Take a Trip Back In Time To the Pirate City of Saint Malo, a Fortified Citadel With Ramparts Overlooking the Stormy Emerald Coast

I’ve just come back from a wonderful visit to Saint Malo and learned so much about the history, the culture, and the surrounding areas to visit. I decided to have a three-day stop off after coming back from the UK on Brittany Ferries. The boat docked in Saint Malo, so it was the perfect opportunity to explore more of what the region has to offer.

I was lucky enough to have a personal guided tour with Lisa from the tourist board in Saint Malo, and what she doesn’t know about the place isn’t worth knowing. She had me hooked from the start when she told me about the story behind why stoats feature on the city’s flag. 

And did you know that in the 16th century, Saint Malo was an independent republic? Because of this, they have special dispensation to fly their own flag above the French flag, which is illegal.

The Back Story of Saint Malo

Before I take you on a virtual tour, it’s important to understand the history behind what we now know as Saint Malo, because things were once very different. Until recently, Saint Malo didn’t exist as we know it today. It was made up of three communes: Saint-Servan, Paramé, and Saint-Malo. Then, in 1967, they merged to make the greater city of Saint Malo.

The rock on which the walled city now stands was little more than a bare, wind-battered outcrop when the Celts first settled nearby around 1000 BC. The tribe known as the Coriosolites put down roots along the coastline, and by 56 BC, the Romans had swept in, conquered the settlement at Aleth (now Saint-Servan), and used it as a strategic port controlling the Rance estuary.

When Roman power collapsed across the region in the 5th century, Celtic Britons began crossing the Channel, fleeing the chaos at home. In the early 6th century, Irish monks Saint Aaron and Saint Brendan established a monastery at Aleth. Then, around 541 AD, a Welsh monk named Maclovius arrived, was appointed abbot, and became the first bishop of the area. That’s the man the city is named after. Maclovius became Maclou, Maclou became Malo, and Malo became Saint-Malo.

For centuries, the town clung to its rocky islet, connected to the mainland by just a narrow strip of sand. That natural barrier became a lifeline when the Vikings began raiding the coastline, and the population shifted away from Aleth to the more defensible island. By the 12th century, the town was growing fast around its cathedral, and Bishop Jean de Chatillon had the first serious ramparts built.

Saint-Malo sat within the Duchy of Brittany, and the dukes had very definite opinions about keeping their power there. Duke Francis II spent his reign fighting to keep France off Brittany’s back, losing a decisive battle at Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier in 1488. He died just weeks later, thrown from his horse, leaving behind an 11-year-old daughter as his only heir. That daughter was Anne of Brittany.

Anne of Who Built a Castle Just to Prove a Point

Anne of Brittany is one of the most important figures in the city’s history, and you can still see her fingerprints all over Saint-Malo. When she inherited the Duchy of Brittany from her father in 1488 at just 11 years old, she had the unenviable job of keeping a fiercely independent city in line while also defending it from outside threats.

Her solution was the castle you see today at the entrance to the walled city, known as Quic en Groigne. The name alone tells you everything you need to know about her attitude. When the locals complained about her plans to build it, Anne reportedly said in French: “Qui qu’en groigne, ainsi sera, car tel est mon plaisir,” which roughly translates as: “Whoever complains, it will be so, because such is my pleasure.” She was not someone you argued with.

The castle was built with cannons positioned to face outward, ready to defend against any enemy approaching from the sea. But there were also cannons facing inwards. Why? Well, Lisa told me that it was because she was sending a very clear message to the residents of Saint-Malo that she was both their protector and their authority, and they would do well to remember it.

How the Flag Of Saint Malo Came To Be

If you look at the flag of Saint-Malo, you’ll notice a stoat on it, which is not something you see every day on a city flag. The story behind it involves Duchess Anne and a hunting trip that, according to legend, changed Brittany’s emblem forever.

One winter day, Anne was out riding when she came across a group of hunters pursuing an ermine through the snow. The small white animal found itself cornered, trapped between the hunters and a patch of muddy ground. Rather than flee across the mud and soil its white coat, the ermine turned to face the hunters head-on, choosing death over dishonor.

Anne was so struck by this that she called off the hunt and spared the ermine’s life. The animal’s refusal to compromise its dignity, even in the face of death, became the emblem and motto of Brittany: “Potius mori quam foedari,” which means “Rather death than defilement.”

The stoat, or ermine in its white winter coat, has featured on the Breton and Saint-Malo flags ever since. It is a reminder that this is a place that has always had its own rules, its own pride, and its own way of doing things.

The Republic of Saint-Malo

In 1590, France was tearing itself apart during the Wars of Religion, a brutal conflict between Catholic and Protestant forces that had been grinding on for decades. When the Catholic King Henry III was assassinated in 1589, the throne passed to the Protestant Henry of Navarre, who became Henry IV. For the fiercely Catholic people of Saint-Malo, a Protestant king was simply not acceptable.

Rather than submit to royal authority, the city did something extraordinary. The residents took back the castle that Anne of Brittany had built to keep them in line, kicked out the royal garrison, and declared themselves an independent republic. They elected a council to govern the city and chose a local man named Jean Picot to lead it.

For four years, Saint-Malo answered to nobody. No king, no duke, no outside authority of any kind.

It ended in 1594 when Henry IV converted to Catholicism, reportedly saying that “Paris is well worth a mass.” That was enough for the Malouins. With a Catholic king back on the throne, there was no longer any reason to go it alone, and Saint-Malo rejoined the kingdom of France.

But the episode left its mark. The city’s motto, which you’ll still see today, says everything about how the people of Saint-Malo see themselves: “Ni Français, ni Breton, Malouin suis,” which translates as “Neither French, nor Breton, but Malouin.” They were not being modest. They meant every word of it.

The Legends of the Emerald Coast

The stretch of coastline running from Cap Fréhel to Cancale has been known as the Côte d’Émeraude, or the Emerald Coast, since 1894, when a local historian from Saint-Malo, Eugène Herpin, sought a title for his new guidebook. He was walking on the ramparts with his sisters when one of them pointed out that the water looked greener than usual. The name stuck, and Herpin became known as the godfather of the Emerald Coast.

The real reason the sea turns that distinctive shade of green comes down to phytoplankton, microscopic algae that thrive in these nutrient-rich coastal waters. The chlorophyll in these organisms absorbs red and blue light and reflects green back, which is what gives the sea that jewel-like color when the conditions are right.

Of course, the legends are far more fun. One story says a princess from the Chausey islands threw her emerald ring into the sea, and the water took on its color from that day forward. The other tells of a vast forest called Sissy’s Forest that was swallowed by a tsunami, and the submerged trees slowly tinted the water green. Neither holds up scientifically, but both say a lot about how this place captures the imagination.

The Port That Built a City

When you stand at Saint-Malo today and look out at the marina packed with sailing boats, it’s easy to assume the port has always looked like that. It hasn’t. Before the mid-19th century, Saint-Malo had no proper enclosed harbor. 

Ships simply ran aground on the beach at low tide, loaded and unloaded their cargo, and waited for the tide to come back in, lying on their side. The first two proper tidal basins weren’t built until 1884 and 1885, with a large lock added in 1931 to create the four-basin port you see today.

But the lack of infrastructure never stopped Saint-Malo from becoming one of the most feared and wealthy maritime cities in France. And a large part of that is down to the corsairs.

The Chiens du Guet

Before we get to the corsairs, there’s another piece of the story worth knowing, because it tells you a lot about how Saint-Malo operated for over 600 years.

From 1155 until 1770, the city’s main security system after dark was a pack of mastiffs. Every evening at 10 pm, the cathedral bell known as the Noguette rang to warn residents it was time to get inside. The city gates closed, and a pack of large guard dogs was released onto the beaches surrounding the ramparts to patrol through the night. They were deliberately kept hungry until morning to ensure they did their job properly.

To fund the dogs, residents paid a special tax called the droit de chiennage. Dedicated city officers called chiennetiers were responsible for training them, feeding them, releasing them at sunset, and rounding them up again at dawn.

It worked well for over six centuries, until, as legend has it, on the night of March 7, 1770, when a naval officer named Jean-Baptiste Ansquer de Kerouartz stayed too late visiting his fiancée in the nearby Saint-Servan district and tried to make his way back to the city after curfew. The dogs killed him. That was considered one incident too many, and the city had the entire pack poisoned shortly after. 

The more likely reason is monetary. The city could no longer fund the dogs, so they put an end to it. The Noguette bell still rings at 10 pm every night in Saint-Malo, keeping the tradition alive even if the dogs are long gone.

The Corsairs: Pirates With Paperwork

People tend to use the words corsair and pirate interchangeably, but the people of Saint-Malo will be quick to correct you. Pirates worked for themselves and answered to nobody. Corsairs were a different business entirely.

They operated under a royal letter of marque, an official document from the King of France authorizing them to attack enemy ships in times of war, in return for a share of the spoils. Technically legal, then. Although try telling that to the English captains whose ships they seized.

The whole thing got an unexpected boost in 1144 when the Bishop of Saint-Malo, Jean de Châtillon, granted the town the right of asylum. It was intended as a generous gesture, but it had the side effect of attracting every thief, outlaw, and adventurer for miles around. Privateering fitted right in.

By the 17th and 18th centuries, Malouin corsairs were raiding ships as far away as the East Indies and South America, bringing enormous wealth back to the city. Over the course of that era, corsairs from Saint-Malo seized more than 4,000 vessels. The money flooded into the city, and you can still see where it went today, in the grand shipowners’ mansions lining the streets inside the walls.

Two corsairs stand above the rest, and you’ll find their statues on the ramparts watching the sea. The first is René Duguay-Trouin, born in Saint-Malo in 1673 into a family of wealthy shipowners. His father had originally wanted him to become a priest, but he was expelled from school in Rennes for chasing girls and sent to sea at 16. 

By 18, he was captain of his own ship. Over his career, he captured more than 300 merchant ships and 20 warships, and in 1711 led a fleet of 17 ships and 6,000 men to capture Rio de Janeiro, then considered impregnable. He eventually rose to the rank of admiral of France.

The second is Robert Surcouf, born a century later in 1773 and a distant cousin of Duguay-Trouin. He earned the title King of the Corsairs for capturing over 40 ships, including the Kent, a powerful vessel belonging to the English East India Company. When a captured English captain told him that British officers fought for honour rather than money, Surcouf replied: “One fights for what one does not possess.” His statue on the ramparts shows him with his arm outstretched, pointing defiantly toward England.

It should be noted that the wealth of both men, like much of Saint-Malo’s fortune in that era, was tied to the slave trade, a fact the city doesn’t shy away from. The history museum inside the castle covers it directly.

Privateering was abolished in 1815, and with it went Saint-Malo’s main source of income. The city pivoted to fishing, particularly cod off the coast of Newfoundland, a tradition that had been practiced alongside corsairing for years since the 16th century. The port kept growing, the basins were built, and Saint-Malo reinvented itself once again.

World War II and the Bombing That Should Never Have Happened

When American forces arrived in Brittany in August 1944, Saint-Malo was designated a German fortress under Hitler’s Atlantic Wall program. The real German stronghold was the Cité d’Aleth, a heavily fortified promontory sitting less than a kilometer south of the old city. 

The Germans had spent two years reinforcing it with 20-foot-thick concrete walls, 32 bunkers, underground barracks for 600 men, and a railway system to move ammunition around. It was, by their own assessment, the best-defended installation on the entire Atlantic Wall.

The old city itself had fewer than 100 Germans inside, mostly anti-aircraft units. Two local civilians actually got through to American lines and told them exactly that, begging them not to bomb. The Americans didn’t believe them.

According to Saint-Malo’s own museum historians, the orders were to bomb the “Cité,” meaning the Cité d’Aleth. Somewhere in the translation, “cité” became “city,” and American forces understood it to be the city of Saint-Malo. One mistranslated word. American forces then received a false intelligence report claiming thousands of German soldiers were inside the walled city, and any chance of changing course was gone.

By the time the battle ended on August 17, 1944, 683 of the 865 buildings inside the walls had been destroyed. Eighty percent of the city was rubble. When troops finally entered, they found 83 German soldiers.

Rather than build something new from scratch as Le Havre and Brest did, Saint-Malo made a remarkable decision. The rubble was sorted stone by stone, each one numbered like a puzzle piece, and the city was rebuilt to look almost exactly as it had before. 

All the Light We Cannot See

Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel set much of its story in Saint-Malo during the 1944 siege, and the 2023 Netflix adaptation brought a wave of visitors to the city, hoping to walk in the footsteps of Marie-Laure and Werner.

Here’s the thing, though, hardly any of it was actually filmed here.

The street scenes, the main square, the bombing sequences, and the liberation of the city were all filmed in Villefranche-de-Rouergue, a medieval bastide town in the Aveyron, 600 kilometers away in the south of France. The production team chose it because Saint-Malo no longer looks like a 1940s city, which is exactly the point of that remarkable postwar reconstruction. 

Paris scenes were shot in Budapest. Most of the interiors, including the house where Marie-Laure lives with her Uncle Etienne, were built on a studio set and took nine weeks to construct. The grotto that plays such a central role in the story doesn’t exist.

The production designer confirmed the shoot was roughly 60 percent studio sets and 40 percent on location, with Saint-Malo itself used mainly for aerial and coastal shots to establish the setting. Even the famous sea wall running sequence was a mix of a set built in Budapest and brief footage shot here.

So if you arrive expecting to recognize scenes from the show, you mostly won’t. What you will find is the real city and the real story behind it, which is considerably more interesting than the fiction.

A Walking Tour of Saint-Malo

L’Étoile du Roy

Before you even pass through the city gates, moored right at the harbor next to the tourist board is L’Étoile du Roy, a magnificent three-masted frigate that looks like it has sailed straight out of the 18th century. In a way, it has.

The ship was built in Turkey in 1997 to stand in for HMS Indefatigable in the British TV series Hornblower, and in 2005 it doubled as HMS Victory during an international fleet review at Portsmouth to mark the 200th anniversary of Trafalgar.

In 2010, a Saint-Malo company bought it, renamed it L’Étoile du Roy (The King’s Star), and brought it home to Brittany. It is now a replica of a corsair frigate from 1745, weighing 310 tons, 47 meters long, and armed with 20 cannons.

You can go on board and explore the officers’ quarters, cabins, hammocks, navigation instruments, and cannons, and get a real sense of what life looked like for the 236 men who would have crewed a ship like this. The costumed crew makes it a lot easier to picture. It also appeared in the 2024 film The Count of Monte Cristo.

The City Gates

Walking toward the entrance to the walled city, you pass through one of the grand arched gateways in the ramparts. Look up as you go through, and you’ll see two coats of arms set into the stonework above the arches. 

One belongs to the city of Saint-Malo, bearing the ermine that by now you’ll know the story behind. The other belongs to the Duchy of Brittany. 

The Castle and Chateaubriand

As you stand in front of the arches, look to your right, and you’ll see the castle, the same one Anne of Brittany. On the wall of one of its towers, you’ll find a plaque dedicated to François-René de Chateaubriand, and it’s worth pausing here before heading inside to find his birthplace just around the corner.

Chateaubriand was born on September 4, 1768, at number 3 rue Chateaubriand, just inside the city entrance to the right. He is considered the father of the Romantic movement in French literature, and his influence on the writers who came after him was enormous. Victor Hugo famously wrote in his notebook as a young man: “To be Chateaubriand or nothing.” 

Lord Byron was similarly influenced. His monumental work, Memoirs from Beyond the Grave, is still considered a masterpiece of autobiography, with the early volumes painting a picture of his childhood among the Breton nobility here in Saint-Malo.

The birthplace itself is now the Hôtel France et Chateaubriand. You can’t go inside the room where he was born, but you can step into the courtyard and see the family coat of arms above the staircase, along with their motto: “My blood has dyed the banners of France.”

Chateaubriand asked to be buried facing the sea on the tidal island of Grand Bé, just off the coast, accessible on foot at low tide. The inscription on his tomb reads: “A great French writer wanted to rest here, to hear only the sea and the wind.”

Lee Miller’s Wartime Photos

Next door to the Chateaubriand birthplace, you’ll notice a display of photographs that are worth stopping for. These are the work of Lee Miller, an American photographer whose connection to Saint-Malo is one of the most remarkable stories to emerge from the Second World War.

Miller had been a fashion model in New York before turning to photography and eventually becoming a war correspondent for British Vogue. In August 1944, she was sent to Saint-Malo on what was supposed to be a routine assignment to cover a newly liberated town.

When she arrived, she discovered the battle was still very much underway. The German commander had barricaded himself and thousands of troops inside the city’s fortress and refused to surrender.

Rather than leave, Miller stayed for five days on the front lines. She was the only photojournalist present, male or female, which alone was extraordinary given that women war correspondents were routinely kept away from combat.

Her photographs from Saint-Malo include the first recorded use of napalm in combat. When the military authorities realized she had no authorization to be there, they placed her under temporary arrest and barred her from the front.

After her death in 1977, her son discovered tens of thousands of her negatives hidden in boxes in the attic of their family home, including a manuscript titled The Siege of St. Malo. The 2023 film Lee, with Kate Winslet in the title role, is based on her life. The images on display here give you a direct window into what this city looked like when 80% of it was burning.

Cour la Houssaye

Tucked just off rue Chateaubriand, the Cour la Houssaye is easy to miss if you’re not looking for it, and that would be a shame. The courtyard and its buildings appear in the city’s accounts as far back as the late 15th century, making it one of the oldest documented addresses in Saint-Malo.

The turreted house at number 2 is considered the oldest surviving house in the city, with architectural details dating back to that period. It also has a notable guest on its record. Tradition holds that Anne of Brittany stayed here when she came to oversee the construction of the castle just down the road. Given that the dates line up perfectly, there’s no reason to doubt it.

Rue de Pelicot

Heading uphill from here, you’ll reach rue de Pelicot, one of the few streets in Saint-Malo that survived the fires that swept through the city over the centuries. Most of the old wooden and glass facades were lost long before WWII finished the job, but this street is one of the rare exceptions. 

Number 5 is one of the last remaining houses with its original timber and glass facade still intact. It is easy to walk past without noticing, but it’s a direct link to what the city looked like before granite became the building material of choice.

The Cathedral of Saint-Vincent

The Cathedral of Saint-Vincent sits at the heart of the old city and has been through more than most buildings could survive. The original structure dates to the 12th century, but by the time American bombing had finished with Saint-Malo in August 1944, the cathedral lay in ruins with its interior destroyed.

The reconstruction took decades. The stained glass windows you see today were installed gradually over many years, with some of the most striking modern designs replacing what was lost.

Each panel is extraordinary, the light coming through them shifting the atmosphere of the whole interior depending on the time of day. The spire on top of the cathedral was the very last piece of the city’s reconstruction to be completed, finally finished in 1972, nearly 30 years after the bombardment.

The Ramparts 

Walking the ramparts is one of the biggest drawcards in Saint-Malo, and you could easily spend an hour up there without covering the same ground twice. The views out to sea take in several of the offshore forts built by Vauban and Garangeau in the 17th century to make the harbor entrance essentially impenetrable. 

There are four of them in total: Fort National, Fort du Petit Bé, Fort de la Conchée, and Fort Harbour, each sitting on its own rocky islet. At low tide, you can walk out to some of them.

Down below the ramparts on the beach at Bon Secours, you’ll spot a large tidal seawater swimming pool cut into the rocks. It was built in 1936 on the initiative of a local entrepreneur named René Lesaunier, the owner of the Bains René, and it still fills and empties with the tide every day. 

The tidal range here is among the largest in Europe, reaching up to 15 meters in spring and autumn, so the pool transforms dramatically depending on the state of the sea. At high tide, it merges with the ocean. At low tide, it sits like a perfectly still green rectangle while the sea retreats to the horizon.

Walking around the pool and then climbing the little ladder gives you the most stunning view of the sea and then back to the ramparts.

Lunch at Le Corps de Garde

After the ramparts, lunch. Le Corps de Garde is one of those restaurants where the experience is as much part of the appeal as the food. The staff dress as corsairs, the view is simply stunning, and the menu is built around the great Breton staple: the galette.

Galettes are made with buckwheat flour, and Brittany produces an extraordinary amount of it. Buckwheat is not actually wheat at all; it’s a completely different plant, which is why galettes are naturally gluten-free. The flavor is earthy and slightly nutty, in a way that white flour crepes never quite match.

The other thing you cannot leave without trying is the salted butter caramel. Brittany’s obsession with salted butter runs through almost everything they cook, and the caramel they make with it is something else entirely. Sweet and salty together in a way that seems like it shouldn’t work and absolutely does.

The Privateers’ Houses

A walk through the streets of Intra-Muros will take you past the malouinières, the grand townhouses built by the shipowners and corsairs who accumulated fortunes in the 17th and 18th centuries. They’re built in granite with solid facades, and the ones near Porte de Dinan and Porte Saint-Vincent are the most impressive.

You can visit the Demeure de Corsaire, the house of Magon de la Lande, which dates to 1725 and still has its original salons, wine cellar, and objects brought back from distant seas.

Cancale and the Oysters

This is the one thing I didn’t do, which I wish we’d been able to enjoy. If you’re staying overnight, make time the next morning for Cancale, about 15 kilometers down the coast toward Mont Saint-Michel. Cancale is the oyster capital of France, farming Pacific oysters on 400 hectares of beds in the bay, with between 3,500 and 4,000 tons produced every year.

On a Sunday morning, the harbor at La Houle is where you want to be. The small daily market on the quayside has around eight stalls run by the oyster farmers themselves, who shuck them on the spot for a few euros a dozen. 

You take your tray, find a spot on the sea wall, eat them looking out over the bay toward Mont Saint-Michel, and when you’re finished, you throw the shells back onto the beach. The entire beach is made of discarded shells, going back generations. 

You’ll often see someone wandering along the quay with a bottle of Muscadet tucked under their arm. It’s a dry, clean white wine from the Loire that has just enough acidity to cut through the brine without getting in the way. On a clear Sunday morning with the tide out and Mont Saint-Michel sitting on the horizon, it is a very hard thing to improve on.

Final Thoughts On Exploring Saint Malo

One thing I would like to say before I close up is that Saint Malo needs more time than I had. I only scratched the surface of what is there, and I will be going back to enjoy some oysters and see more of what this fantastic region has to offer.

A huge thanks to Lisa at the Saint Malo tourist board for spending so much time with me, so tell me the story of this wonderful city.