21.06.2026 Day 12 - St Hilaire-du-Harcouët - Saint Malo. More railway and getting hot

Once you realize that you follow an old railway, you can see it everywhere. Afterwards I passed the interesting Mont de St Michel, the areas tourist attraction par excellence it appears. 

Started a bit earlier as it is getting hotter. Still following the old railway tracks.

Station Le Pont D'oir

Nice characteristics of the old railways are that the slopes are never exteremely steep, and that there are trees along the track, more shade and less wind.

That is the last we see of the railway

After this, the route shifts between road and unpaved tracks, the latter of somewhat lower quality than so far in France, some rather loose sand. But nothing like some places in Poland last year. That said Poland also had good conditions most places, even resting places for cyclists. I'm missing that here.

In Friesland this would be a "terp" but it is quite a bit larger

After 40km I reached Mont St Michel, a huge old monastery (later turned jail) on top of an 80m high rock right outside the coast. The area around is more or less dry during low tide, not sure if you can walk there. But there is a bridge, and masses of tourists on a Sunday.

This is what it looks like from close by

Lunch in Cherroueix where there was a music festival like everywhere here now it seems, in St Hilaire yesterday and here in St Malo today.

And always new flowers to be seen."Hondskruid" in Dutch, I think my mother mentioned it. Don't think we have it in Norway.

Seems to be trouble on the way for the next couple of days, see picture below.

Not sure what to do yet. Stay close to the sea, maybe find a camping (apartment now), or ride 40-50km in the morning. But where to stay then?

Funny, in Iceland I was stopped by the snow, now by the heat.

On a day with little climbing, the one ascent after ˜5 hours was 16% or so, had to get off the bike again

99 km that took me 7:30 hours (5:50 hours cycling). Total distance 1140 km.