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Tag Archives: Le Quai St-Malo

the week ending August 11, 2019 – la semaine se terminant le 11 août 2019

12 Monday Aug 2019

Posted by philipdenotto in 2019-France

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

braderie, cross of lorraine, fs belle poule, kite flyers, kite-sufers, Le Quai St-Malo, malo metiers d'art, melon de charentais, no logo, ocean walkers, paddleboard, Place du Marché aux Légumes, plage du mole, plage du Sillon, Quest France, raft, renard, restaurant, rue de dinan, sailing students, scottish terrier

lundi 5 août 2019 – Monday August 5, 2019

The Intra-Muros braderie, sidewalk sales and flea market, is all day today and tomorrow. Our friend Marie Dominque and her twin daughters were at the Place du Marché aux Légumes at 5h30 this morning to set up their items for sale. The girls are now 16 years old and have a lot of toys, stuffed animals, and a little clothing to sell. They use the money for spending all year. Their parents have a few household items and pictures for sale outside of their hotel. We walked around quite a bit, looked at lots of things, but didn’t buy a thing.

pirate-play-raft – the local toy store had this raft ready for Sandy, she declined a ride

We spoke to our neighbor, Madame Dominque, from upstairs and the “Parisian guy” at the end of our street. The “Parisian guy” sells old post cards at many of the braderies.

It drizzled off and on all afternoon. Sandy finished washing our french doors both inside and outside. They are the doors leading to our balcony and have an overhang.

mardi 6 août 2019 – Tuesday, August 6, 2019

On our way out this morning we saw Jean-Michel, our neighbor from #6 on our street. We hadn’t seen him for a couple weeks and wondered if he was out of town. He lives on the 4th floor of his building (the equivalent of 5th in the USA) and complained about the heat during our couple of hot days. He’d just returned from swimming and said he prefers the Plage du Sillon.

We purchased fruit and legumes at the marché. We also stopped at the florist and purchased some lovely small roses.

  • small red and white roses
  • small red and white roses

The beach, Plage du Sillon, was named France’s most beautiful beach last year. This year it is number 2 in France. We’ve taken many pictures up and down and love to walk on it.

In the afternoon we had a little walk by the harbor. The town is very crowded.

Sandy in the foreground wearing robin egg blue getting ready to head into the crowd.

mercredi 7 août 2019 – Wednesday, August 7, 2019

Sandy reads the Saint-Malo tourism site daily to see what events are happening. Today she read, again, about a special fishing event. When the tide is low enough, the city offers fishing lessons for catching EELS! The site encourages people to bring headlamps, wear boots, and to try to be quicker than the eel. It’s not an event we will partake. Ugh!

We took a 5 kilometer walk on the digue. We saw quite a few different activities going on at the beach this morning.

  1. ocean walkers, people wearing wet suits walking chest high in the water
  2. sailing students, a group of children taking lessons on sailing boats
  3. people flying kites
  4. people on paddleboards
  5. kids getting a lesson on how to surf
  6. wind surfers
  7. people surfing, or at least trying to surf
  8. three dogs – dogs ride behind their owner’s bike in a trailer
  • 1 ocean walkers
  • 2 sailing students
  • 3 flying a kite
  • 4 paddleboard
  • 5 learning to surf
  • 6 wind surfers
  • 7 surfers
  • 8 three dogs in their bike trailer

At the boules game this afternoon Philippe, Gavroche the Scottish Terrier owner, introduced himself to us. Guy, the player from the town of Nancy in the east of France, also introduced himself. Geneviève, the female player who teases all of the guys, introduced herself. Geneviève told us we were the “spectateurs fidèles” loyal spectators. We’ve been called worse things 😀.

Pierre told Phil again that he had to play boules with them next year.

It was another beautiful sunny day around 24C (75F).

jeudi 8 août 2019 – Thursday, August 8, 2019

Looks like rain on our way to the boulangerie. We dropped off recycling, garbage, and glass and noticed water coming up from underneath the street across from the recycling area. It was running down the street towards the harbor. It must have been going on for a while since there was quite a stream of water heading down the hill. Hopefully someone will notice a broken pipe. Most of France is under water conservation due to lack of rain since early spring and they won’t want any water to go to waste.

Today was Sandy’s day to visit her French teacher Christine in the Paramé area of Saint-Malo. Phil got to do the grocery shopping.

After lunch we walked to see if they were playing boules. They were not! We did see Madam Yvonne reading under the trees. We stopped to say hello and she invited us to sit with her. Phil explained how important it was for Sandy to listen to the conversation. She agreed and was happy to help Sandy improve her listening skills. Yvonne also told us she has a house in Rennes (an hour away) and spends April to mid September each year in Saint-Malo. She was 88 years old and had taken a trip to California when she was 80.

vendredi 9 août 2019 – Friday, August 9, 2019

Sandy read in the newspaper Ouest-France that there are strong wind warnings for this afternoon, evening, and strong waves on the ocean. There was a red flag flying at the Plage du Mole meaning it is hazardous to be in the water. We also read where all nautical activities should be well planned and preparations taken. It was advised to securely attach all tents and marquees.

red flag at the life guard station indicating dangerous surf

We saw the sailing ship Renard (Fox) depart from the harbor and were glad we weren’t onboard. It will be a rough, rocky sailing.

the RENARD (FOX) setting out from the harbor

Christine invited us to come for an aperitif this evening at the “usual” time of 18h. We had a very nice time with Christine and her husband Michel. They served champagne, cherry tomatoes, rillette du pork, chips, cake with ham and vegetables inside, and melon de Charentais.

melon de Charentais – By Marius Kant – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

A Charentais melon is a type of cantaloupe melon, Cucumis melo var. cantalupensis. It is a small variety of melon, similar in flesh to cantaloupes, but with a more fragrant smell. It was developed in western France around 1920 as a more refined cantaloupe. Most are now produced in North Africa, with some limited production in the United States.

Wikipedia contributors, “Charentais melon,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Charentais_melon&oldid=860915735 (accessed August 11, 2019).

Michel insisted on driving us home in his Citroën station wagon. It is always good to have a chauffeur.

samedi 10 août 2019 – Saturday, August 10, 2019

On our way back to our apartment from the boulangerie we met our neighbor Madame Bertin’s brother. Her brother’s name is Jacques-Louis and he is a fluent English speaker. He is retired now, but he told us he had worked in the U.K. and Saudi Arabia for ARAMCO. Interesting.

We took a short walk to the basin and found that a nice sail boat was moored there. The FS BELLE POULE is a French navy training ship. It is actually classified as a schooner.

  • schooner FS BELLE POULE
  • French naval jack with the cross of Lorraine

The french words “BELLE POULE” translate to “BEAUTIFUL HEN”. Here is the story behind the name.

The name Belle Poule derives from an incident in 1533. Francis I was presented with the keys of Toulouse by Paule de Viguier, the baroness Fronteville. Paule was a young girl known for her beauty, and Francis nicknamed her la belle Paule. The name became altered over time to belle poule through the difference between French and Occitan pronunciation.[1] The name was later adopted by a Gironde corsair for his vessel, giving rise to it as a ship name in the French navy.
Another version of the story is that Francis called her belle poule, as a play on words. The word belle is “beautiful”, while poule is a reference to her name, Paule, but also means “chick”, which in French, as it was later in English, can refer to a young girl.

Wikipedia contributors, “French ship Belle Poule,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=French_ship_Belle_Poule&oldid=858016935 (accessed August 11, 2019).

Again this morning the wind is strong. Sandy read in the newspaper Quest-France that a tornado touched down on the border between Luxembourg and France. It damaged over 100 homes and is quite rare there. There were many train delays due to downed power lines caused by the wind in the north and west of France.

We took a walk on the beach. The wind was at our backs as we started out, but was in our face on the return. The wind was so strong that there were small waves of sand blowing along the beach. In the water, the waves were breaking hard against the small exposed islands.

waves breaking against the small exposed islands a few hundred feet from the beach

A music festival taking place this weekend called “No Logo” also experienced wind delays . Since they are primarily using tents for stages, etc., it wasn’t safe for festival goers to be allowed onto the site until the wind calmed down.

“No Logo BZH is steadily establishing itself as one of the top reggae festivals in Europe. Spread across three glorious days in the historic port city of Saint-Malo in northern France, the festival maintains a sense of independence and, as its name suggests, is all about the music.”)

https://www.festicket.com/festivals/no-logo-bzh/2019/

The crowd was really thick today on the Rue de Dinan, the main road in the Intra-Muros.

We did not take on the crowd. We took a short cut through a series of side streets.

dimanche 11 août 2019 – Sunday, August 11, 2019

Just after noon we walked over to the QUAI SAINT-MALO to attend an artisans exhibition called “MALO MÉTIERS D’ART.” We walked around and found two vendors which had some items we really liked. This was the first year for each vendor at the exhibition.

After attending the artisans show we walked over to the restaurant B’Art à Thé. We had a wonderful mid-afternoon meal.

  • Phil’s mystery fish item
  • Sandy’s bruschetta
  • citrus cake and red fruit cake for dessert

How to view additional photos.

You can view an album of photos by clicking one of the following links. The photo album will open in a new browser window with the photos.

Click here for all the July photos in France

Click here for all the June photos in France

Click here for photos of La Roseraie Saint-Anne

Click here for the photos in Paris

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le semaine se terminant le dimanche 26 août 2018 – the week ending Sunday August 26, 2018

26 Sunday Aug 2018

Posted by philipdenotto in 2018-France

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

brittany ferries, bubble guy, condor ferries, corsaire ferry, decouverte, digue, e leclerc, esplanade saint-vincent, gaia, go sport, interemarche, intersport, jersey, La Madeleine Center, Le Quai St-Malo, Paramé, Saint-Malo, stockholm, sweden, Tenacious

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

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

le lundi 20 août 2018 – Monday August 20, 2018

The people in the apartment below us usually arrive around 15th of August. Normally the elderly mother (70-80?), her adult son (close to our age), and another man probably in his 40-50 arrive together. Phil noticed their apartment door open and one of the window shutters open on Saturday the 18th. We haven’t seen anyone yet. Today around 7h30 there was a lot of banging noises and hammering. We don’t know what was going on at that early hour. When Sandy returned from the boulangerie she could see more window shutters open in the apartment below. Possibly the remainder of their family had arrived. We’ll see.

We walked to the Quai Saint-Malo to view the art show called “Salon Malo Métiers d’art”. In the past few years it was held outdoors at the Tour Solidor in Saint-Servan, just a lovely walk for us. This year the number of days open was extended from 2 to 3 and it was held indoors. There was a 2 euro per person entrance fee and in the past it was free. There were 45 French professional artisans and every stand had beautiful things. Some were expensive, but most were reasonably priced. Since we don’t need anything, we just looked.

Next we walked to the harbor. It was slightly foggy and misting. The lighthouses and peninsulas that we were able to see on Sunday were not visible today. We did see a sailing vessel from Sweden in the basin.  Not a common sight.

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the GAIA from Stockholm Sweden in the basin

After lunch we walked to the boules court to say hello to Alain and his wife. Then we walked to the harbor. The pilot-boat was just leaving and we noticed a large cargo ship in the locks on it’s way out of the basin. We stayed to watch the cargo ship leave. The lock must have just started to open (a couple of hours before and after high tide) and we saw several catamarans and sail boats enter. We have the MarintTraffic app on our phones and it details the arrivals and departures of ships in Saint-Malo. Sandy had read where another ship was due to arrive. We watched the Corsair ferries arrive and depart, the Condor ferry from the Channel Islands arrive, and the cargo ship arrive. It looked like a very busy harbor to us from the sidelines. Very interesting to watch though.

le mardi 21 août 2018 – Tuesday August 21, 2018

The people in the apartment below us are definitely here. Their telltale “scent” is the smell of burnt toast in the hallway at breakfast time. Sandy had confirmation, from the odor, of their arrival when she left our building to shop for breakfast.

We read that the store “GO Sport” was closing. We took the bus to La Madeleine Center to see if they had any camping chairs remaining. The store was empty of everything except shoes and clothing. Too bad we didn’t know of the closing earlier in their sale.

We walked to Intersport, about 10 minutes around the road and they had a large selection of camping chairs. We’ll remember this for next year in case we need to replace one of ours.

We also went into the Carrefour Hypermarché. We needed a replacement light bulb for the stove vent and Sandy was looking for rhubarb flavored yogurt. Since rhubarb is considered one of the “seasonal” flavors they were out but we did find a light bulb. Sandy also found Centrum vitamins from the parapharmacie section of the store. Good to know.

After lunch, we saw the ship “Tenacious” enter the basin following the Pilot Boat and then enter the locks. It was a very impressive, 3 masted, ship. It arrived from the Jersey in the Channel Islands.

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the TENACIOUS sailing vessel arrived from Jersey in the Channel Islands

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got lucky today and spotted a CORMORANT in the harbor, resting on a sign

le mercredi 22 août 2018 – Wednesday August 22, 2018

Sandy counted more than 7 empty parking spots on her way to the boulangerie. It has been cool, occasionally misty, and cloudy for the last 4 days. Maybe the tourists are moving away. Even though our temperature has been around 22C, close to 70F, Paris is still around 30C, hot. Glad we’re not there!

We shopped for groceries in the morning. The transportation was great because there was a bus waiting at the esplanade Saint-Vincent on our way to Intermarche.

On our return trip, as soon as we reached the sidewalk near the bus stop, we saw it turning the corner coming our direction. We noticed more than 600 available parking spots at 10h30.

Around 15h00 we returned to the Esplanade St. Vincent to catch either a #3 or #8 bus so we could walk on the Digue. A #3 pulled up and we were on our way. Even though it was cloudy and cool, there were many people on the beach and in the ocean.

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on our walk on the digue, a lot of kids participating in an activity in the water

We had a lovely, interesting walk back and decided to catch the #8 bus to return instead of walking. It was 20 minutes late. The ride is normally a 2 minute long ride but took more than 10 because of the traffic and pedestrians. We noticed the 600 available parking spots we saw in the morning had been reduced to 8. Busy day After all!

29265681087_b908279476_z

the word COMPLET means the parking facility is full

le jeudi 23 août 2018 – Thursday August 23, 2018

Sandy spent two hours tutoring with Christine this morning while Phil took care of a little shopping at the E.Leclerc Hypermarché.

During the walk to Christine’s house there were a lot of beautiful flowers to photograph.

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44220558851_633098822b_z

The sun was out for only a couple of hours mid day today. In the afternoon we walked to watch Alain play boules for a while. Afterwards we intended to sit at the harbor to see what was happening. Sandy looked across the bay towards Dinard and commented that it was getting very foggy or raining. We decided it was rain coming across the bay and headed for home. We reached Porte Saint-Louis before it really began to rain. Glad we didn’t tarry to see if the rain was going to stop. It continued for over an hour.

le vendredi 24 août 2018 – Friday August 24, 2018

The temperature was 13C, 55F when Sandy walked to the boulangerie. She thought the people on the ground floor were gone since all of the shutters had been lowered. She also didn’t hear the dog bark when she opened the door into our building.

We walked to Saint-Servan to buy meat at the butcher in the marché. His assistant told us they would be starting their two-week vacation on September 2nd. I let her know we’d be leaving on the 12th of September, so next week we’ll tell them “au revoir” until next year.

In the afternoon we watched Alain play boules for a few minutes then headed to the harbor.

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the boules game, closest to the little silver ball gets the point

We have learned that when the harbor pilote boat leaves the harbor, he is usually gone for about 30 minutes. Once he returns, there will be a ship arriving in about 15 minutes later. He proved our theory while we watched.

While we were at the harbor, a cormorant was fishing near by.  Here it is.

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a CORMORANT on the surface of the harbor

le samedi 25 août 2018 – Saturday August 25, 2018

Sandy had been back from the boulangerie only 10 minutes when it began raining very hard. There wasn’t any forecast of rain, but you just never know being so close to the ocean. The rain only lasted for about 30 minutes but stayed cloudy and cool.

After breakfast we took a bus to the Intermarche grocery store located at La Decourverte shopping center. We wanted white dryer sheets which Sandy leaves between linens over the winter to stay fresh smelling. This store is always busy and even though they didn’t carry the dryer sheets, we bought 3 other items and the check out lines were long. We were in the self check line and waited less than 10 minutes.

After lunch, the sun came out and the temperature warmed up to 18C. There was a light breeze so we took the bus to be able to walk the length of the Digue. We got off the bus at 15h30, walked to the Digue and then along the length of the Digue.

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it was a low tide so a lot of beach – not very many people this afternoon

When we got back to the esplanade Saint-Vincent, the bubble guy was working his magic.

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the bubble guy on the esplanade Saint-Vincent, young and old like his magic

We were back in our apartment at 16h45. A really lovely walk in the sunshine.

le dimanche 26 août 2018 – Sunday August 26, 2018

The temperature was 10C, 50F when Sandy walked to the boulangerie today. She has had to use the hairdryer to dry her hair the last two days since the temperature is cooler. She doesn’t like to go outside with wet hair when the temperature is in the 50’s.

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