Then and Now

Just through the main gateway into town.

 Today I bring you some historic photos of St. Malo, all taken in the 1930s before the town was destroyed during the war. I follow each of these images with ones I've taken from the same spot. You can judge for yourself how closely the reconstruction followed the original. 

The whole concept of vacationing is a relatively recent phenomenon, starting for the rich in the 1800s and becoming more common for everyone else by the beginning of the 20th century. Going to the seaside was undoubtedly the original concept. I think St. Malo must have been high on the list of these early touristic destinations. 

Taken on a weekend in November.

Images here are of the main front square where you enter into St. Malo intra muros through the Porte St. Vincent and find lots of restaurants. 

Photo looking back towards intra muros from the pier,

I actually can't take a photograph from this location as the photographer in the 1930s was standing on a pier I do not have access to. Instead I attach a photograph of the place where the original photographer would have been standing, looking across the "basin" at the Grande Porte and towards the cathedral.

The basin in front of the main gates into St. Malo, on the eastern wall.

The pier in the distance is not open to the public. The warehouses store the cargo which comes and goes from the freighters that dock here temporarily (further to the right).

One of the many ways to mount the ramparts.

This shows the main stairway by the Grande Porte that leads from town up onto the ramparts.

Stairs are located just inside the Grand Porte.

This photo is taken on our side of town. The wave, in fact, is breaking right in front of our street. We haven't experienced a grande marée quite like this one. They can reach a coefficient of up to 120. The one we experienced a couple of weeks ago was 106.

The west wall during a grand marée.

My photo was taken at exactly high tide, so you can notice how much the grande marée tides increase the waves. Rick was my model, holding his hat against the wind. I am surprised to discover that the small porte leading to the Môle Beach was not there in the 30s. It must have been an addition of the post war architects. That passageway figures in the novel All the Light You Cannot See, so Marie-Laure's visit to the beach through this stairwell must have been an invention of the author. I did read somewhere that Anthony Doerr was just a tourist himself the first time he visited St. Malo and was so taken with it, and with its history during the end of the war, that the place itself was what inspired his very successful novel. The characters, which are so wonderfully vivid, were secondary.

This location is just above our apartment.

Ferries from St. Malo to Dinard are a regular phenomenon, and have been for a hundred years, it seems.

Catching the ferry.

This is a photo of the pier where we sit and watch the boats each morning before breakfast. It is also the place where the ferries from Dinard still dock to offload and take on passengers. My photo from this morning has the onshore fishing crew, with their refrigerator truck, awaiting the morning's scallop boats. But same place, now without the signage.

The commercial port pier.

Here is a bonus photo, one which thankfully I can't duplicate. It goes to show you how popular this place has been for the last 100 years. I don't think that, even in the height of summer, have I seen this kind of a crowd!

Enjoying a summer morning in St. Malo, sometime during the 1930s. The Café des Voyageurs still exists.