Chateau -Saint-Malo, Saint-Malo, Brittany

...are quite amazing.
The chateau is out in the water across from the old town. You can go across to it at certain times of the day, but at night when the tide comes in it is surrounded by the water. The guides give you a brief tour for around $4 each. The tour was in french, although they give you a leaflet with a translation if your french is not that good, however you do feel you are missing out on some of the information. The view across ...
...There is lots of walking to be done between the different baies (islands) surrounding the coast, when the tide is out.
The beach is nice and areas of it were not too busy while we were there, despite the days being quite hot.
There are loads of things to see in the surrounding areas - I particularly recommend Mont St Michel (about 45 mins drive), Dinard (5mins) and Dinan (15 mins). The prices of local attractions are very reasonable, ... more

I have just got back from four days in St Malo. I absolutely loved it. It is not expensive to travel to, the area is beautiful, the food and drink are amazing, and the general feeling is relaxed easy.

Getting there
You can travel by Ferry, from Portsmouth to St Malo using Brittany Ferries. On the way there you catch the ferry at about 8pm and then stay overnight. There are a couple of places to eat on the ferry, in particular one really nice restaurant, in which a meal for two will set you back around £70 (with a bottle of wine) or there are the cheaper self service restaurants which have quite a variety and are fairly reasonable. Then the ferry unloads the next morning at around 8am. On the way back you catch the ferry at about 10am, have a wander around the ferry, watch a film in the little cinema (around £6 each), chuckle at the horrendous entertainment in the bar, get a little bored and then arrive at Portsmouth around 6pm.
You can also fly from either Luton or Stansted to Dinard with Ryan Air. This is the only airline I have found that flies from the UK to Dinard. The cost of the flights varies all year round, however in mid summer, including taxes it will cost you around £90. We then hired a car from here for ten days through Hertz for £175. I am afraid I don't know about public transport from the airport to surrounding areas, but I have to admit I didn't see many buses! It is then only a 10-15 minute journey to St Malo.

Hotels
There are a number of hotels in St Malo. We stayed at the Kyriad on the beach front (I think there is another one which is further out of town). It cost us around £66 a night for a double room with a sea view (which actually does make the room and was well worth it). This does not include breakfast. Which you can have at an extra $22, which I did think was quite expensive for what it was. One bonus in our room (not sure if it was the same for the whole hotel) was that the pay per view film channels were available constantly so we saw 'Ray', 'The Ring 2' and 'Team America' all for free! The rooms were not massive, but ours was nicely decorated and very clean. The staff were very friendly. There is no parking at this hotel though, which was a bit of a hassle as we arrived on a Sunday, which is a busy day and we had to search around for parking and then carry our luggage back to the hotel.
Most of the hotels are on Chaussee du Sillon, which means most of them have a sea view. This is the road that leads into the old town. At our hotel it was about a fifteen minute walk along the promenade into the old town, but this will vary depending on how far you are along this road. None of the hotels looked bad along this stretch.

To Visit
It is quite a touristy area, being so close to England, but it is so lovely that it is definitely worth a visit.
The old town is nice to walk around. There are lots of little quirky shops as well as quite a few souvenir shops. In the summer there are street entertainers and a couple of market stalls as well.
The cathedral in the old town is quite beautiful as well. The stain glass windows are quite amazing.
The chateau is out in the water across from the old town. You can go across to it at certain times of the day, but at night when the tide comes in it is surrounded by the water. The guides give you a brief tour for around $4 each. The tour was in french, although they give you a leaflet with a translation if your french is not that good, however you do feel you are missing out on some of the information. The view across to the old town are definitely worth a picture.
There is lots of walking to be done between the different baies (islands) surrounding the coast, when the tide is out.
The beach is nice and areas of it were not too busy while we were there, despite the days being quite hot.
There are loads of things to see in the surrounding areas - I particularly recommend Mont St Michel (about 45 mins drive), Dinard (5mins) and Dinan (15 mins). The prices of local attractions are very reasonable, roughly around £3 entry to most attractions.

Eating Out
The historic town is excellent. It is full of lots of restaurants and places to eat, we spent most nights walking round for a few hours before deciding on a place to eat as you are completely spoilt for choice. In the summer it is quite busy, but you will have no problem finding somewhere to eat. As for the price of the meals, it really depends on which restaurant you choose, it can cost between £10 and £40 for a meal for two. But the food is excellent at both ends of this price range.
I particularly recommend having a look at the size of the cakes in a restaurant called Timothys in the old town. The cakes were enormous and extremely delicious - probably better to share.
It is cheaper for a glass of wine than a glass of coke, but the beer is quite expensive. We saw prices of between £1 and £4 for just under a half of lager.

Other points
I think around three or four days is about right for a trip to St Malo. If the weather is good and you fancy relaxing on the beach then you could stay longer. Or if you are happy to drive out to the other resorts such as Mont St Michel.
One thing we noticed was that not many places were wheelchair friendly. The old town is cobbled and the seats in all of the restuarants are all crammed in and the toilets always tend to be upstairs. I would not be inclined to recommend St Malo if your mobility is limited.

Hope you enjoy! 

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