Saint Malo: Pirate Town

 

Saint Malo was a pirate town in the past. Pirates, called "corsaires" used this as a base to attack English ships and deprive them of their goods. Pirates did so well for themselves that they built luxury mansions outside of Saint Malo town.

Necessarily, the English and the Dutch were not happy about getting regularly robbed. Again and again, they tried to sack Saint Malo. Nothing doing! The city is surrounded by shoals and rocks that only appear at low tide. There are little islets surrounding the town, in the sea. Each islet has a fort. Whomever ventured near Saint Malo found themselves facing cannon power from every angle from these islets dotted here and there around Saint Malo. On top of that, with the shoals surrounding the town, any ship would simply run aground and get stuck. Once that happened, if you don't crash and burn, the people from Saint Malo would be able to come and massacre you at their leisure.

The photo above does not do the town justice. Looking at Saint Malo in real life, you get a real sense of it being a bad ass town. It sits there like a challenge the world: come and attack me, I will make sure you regret it. It isn't even a big town. It takes 10 mins to walk from one end of it to the other.

The whole town is surrounded by thick walls, still in existence, and still strong. After dark, the walls were patrolled by a special breed of attack dogs called "Les Chiens de Saint Malo." They hunt in packs and will eat you alive. The murderous dogs of Saint Malo are the stuff of legend. You read of them with terrified awe in storybooks.

Everywhere in Saint Malo old town, you see signs commemorating this man or the other who went out to see and never came back. There was even a sign commemorating all the sons of Saint Malo who died or disappeared out at sea. The sea gave them life. The sea was also a demanding mistress. It took their men and boys as and when it felt like it.

Saint Malo was bad ass, man!

The people of Saint Malo are called Malouins. Women are Malouines. These folks have the wanderlust. They think nothing of packing up and leaving to see the world. One couple from Saint Malo set up a crêperie in Singapore right next to the Raffles Hotel, selling "Les galettes Bretonnes", a sort of savoury crêpe made with buckwheat flour. Another Malouin discovered Canada: Jacques Cartier. Tiong Bahru Bakery sells the kouign amman, a traditional pastry from Saint Malo, Brittany. I betcha that Chef Paul Albert, helming TBB, is from Saint Malo too!

These Malouins travel to the furthest corners of the earth.

If you ever come to Saint Malo, you must check the tide timings HERE. Four times a year, you will see THIS. The tides come and go with the full moon. 4 times a year, the moon's gravity is so strong that it splashes right into Saint Malo town. This is really one badass town. Its people die at sea and they never stop going out to sea. Its homes are battered 4 times a year by waves 3 storeys high, and they think it is normal.