Hotel Kyriad St Malo Plage allows you to witness the phenomenon of the tides every day, several times a day exactly every six hours, which, in the bay that Saint-Malo shares with Mont Saint Michel, is truly impressive. In our room, the window wide open on the blue of the Channel made us enjoy a splendid view and the most beautiful sunsets on the Grand Plage du Sillon, the largest in the city.
In Saint-Malo, room with a view of the tides
The beach narrows until it disappears at certain times of the day, when the waves come impetuously to break on the gray granite barrier created to protect the buildings and becomes immense again at sunset, when you can walk on the bottom of the sea for hundreds of meters and it feels like you can touch the fireball that disappears over the horizon.
Leaning over the window railing, the fortified citadel of the historic center emerges on the left, called intra-muros. Opposite the high ramparts are the two islets that can be reached on foot at low tide: Rocher de lÎlet, where the Fort National is located and Île de Grand Be which can be reached from the Plage de Bon Secours, thanks also to a paved walkway.
The hotel is located on the pedestrian seawall and is one of the few hotels in Saint-Malo to have direct access to the city’s main beach. The Kyriad St Malo Plage hotel complex is made up of three palaces built between 1906 and 1938. Like many other buildings in the city, it is newer than its foundation which dates back to the Middle Ages, a period in which, given its strategic position on the sea, Saint-Malo became a thriving maritime trade and later also a strategic port for corsairs, not ordinary pirates, but men in the service of the King of France, who in 1590 even proclaimed it an independent republic.
The city, in fact, in 1600 was destroyed by large fires that incinerated the ancient half-timbered wooden houses inside the walls and was then almost completely rebuilt. Other important damages Saint-Malo suffered during the Second World War when it was bombed and almost completely destroyed, so many of its buildings were built after 1944.
The imposing building that houses the Kyriad St Malo Plage has retained its charm and elegance and today has 56 rooms, 27 of which have a sea view. And the sea view is also the breakfast buffet which can be enjoyed in the room overlooking the beach, on the terrace bar or in your room. Large windows ensure a vast panorama even in the lounge where you can stop and chat before dinner while sipping an aperitif.
Speaking of dinner, the Kyriad St Malo Plage does not have an internal restaurant but it is possible to dine in your room by ordering meals in Ty Bocal jars, single portions that offer the essential elements of Breton gastronomy prepared with seasonal products following traditional recipes in an artisanal way: an idea that we found really brilliant!
Among the services available to guests there is also a billiard room, a sauna and a fitness area. In the summer it is possible to book lunch on the beach: a picnic basket is provided with baguettes, crepes, fruit, yoghurt, salad, water and wine. It is a pity that the temperatures, despite the days of shining sun, did not allow us to take advantage of this possibility. We would have loved to enjoy a déjeuner sur la plage di Saint-Malo together with our Otto who nonetheless had a lot of fun running up to the limit reached by the water on the sand almost as if he wanted to reach the fiery red ball of the sun swallowed by the sea.
The room we shared with Otto reminded us right from the start, thanks to its blue and white striped decoration, that we were in Brittany, a country of the sea and of brave and proud sailors. The view on the pedestrian breakwater and on the Sillon beach is priceless and, above all, on that sea in perpetual movement where, taking advantage of the stiff wind of the Channel, windsurfers chase each other and in the morning groups of ladies in wetsuits walk by doing water aerobics in the icy water until to life.
One of the most beautiful and greedy moments of our stay at the Kyriad St Malo Plage was the breakfast based on a varied buffet full of sweet and savory options: the croissants were delicious but what I personally adored was the pain perdu, a delicious specialty of the French cuisine based on stale bread which is cut into slices, first dipped in milk and sugar, then dipped in egg and cooked in a pan with butter. A caloric bomb that I completed with jam and that accompanied my cappuccino with the sea in my eyes.
A sea that we reluctantly greeted with a hug in front of the beach under the Hotel Kyriad St Malo and a promise, to return soon to Saint-Malo and to this comfortable hotel, where we felt welcomed in a kind and professional way and at the same time warm and helpful from the first smile at reception when we arrived.
Hotel Kyriad Saint Malo Plage
Chaussée du Sillon, 49 – Saint-Malo – France
Info: +33 02 99 56 09 26 – contact@kyriadsaintmaloplage.com
www.kyriadsaintmaloplage.com
