Best Western Hotel Alexandra

Super parking, nice terrace with sunset views comfortable rooms, friendly reception staff. I will definitely stay here again. Not sure about the waiter in the restaurant though - beautiful walk to the old town along promenade, takes 15 minutes but also you can catch the bus from the street behind the no’s 6 or 9 - €2 will get there in less than 5 minutes! Also the Maisonette Malecot patisserie is 5 minutes walk and has the best croissants I have ever tasted!

My idea of the perfect hotel on the waterfront in St Malo was one with a balcony to watch the gigantic tides come in and out. I researched many, and to my surprise the one with the best offering was the Best Western Alexandra, a chain I associate with America’s West. In our three days and nights in St Malo, the BW proved its perfection. The location is very good — walkable from the Old City but near the fun of the ocean, with kite surfers, sailing go-karts, kids playing in the sand. It is close to Les Charmettes Hotel, which had a lively front porch happy hour and a wonderful Breton kir. And on the street side it is in a neighborhood of exquisitely beautiful stone houses with architectural touches it was a joy to discover. Plus a cheese store, a chocolate boutique and a pharmacy well-stocked with all the French beauty products American women load up on to bring home. But the overarching reason I reserved here is that they had available at a reasonable price an oceanfront room with either a bow window or a terrace that boasted a table and two chairs. When I reserved, about two months early, I specifically requested a terrace, and I received a message back that my request had been noted. Happily, my request was granted, and the little terrace was wonderful. The room itself was compact, but amazingly managed to have everything we needed. It had a tiny fridge, a good shower, great wifi and a wonderful towel warmer. We enjoyed having breakfast each morning in the waterfront restaurant, Etrave. We could choose from a small (12 euros) or large (18 euros) breakfast as it was not included in our room price. If it had been warmer in the mornings we might have liked to dine on our terrasse but the first week of May was not warm until the afternoon! Then it was sunny and delightful. We had dinner one night in the hotel restaurant and had a lovely meal, one of the nicest of our trip. The fish soup was especially good. The menu was quite varied (I had seafood risotto and my husband some type of perhaps quail) and the wine list reasonably priced. In addition, the hotel staff was friendly and quite helpful any time we needed anything. One staffer took the time to make several phone calls for us on our last morning when we were headed for an overnight on Le Mont St Michel and realized we didn’t have the code from our hotel to park in the overnight lot. The amount of French required was beyond what I had for that. We also appreciated the secure parking ($14 a night), which wasn't so critical in early May but I'm sure is worth its weight in gold in July and August. But we especially loved waking up each morning and coming back each day to the view and sound of the dramatically changing tides from our terrace — something so special to Brittany and St Malo. I would love to come back again.