Our Neighborhood

 

Porte de Dinan

Today let me take you on a tour of some of the landmarks of our local neighborhood. The porte de Dinan, closest to our apartment, and the route out of town, leads to the rue de Dinan.

Interestingly enough the two block area in which we live was historically called La Californie, since the corsairs who owned these mansions had all made their fortunes plundering South America, particularly Peru. I suppose that in those days California was the word which conjured the exotic new world. These privateers didn't land on the coast of California since it had little to offer at the time, while Peru, as most of South and Central America had cities rich in gold and silver. From Peru alone it is estimated that 300 million gold and silver items were stolen and brought back to Europe.

Rue de Dinan

One of the main streets of town is the rue de Dinan, traveling through the porte, you go one block and turn left, where you will find our building. Right at the corner is a little market which is open 7 days a week and where we can find, if we need it, any breakfast, lunch or dinner supply in a hurry.

28 rue de Toulouse

Our apartment building is on the rue de Toulouse, one block in from the south wall. We are fortunate to have on the back side of our place a kind of grassy garden (where no one has ever been seen, nor are we allowed to go) which separates our building from those opposite, which face the port. It means we get a lot of light in our living room.

Rue de Toulouse

At the near end of the street is the ramp leading up to the walls. At the far end is the Porte St. Louis. This is the porte we use to enter St. Malo. We can drive straight down until we pass our house and turn onto the rue Vauborel where our underground parking lot is found.

Charming lookout tower

At the top of the ramp leading to the ramparts walkway, you are at the intersection of the south and west walls. At all the cardinal corners are stone lookout towers. The commercial port is on our left, Dinard across and the Channel opens out in front.

View from the ramparts

Walking clockwise around the ramparts leads to a set of stairs from where you can look back at our street.

Leading down to our local beach, the Môle

At the end of our street, if instead of turning left to mount to the ramparts, you turn right, you can walk a block to get to a pedestrian porte which takes you down to Môle Beach.

Turning onto rue d’Estrées

If you walk past the porte leading to the beach you are headed into the center of town via the back roads. This is our favorite way to walk, as it leads to many quiet corners.

Sunset over the rue de Toulouse

At sunset the buildings at the end of the street begin to glow.