Guided tour of Cancale | Saint-Malo – Mont-Saint-Michel Bay

We begin exploring Cancale

Cancale through time!

Cancale is first and foremost oysters. Our Paleolithic ancestors were already enjoying them, some 300,000 years ago. No wonder, then, that François 1er, a great lover of this mollusc, decreated Cancale the title of Town, in gratitude for its frequent shipments of oysters to the royal table!

But Cancale is also a maritime adventure!

A land of great men

First with the terre-neuvas, the men who set off for long months on the cod banks of Newfoundland, off the coast of Canada. Many left, and even more never returned!

Cancale is also a land of privateers, and wasn’t Surcouf brought up in Cancale? From La Houle, where the shipyards were located, sailors set sail for the Americas, Africa, the South Sea, the Indies and China.

The Port de la Houle and the top of Cancale

If the Port de la Houle offers its oysters and oyster beds to the curious and gourmets alike, the heart of Cancale was beating in the market town until the mid-19th century, and La Houle was just a peaceful little fishing hamlet, often neglected by the men and women who held their own there against outsiders, including the Vikings, who left only a few place names behind.

The small market town, built around the 10th century, is still home to the first church, admittedly primitive, but restored in the 18th century. It stands with its venerable bell tower and clock frozen in time above the Musée des Arts et Traditions Populaires in Cancale, while the new church of Saint-Méen, built at the end of the 19th century and in the first quarter of the 20th soars over the Bellevue plateau overlooking the bay, some 300 metres further on.

We invite you to come and discover…

Cancale, it’s the sea, the spirit of adventure, privateers, great voyages, but also a whole little world a little isolated at the end of this rocky point which closes the bay of Mont-Saint Michel, but which opens the door to the Emerald Coast and its legends.

Cancale through time, the guided tour : During the 1h30 stroll, come and discover this crazy adventure by admiring the shipowners’ mansions in the market town, but also the fishermen’s houses at La Houle, but also the other way round, because Cancale wasn’t built in a day.