Granville, Mont Saint Michel & Cancale

Granville

Ramparts and beach of Granville

We left Caen and had a short stay in a quite basic and uninteresting place near Granville Kairon Plage. Granville however was quite a nice town, with its walled off old town, the ramparts and the beautiful beaches accesible when the tides are low. We strolled around the city, had coffee and a second breakfast, baguette with jam and a crossaint at Le Derby, before we had a swim. We liked the place so much that we ended up spending a night there as well in a small apartment.

There is a lot of seafood restaurants, which is actually a seafood store that also serves food. You simple select the raw fish you want and they cook it for you. We went to Au P’tit Mareyeur and had a big fruit de mer and a bottle of champagne to go with it 😉
We went out for a little bit of nightlife and drinks at La Rafale, if you get there make sure to check out their toilet if you can find it, it’s like Narnia!

We left Granville the next morning, with a little hangover, and headed towards Mont Saint Michel, one of my own highlights of the tour – my parents took me there when I was two years old, so I was looking forward to revisiting it. On the way to the car in the early morning, I saw the result of the changing tide, all the boats in the harbor were lying on the sea floor.

Mont Saint Michel

We came early, which was good sice this is France second most popular place outside Paris. The weather was perfect and parking was working well (you would have thought you were in Germany).

Mont Saint Michel is really special, and definitely worth it if you come by. The walled city with its cathedral on the top sits there in the sea as in a fairytale. We walked up the narrow medieval streets to the cathedral of top and took a tour there – the cathedral is rather dull, and I could easily have skipped that part.

When we left Mont Saint Michel around 13.00, the masses was really pushing trough to see the attraction, so go there early!

Oysters at Cancale

Our lunch after all the uphill walking was a picnic near the sea west of Mont Saint Michel. We brought bread, chese and such, and also had a glass of fresh apple juice from our cider tour. We decided to camp at Camp Grouin for the night and found a brilliant spot in a nature reserve Pointe du Grouin just north of Cancale.

We got a spot, although not quite flat, right next to the sea, with a beautiful view. Right next to our tent ran a walking path, running all along the coast of Brittany right on the rocky seaside. We walked to a near by cove where a food truck, La Docena, was serving delicious Fruit de mer and drinks for a good price and with good vibes at the sea. Filled with seafood and local beer, we walked back in the sunset to our small tent.

Point Grouin Camping Municipale

This place of France is well known for its oyster production, and you can see the oyster farms out in the ocean when the tide is low. So after a relaxing day in the campsite we left the next morning to Cancale, a small town at the sea, known for its oysters.

At the harbor in Cancale, different oyster farmers are serving plates with 12 oyster from 6€ and up, a small truck server wine, champagne and drinks to accompany the oysters. The beach was littered with oyster shells and we were told to just throw it back to the sea, without any other trash of course.

Next stop Saint Malo, stay tuned.


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