The Best Places to Stay and Do in Saint-Malo

Arched doorways, amber light, and sand-colored stone facing a beach on Saint-Malo's Emerald Coast: this is a grand hotel that actually looks the part. A recent renovation leaned into the building's Art Deco bones rather than papering over them. The 63 rooms run from comfortable to sweeping, a spa handles the restorative side of things, and the restaurant keeps things Breton, meaning the seafood arrives straight from the source.

A Belle Époque pile on the sands of Brittany, the kind of hotel that has thermal baths and a saltwater pool and a "parcours aquatonic," which is essentially a gauntlet of jets and currents that the French consider relaxing. Three restaurants and a piano bar mean you never have to leave, though Saint-Malo's walled city is close enough to feel like a guilty pleasure. Rooms vary from cozy European-single to properly expansive, with the best ones facing the beach.

Four sea-facing rooms with balconies hang over the beach at Saint-Malo; the other twelve look onto a garden or courtyard, which is the consolation prize and not a bad one. This 16-room boutique hotel in two joined 19th-century villas wears its coastal setting without tipping into nautical-theme-park territory. The interiors are stylish in a relaxed, slightly irreverent way, and the bistro sits close enough to the water that on a good day you're basically dining on the sand.