 20 juillet 2018 – Friday July 20, 2018

It was even cooler today than yesterday morning, The predicted high temperature was 20 C, 68 F. The sun was out and it was very pretty, just cool. We walked to and from Saint-Servan to go to the marché. We wanted a piece of steak for dinner. The breeze was strong as we walked over the bridge for the lock. We saw over 50 jelly fish in the basin. Glad we weren’t swimming in there!

On the way back we saw four military personnel patrolling the street near our apartment.  We had not seen them for a while.

For lunch we tried a Carrefour pizza. They are oval-shaped. One was ham and cheese, the other 3 kinds of cheese. They were inexpensive!! The equivalent of $1.50 (US dollars) each. A tasty lunch for $3.00.

 

In the afternoon we walked to the boules court but no games were taking place. We brought our folding chairs with us and even Phil needed to sit in the sun for warmth. All 5 of the Corsaire ferries were operating, Taxi De La Mer and Captain Taxi made several trips back and forth, and sailboats were exiting the lock. Lots of activity.

le samedi 21 juillet 2018 – Saturday July 21, 2018

The streets were wet when we woke up today. We hadn’t heard any rain because of our granite building and our shutters. The forecast is for cloudy all day and a high of 23C, 73 F. Nothing like the terrible heat in the mid-west.

Today was the day for the grande braderie of Paramé. It is always held on the 3rd weekend of July. There are over 200 tables/blankets/places of items for sale. There are individual “stalls” just like garage sales in the USA and stalls from commercial stores, etc. We saw a surfboard for 5 euros, several wet suits, a snow sled, winter boots, and many toys, books, and clothing. We only bought a “pain au chocolat” to eat as a snack. There were 5 different bus routes that had detours caused by the braderie. It was a 2 hour round trip for us including bus rides going and coming, and the walking while browsing. It’s always an interesting spot.

A bit before 17h00 we walked toward the Salle Sainte Anne.  We stopped in the park by the Golden Tulip Hotel, LE GRANDE BÉ.

At 17h00 we walked into the Salle Sainte Anne to listen to a local Malouin historian. His presentation was about the streets of Saint-Malo before 1944. It was about the Belle Epoque time around 1900 and ending around 1914 at the start of World War I. The photos were interesting to see because some of the buildings and streets are the same. Instead of a lock and a bridge between Saint-Malo and Saint-Servan there was a very tall platform on wheels to carry people and items across the basin. We’d seen other presentation of his and this was the best!

le dimanche 22 juillet 2018 – Sunday July 22, 2018

There were still available parking spaces when Sandy shopped for our breakfast. That means not all of the tourists have arrived for their vacation. That will probably change by next weekend.

Late in the morning we took the number 3 bus to the Rousse bus stop in Paramé.  From there we walked about 1 kilometer to the shore by Rochebonne.  We walked on the digue back to Saint-Malo.  Someone was flying a pretty butterfly kite.

It was a bit warm in the sun, but a great day, very clear.