The ramparts walk

The best free thing in town

If you do one thing in Saint-Malo, walk the ramparts. The granite walls wrap the old walled town — the Intra-Muros — in a complete circuit, and the walkway along the top is open, free and the single best way to understand the place. Do a full lap rather than a quick out-and-back, because the whole point is the way the town turns its back on the land and squares up to the sea: as you go round, the view swings from the harbour and the ferry terminal to the open bay studded with tidal islands and offshore forts. You’ll see why this was a corsair stronghold built to be battered by the Atlantic and survive it.

Access is easy — several stairways climb up from inside the old town, so you can join the circuit almost anywhere and walk it in either direction. The path is paved but uneven in spots, with steps at the access points, so flat shoes help.

Time it with the tide

The walk transforms with the tide, so check a local tide table before you go up. Near high tide the sea comes right up against the base of the walls, and on a breezy day the swell smacks into the defences and the forts beyond — dramatic, loud and exactly what the ramparts were made to take. At low tide the water pulls far back to reveal beaches and sandflats and a causeway out to the islands; it’s a completely different, gentler scene, good for combining the walk with a wander out to Grand Bé.

Either is worthwhile, but high tide is the one that delivers the drama, and sunset looking west over the bay is glorious whatever the water’s doing. Allow the best part of an hour for the full lap with stops, go in clear weather if you can, and treat it as the frame for everything else you do inside the walls.