Sunday 25 May 2014

Cancale

Ah, place of oysters, and oysters, and oysters. Sigh! Yum!
We arrived via the coast road past Mt St Michel so I could get photos over the grass and wheat fields to the Mont. All good except the weather which was dull and cloudy. We waited ages for just a little sun.

MT S Michel 1
msm2

We were booked at Mere Champlain http://www.lamerechamplain.com/ which hadn’t been very responsive to our booking and emails, so I sort of feared the worst. But all was good; a room overlooking the bay, a menu within the realm of reasonable which also included oysters of course and even an elevator to get us to the room. very friendly and approachable staff as well.  All was good! Even free parking if one was prepared to park at the memorial high above the town. Great to get down from, not so easy to get back to. We wandered the rather touristy front checking out menus and shops and decided on Mere Champlain for dinner, including a dozen oysters for me.

pana cancale
Tide in Panorama
pana cancale 2
Tide out Panorama
cancale pier
Pier, tide in
cancale tide out
Same boats, tide out
oyster beds
Oyster beds at low tide
oyster tents
The oyster tents where they sell the oysters

Next morning was the Cancale to Mt St Michel marathon so we woke to enthusiastic spruiking and hordes of people in fluorescent garb warming up on the seafront. Also heaps of men standing facing the sea. Salute to the sun perhaps? Well, actually, they were peeing on the sands and those sands weren’t going to be cleaned by tides again for at least 6 hours. And kids played there after the race had departed. Well done guys! What do you think the multiple pissoirs were for? And they were closer than the beach. Maybe you need to mark your territory? Anyway, they all made off a little ahead of time, a multicoloured caterpillar up the hill towards Mt St Michel, the portaloos and pissoirs were removed tout de suite and then all was quiet again.

peeing
Blokes (and one girl)
marathon
The race up the first hill

For us, a trip to St Malo, heavily bombed in the war and defiantly rebuilt. A really touristed place this Sunday with families on the ramparts and in the streets and cafes. We enjoyed the ramparts and views to the shore forts, (including one by Vauban, master fort builder) had a lovely seafood lunch, bought some gifts for grandchildren, viewed a local replica ship and came back to Cancale again. It was actually a very pleasant day, but not of any consequence.

ST Malo walls
St Malo city walls
StM fort
The Vauban fort
seafood platter
Making a seafood platter
SM pool
A swimming pool in the bay
 
For dinner I ordered a seafood plate of 6 no 3 oysters, 6 plate oysters (rare and expensive local delicacies) and 6 ecrevisse. I can say that the plate oysters were delicious but not as good as a Sydney rock oysters, and that ecrivisse are deliciously sweet but extracting the flesh from the claws is a waste of time. I got about one half teaspoon from 6 ecrivisse claws. Don’t bother.
 
c seafood
Some of my oysters and ecrivisse
c boat mirror
Mirrored boat

 

Next stop: Douarenenez

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