Stage 7 Tour de France 2025

Food and Drink to Accompany Stage 7 Tour de France 2025

Stage 7 is from Saint-Malo to Mûr-de-Bretagne.

Saint-Malo is famous for churned butter. There are oyster farms at nearby Cancale.

Brittany is known for pancakes - sweet crêpes and savoury buckwheat galettes.

Cider is one of the main alcoholic drinks in Brittany.

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Saint-Malo

Saint-Malo is a walled town on the English Channel coast and the Rance estuary.

It has a history of piracy. After being damaged by Allied bombing in 1944, it was rebuilt and has become a popular tourist town and ferry terminal. Boats go to the Channel Islands and Portsmouth and Poole.

It was a Gaulish then a Roman town. In the 300s, a fort was built to protect the Rance estuary from raiders arriving by boat.

In the 400s and 500s, Brittany was a safe haven for Celtic Britons fleeing instability in Cornwall and Wales. There was a monastic settlement here founded by Saint Aaron and Saint Brendan. It takes its name from a follower of Saint Brendan, called Saint Maclou.

From 1590 to 1594, Saint Malo declared itself an independent Republic.

Jacques Cartier was an explorer who set sail from Saint-Malo to discover Canada.

Another Saint-Malo explorer, Bougainville, went to the Falkland Islands, and called them the Iles Malouines after Saint-Malo.

The Allies attacked Saint-Malo in 1944 because around 8,000 German troops were inside the town walls and the German commander refused to surrender. The town was rebuilt from 1948 to 1960.

Now Saint-Malo is the most visited place in Brittany, with the centre (intra muros) the biggest draw. The Château of Saint-Malo is the town museum.

The nearby Fort National is on a tidal island just off the coast. It is one of Vauban's fortifications.

Dinan

Dinan is a walled town in the Côtes-d-Armor département of Brittany.

It's on a hillside overlooking the river Rance. The area by the river is known as the Port de Dinan.

The Medieval town on the hillside has buildings dating from the 1200s. You can walk along some the town walls.

Every other year, the Fête des Remparts takes place in July. The town is decorated, and some locals dress up in Medieval clothes.

5% of Dinan children attend bilingual schools and learn Breton.

Bernard Hinault

Bernard Hinault is from Yffiniac. He is known as 'the badger', which refers to dogged persistance.

He won the Tour de France in 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982 and 1985. He also won the Giro three times and the Vuelta twice.

There was a rivalry between Hinault and his teammate at La Vie Claire Greg LeMond in the 1986 Tour, which LeMond won. Hinault retired at the end of that season.

He is from a farming family in Brittany. He had a very successful amateur career before turning professional in 1975 with Gitane.

He won one-day Classics, including Gent-Wevelgem and Liège-Bastogne-Liège in 1977. He also won the Dauhphiné that year.

He was with Renault-Gitane from 1978 to 1983, and this was his most successful period. His wins included the 1980 World Championships road race in Sallanches. In 1981, he won Paris-Roubaix.

Hinault was at La Vie Claire from 1984 to 1986, owned by Bernard Tapie. Hinault contributed to the development of the clipless pedal by Tapie's Look company.

On Stage 5 of the 1984 Dauphiné, there were protestors against a dockyard closure at La Ciotat. Hinault rode into the group, and punched the nearest protestor. In the fight that he provoked, he sustained a broken rib.

Laurent Fignon won the Tour de France in 1984. Fignon was injured and did not do the 1985 Tour, and Hinault won the race.

In 1986, Hinault had the yellow jersey until Stage 17 on the Col d'Izoard when Greg LeMond took it.

After retiring, Hinault returned to farming.

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Mûr de Bretagne

Mûr de Bretagne used to be a town in its own right, but is now part of the commune of Guerlédan. It is to the east of the Lac de Guerlédan, a lake formed by a dam of the river Blavet.

The name Mûr comes from the Breton muriou, and it means walls or ramparts around a fortified town.

Mûr de Bretagne has featured in the Tour de France on many occasions, including on the route of a 139km individual time trial in 1947, the first Tour after the war.

Locally the the Mûr-de-Bretagne climb is known as the Côte de Menez Hiez, or Côte de Mur, and it is a climb on the D767 north of the village of Mûr de Bretagne. Because the climb is 2km and quite steep, the race organisers use to split the field.

It was the final climb on Stage 4 of the Tour de France 2011, Stage 8 of the Tour de France 2015, Stage 6 of the Tour de France 2018, and Stage 2 of the Tour de France 2021.