Today we have a daytrip planned to Saint Pierre et Miquelon a self governing overseas territory of France that few people know about. It is like an outpost of the European Union right next to Canada and the US and we are quite curious about it. Using the ferry there are only two days that you can go on a daytrip otherwise you have to sleep there but we planned our trip so we are in Fortune on one of those two days. We have booked the ticket in advance but still have to go to the ticket office to get the tickets proper and then it is time to walk to the harbor.
Everything is really close here, we are at the customs/border building in just five minutes and explore the area for a while before entering to wait in the waiting room. And we wait quite a bit in fact the ferry is a bit late unfortunately.
Still it finally arrives and then we all walk to the ferry, luckily it is not raining so it is a nice enough walk, we try to get to the ferry as fast as possible to get some better seats.
If only we knew what better seats means :). We sit in the back as supposedly it is better for seasickness and also is close to the access to the outdoor area. From here we can see the car area of the ferry only one van seems to make the trip over today.
The crossing is nice and uneventful and we even see quite a few birds, especially Great Shearwaters and gulls.
And then after about one hour we enter the Saint Pierre and Miquelon waters. There are lots of small islands, all uninhabited as we slowly approach the Saint Pierre harbor.
Everyone by this point is in the outdoor area looking at the city that is coming into view. We manage to also take a photo of the city before everyone jumps into the frame and destroys any hope of clean photos.
Then it is time to cross the border, a serious business as we enter the European Union, but then finally we are free to enter the city and explore.
The ferry terminal is right downtown and we immediately start exploring while also making a beeline towards the hiking trail we want to explore. In fact we want to split the time in about half on the trail and half in the city but still we want to start with the trail as we do not know exactly how long it will take. So we go up and up and up the city seems to be built on a hill and the trail starts where the city ends.
The road we are driving on passes by the townhall before ending at a huge house from where the trail starts. The trail is described separately but it is quite a nice trail and it was worth doing.
Returning into town after the hike it is time to explore a bit more. We buy a Coca Cola from a grocery store and then explore the small streets and typical houses as we walk towards the downtown area.
We reach the Central Square which is anchored by the Cathedral of Saint Pierre, an austere building from the outside. It is open and we can enter it and inside it is much more welcoming and quite large. We explore it for a while before moving on, it is getting close to the time the ferry will be leaving.
The other building around the square are quite contrasting, some are well maintained and restored like the hotel and some or less so.
We are surprised at how few restaurants there are, we find only one that looks open and this is where all the other people from the ferry seem to have gathered. We do not want to eat but were curious about prices and what is on offer but there is no menu outside so we remain in the dark.
When we studied what can be done in Saint Pierre we noticed two museum but it seemed like neither was open. Well the Heritage Museum is open but it is too late to visit given that the ferry leaves in about half hour so we skip it and go to the next impressive building we see. Which looks to be the post office but also might be the old post office as we cannot enter and there are no hours shown.
But when we enter the waiting area for the border we can actually reach the interior of the post from here, they are connected, and there are lots of lockboxes, so still post maybe? Happily here we have internet as we have to wait for some time before passing the border and boarding the ferry.
This time we are passing close to Ile Aux Marins, supposedly there is a ferry to it that runs often but we haven’t seen any the whole time we were in town. The whole island was abandoned but still has many buildings that can be visited and even a wreck. For us there was no chance to reach them so we see them only from our ferry as we pass by.
The return trip is uneventful except we see a few puffins, a huge bonus for us as we really didn’t expect that. And then it is time to pass through the Canada border which is the worse one as the border guard is very talkative and takes a long time so we spend about one hour just waiting for them to process each and every one of the other passengers. And then tired we return to the AirBnB and fall asleep after a beautiful day and adding one more country to our list.
