The Mud Of The Pilgrims

Well, we had our first bad experience at dinner the night before (after our D-Day tour) here at the hotel.  Dinner the first night was great -- the food was amazing, and the service was fine, despite my aforementioned run-in with the sommelier.  But, the night of the D-Day tour, we were seated at 8pm and served our main course at 9:30!  Everyone was tired and hungry.  After a two hour meal with no dessert, we were relieved to get out of there at 10pm -- and it was the most expensive meal of the trip!

Friday dawned rainy and cool.  Driving to Mont Saint Michel, I was worried we wouldn't really be able to see it.  There were points at which you could barely see a mile of the Norman countryside because of the rain and fog.  As everyone slept, I worried we would not be able to see the dramatic island Abbey from no further than close up.  The heavy rain died out as we got closer, and then Carol woke up and spotted the Abbey rising in the distance like a beacon beckoning the pilgrims who traveled there in the Middle Ages (and beyond). 

The drive was about 75 minutes long, although my fears of parking problems and crowding were not realized -- the parking and shuttle system to the causeway was well-laid out and easy to use.  I will give the French a lot of credit (and they deserve it) for how good the access is to such difficult and popular sites. 

If you've never seen a picture of Mont Saint Michel, it's amazing.  I will post some in a day or two, but click on this link to see a variety.  My photos won't be quite the same quality!

Following the advice of Rick Steves' guidebook, we lucked into the side stairs up to the Abbey.  This allowed us to beat much of the crowds by bypassing the town and going straight to the top (pun intended).

We got in a relatively short line (which was much longer by the time we were done in the Abbey), paid for the audioguides, and headed in.  The views are dramatic from up on high, and, since the tide was going out, more and more of the bay revealed itself. 

The grand stair case was the final climb up, and then we went to the West Terrace, from which the views are dramatic -- out to the Atlantic, inland for miles, and all around the bay. 

The abbey was founded as a church in 708, and the current abbey was built starting in the 11th century (old stuff!).  After the West Terrace, you go through 20 rooms, twelve of which have audioguide explanations (they are a must! -- ask for the English version, unless you have a lot more foreign language talent than I do, which isn't a hard standard to beat). 

The Abbey church itself is amazing -- built on top of the rock eighty meters above sea level.  It is amazing how, with no engines or advanced technology, they were able to transport the stones from far away and bring it up to the top of the rock, cut it, carve it, and build it.  Wonder how many people died during the building of it!  By the way, not to mention the precise calculations they had to make to ensure it was built to last on top of the rock.  Basically, it is two three story buildings built on a massive stone rising from the sea.  It is also incredible how many centuries it took to build -- longer than the new lanes on I-95! 

However, the rooms and areas after the church are even more amazing -- first the peaceful cloisters, and then to the large refectory where the monks ate.  Going downstairs leads to some amazing rooms, which are used to support the top floor buildings, including the guest hall, the crypt with its huge pillars, the charnel house, a small chapel, halls, and other rooms.  The columns and the ribbed ceilings throughout are impressive, and every which way there are impressive views out the windows. 

Leaving the abbey, we took the ramparts down, stopping at a  creperie for lunch.  Yes, it was overpriced, but we had good views of the bay, and it's not like we could wait to eat until we got back to the mainland. 

We finished walking most of the ramparts (the Mont was so impregnable that it did not fall once despite many English assaults during the Hundred Years War, which actually lasted 116 years, but hey, who's counting?) and took some stairs down to the main street.  The plan was to walk back up the street and down, but, as the guidebooks warned us, it was impassable!  So, deciding that fighting the tide of people (tide, get it? -- the bay has the second highest rising tide in the world behind the Bay of Fundy in Canada) wasn't worth it, we headed back to the town gates. 

From there Maddy, Torie and I walked out on the wet sands/mud of the rapidly receding bay to get good views of the Mont.  It felt as though we could walk across the entire bay.  Our shoes got relatively muddy (good thing I was wearing my hiking boots), but we took comfort in knowing that this was the mud of the pilgrims from one thousand years ago.

Between D-Day on Thursday and Mont St. Michel on Friday, it was two back-to-back days of jaw-dropping amazement.