Mont Saint-Michel

Along with the D-Day beaches, Mont Saint-Michel was the reason I wanted to visit Normandy. From pictures, the fortified island village looked more like a The Lord of the Rings set than reality, and I've been looking forward to seeing it in person since this our trip began.  I thought we might have to cancel when Marcia had to cancel her trip out to France, but luckily for us, Lee decided to come and fought through jet lag to drive us.

The island has been home to some sort of monastic establishment since at least the eight century.  The current abbey dates from the first half of the eleventh century, and can actually be seen in the famous Bayeux Tapestry (which we saw two days later).  It was dedicated to the Archangel Michael, giving the community its name.  It became a popular pilgrimage site, which encouraged the village to develop at its base.  After the French Revolution, it was turned into a prison, mostly to hold clerics deemed to be enemies of the republic.  Various halls and chambers were turned into cells and prisoner workshops.  Under pressure to recognize the mount as a national monument, the French government finally closed the prison in 1863 and has restored the once-dilapidated complex.

There must only be a few settlements on earth that rival the setting of Mont Saint-Michel.  The village sits on a rocky hill on a tidal plain that at high tide becomes an island.  Crowning the village like a jagged mountain peak is the tower of a 1,000 year old abbey.  We got our first glimpse of this hulking monastic complex while we were still fifteen miles away, driving down a narrow winding road to the coast.  It was every bit as impressive and fairy tale-ish as the pictures make it out to be.  As we got closer, the tidal flats and sheep pastures came into view, adding to its fantastical aura.  From the mainland, we drove across a causeway to get the up close view of this impenetrable fortress.  Two iron bombards outside the gates are a reminder of the multiple failed English attempts to take Mont Saint-Michel during the Hundred Years War.  I can't even understand why anyone would even try to take this place.  The causeway wasn't built until the late nineteenth century, and the previous access to the island was a natural land bridge that was covered at high tide.  The tides here can vary by as much as fourteen meters (around forty-five feet), one of the largest tides in the world, and can move quickly, making spending too much time out in the flats a dangerous proposition.  The natural phenomenon has earned the bay the UNESCO World Heritage Site designation in addition to the mount itself.

Lee's still getting used to his telescopic lens

I'll be seeing you for lunch

Once inside the walls, though, the village loses much of its magic.  The main street leading up the mount to the abbey is lined almost exclusively with cheap souvenir shops, overpriced restaurants and busloads of tour groups.  If you squint hard, you can still make out some of the charm that it surely once possessed.  We walked on some of the ramparts, skipped a couple of small museums and climbed to the top to see the main attraction: the abbey.

Mont Saint-Gatlinburg

View of the abbey from a cemetery

View from the ramparts

At this point in our trip, we've seen plenty of churches, but we hadn't been in a complex quite like this.  Went went on a self-guide guided audio tour that took us through the church, cloister, refectory, kitchen, guest apartment, crypts, ossuary and several chambers.  The structure has been built in stages over hundred of years, and it is interesting to see the changes in architecture are you go through the layers.  The darkness, curving passageways, narrow staircases and isolation also give it a creepy ambiance; if you've seen The Name of the Rose with Sean Connery, you know what I'm talking about.

The spire is topped with a statue of the Archangel Michael

Magge and Lee from the courtyard in front of the church

The Gothic choir of the church

Magge in the creatively named Crypt of the Large Pillars

The Hall of Knights, with some BIG fireplaces

After leaving Mont Saint-Michel, we ate lunch in an old converted farmhouse.  I had a lamb pie that will certainly make my top three list.  It turns out the sheep we saw around the island are called les agneaux de pré-salé (lambs of the salty meadow) and are considered a delicacy in France.  Mont Saint-Michel was amazing enough on its own, but when you throw in a delicious local meat particular, that puts it over the top.