Mont St Michel

A day to remember

Going to Mont St Michel has been one of Barb's long held dreams. To say she was excited would not properly express the excitement level. In fact it was off the scale! Be prepared for a big photo share ....

We arrived at what we thought we'd identified as the bus stop early, having been dropped off by taxi from our hotel. Unbelievably we'd both slept in. Perhaps sixteen hours driving and an uncomfortable cabin over the last few days had tired us.

Before long we were approached by a young French woman. "Is this where you catch the bus to Mont St Michel?" she asked, first in French but then repeated in English when we looked blank. "We think so" we replied, somewhat uncertainly.

The girl's mother lacked conviction and was running around asking everone in sight if they knew where the bus stop was (John: thankfully this relieved Barb of the need to repeat her worry session of the day before - someone else was doing it instead!). No-one seemed sure, but eventually we found a crowd going our way and waited with them, but we were all wrong. The bus driver saw us, seemed somewhat unsurprised at our confusion, and motioned us to follow the bus further up the road for him to pick us up. Phew!



crowd waiting at wrong bus stop

Hooray! The bus found us.

We drove towards Mont St Michel with the driver helpfully providing commentary in French, most of which went straight over our heads. He pointed to a field and we picked out the word "wallabies" from his dialogue. Sure enough, there were a dozen wallabies grazing in a field!

"I feel like I'm at home" said Barb.

The lady in front of us swivelled round. "Where are you from?" she asked with an Aussie accent. "Just north of Brisbane" said we. "I'm from Port Macquarie "she replied.

"We're from Brisbane too. Redcliffe" chimed in the lady across from us travelling with her teenage daughter. Australians get everywhere.

The first glimpses of Mont St Michel were so exciting but tantalisingly distant. As we grew nearer Barb grew accordingly more excited. The final approach was through the surprisingly large town of Mont St Michel, but the car/coach park was still a long way from the Mont. There was a free shuttle bus for most of the remainder of the journey we all still had to walk across the causeway, vehicle access being extremely limited; a new bridge is being built but is not yet open. The sea round Mont St Michel has a huge tidal range - some 14 metres between high and low water. To put that in perspective the Brisbane river has about two and a half metres. The tide rushes in quickly and although lots of people choose to walk across the sand/mud flats they do need to come with a guide who knows the tide times.

Mont St Michel from the car park

The new bridge to Mont St Michel

Barb at the Mont

crowds in the distance walking across the mud flats

The area around the bottom of the island is very touristy and full of shops selling souvenirs. We made our way up and up increasingly steep and winding paths and steps to the Abbey at the very top. It cost nine euros apiece to enter the Abbey, and this thinned out the crowds. It was well worth it though.

Shops at the bottom

Barb at the shops

John in a chapel

John in the cemetary

the apse in the Abbey

garden in the cloisters

double colonade in the cloisters

the monks dining hall
 

 

barb at the cloisters

the crypt of the big pillars

We particularly loved the cloister gardens and the gothic choir area, the dining hall and the crypts. It was very interesting to see the tread wheel, pulley and (very steep) inclined plane system that the monks used to pull building materials up the cliffs into the Abbey.

the pulley

the tread wheel

John

After our long and detailed inspection of the Abbey we were very tired and thirsty, so we revived ourselves with a long and relaxed lunch in one of the lovely restaurants with views out over the beach. The food was amazing and delicious. In particular the chocolate mousse gave chocolate a really, really, good name. Oh yum!

Revived, and to walk off lunch, we took a walk around the whole perimeter of the Mont by beach. The tide was out, but on its way in, so we didn't dilly dally .... other than for photos of course.

moss on the walls

towering buttresses

John pours perrier

Barb enjoying lunch

barb and John on the beach

John walks the mudflats

Barb on the beach

Mont St Michel from the beach

walking around the bottom with the tide coming in

We re-met up with the lady from Port Maquarie as we returned to the shuttle bus, and had a very interesting conversation with her. She's writing childrens' books and has co-written geography text books for high school in the past and has done heaps of travelling.

On the way back our kind bus driver detoured through Cancale, which we'd briefly whizzed through this morning. He wanted to show us where they farm the mussels and other seafood we'd been tasting during our stay (in point of fact Barb had decided against mussels at lunch when the couple at the next table expressed disappointment with theirs). We also saw where they do land yachting on the wide open beaches near Cancale. If you watched Manu's France on TV a couple of months ago you'd know that this looks wonderfully fun.

































We got back to Saint Malo tired but happy. We've bought some food supplies at the mini mart in town and are dining in on fruit, cheese and biscuits tonight in our room. John is excited to have red wine and rillettes de porc. Oh joy, oh rapture!

poppies

the sand yachts near Cancale