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We had to sort out the car with Europcar, so we headed back to the train station in the morning, we decided to walk which took approx 1 hour which was great as we got a chance to look at Bordeaux. When we got to Europcar there was a bit of a line up and when we finally got to the desk the lady was able to give us a car for 2 days but at a price double what our initial booking was for and that was for 3 days. We were not impressed and explained to her that the quote she gave us was double what we initially got given and that we wouldn't be paying that much as it wasn't our fault we weren't able to collect the car the day before. She understood what we were saying but said there was nothing she could do however when we said just cancel the booking, we're not interested the lady managed to get us a price for the car for 1 day at a marginally cheaper price. We decided to go with this option although it meant leaving no more time in Bordeaux and only little time in St Malo. We left straight away to collect our bags from the hotel and get to St Malo to spend some time there. It was an interesting drive back to the hotel as we didn't have the Tom Tom and the first time on the wrong side of the road. The drive to St Malo was going to take 5.5 hours which was longer than we thought however was all on the highway so wasn't too bad, speeds over here get up to 130kms per hour. On the way we had to go through a toll which when we arrived would seem you needed a ticket to get through. We reversed up, pulled over to the side and put the hazard lights on and tried to find something in our Europcar folder but nothing was there. What a surprise! I got out of the car to see if I could get some help and walked through the tolls to an assistance button however no1 answered. A semi trailer came through at that point so I asked the driver what to do. It would seem all we had to do was press the button to receive a ticket. There were 2 lanes, one for prepaid tickets and one for unpaid. Cheers Europcar for the heads up! Once we got back on the open road it was smooth sailing, until we had to pay the toll at the next toll bridge. I was driving at this point and we pulled up thinking we had to get another ticket but in fact we had to pay for the one we had received approx 300k's earlier. The cost was a mammoth €27.50. Because we had pulled over to the far right lane originally we thought we must have gone through the truck lane and therefore paid the truck levy. Finally got to St Malo around 6.30. We checked in and went for a quick run along the beach to have a look around. It was a really pretty place with older style homes along the beachfront. We were told by the hotel that there was a place further along in the opposite direction with some nice restaurants for dinner. The walk was about 15 mins. When we got there it was like a whole new place in the middle of St Malo. It was separated by castle like walls with a few archways that you walked through! Very rich! The place was a buzz of cafes and restaurants. We had dinner at the St Malo Cafe. The waiter spoke broken English and offered us an aperitif champagne which I hadn't heard the champagne part and thought it was just an entree. My immediate response was yes why not. It tasted very nice which made us think we had just been stitched, we were proven right when the bill arrived and the two glasses cost a mammoth €25 euro. This meant we had just spent €50 on a toll and 2 glasses of wine that day. We had a good laugh about it and I decided I will try and find out more next time. Dinner was great, was seafood, I had a salad while Brett had a huge platter with oysters, shrimps, prawns and scampi. We explored this little town before speed walking home as it was quite a chilly night. First taste of cold weather we had in a month.
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