Mont St Michel

I don’t think anyone has seen a cooler anything than this place. It’s literally a castle on an island.

Another 6:00AM train later, and we arrived to the small town of Ponterson, home base on a same day day trip to Mont St Michel. We dropped our bags off at the hotel, then took the bus that took us to the coast. As we got closer and the monastery slowly came into view, the insanity of what we were seeing became real. This is an entire town along the foot of an island, and a massive Norman and gothic monastery on the top of it all. It is one of the coolest things any of us have ever seen.

We must have spent 20 minutes gawking at the island from the bus stop, before walking our way to the town for some breakfast. We ended up with sandwiches, wolfed them down, and explored the narrow stairways and paths that criss-cross the island. We discovered some lovely views, and unfortunately discovered that a majority of the passages are closed off to the public. Oh well. We eventually found ourselves in a small garden, with large trees somehow protruding from the rock and soil to provide a nice shaded area for a sit.

We took a tour of the abbey and cathedral after. The island had been used as a monastery for over 800 years, and a lot of information about it was given. Unfortunately for us, it was all in French. The rooms became somewhat repetitive, just dimly lit stone room’s following each other. The cathedral was also underwhelming, as it had clearly had work done recently to install modern lighting and sound equipment. The clean up job was patchy. It was also quite busy, and served as more of a museum room than a cathedral.

The view from the terrace was marvelous. On one side you could see the flat rolling fields of the Norman countryside, trees outlining the plot divisions. It was low tide, so the rest was exposed sand bars going on for as far as anyone could see. The grey clay made for a salt flat-esque landscape before us, and the cloudy skies muddled the horizon line with the sea. The view form the terrace made the abbey entrance worth it. At the end we gained two friends, Monty and Kuzon, small stuffed dragons that Ty got for himself and Cam to match.

Saint Michel slayed a dragon which is why they were being sold. We then had lunch at Le Mere Poulard. It was pricy, but looked delicious, so we went in for a taste. They were famous for their truffle omelet, but it was expensive, so we went for different meals. A table halfway across the restaurant were documenting this meal extensively with three different cameras. They had their omelets delivered, and proceeded to take a lot of photos, film the woman talk about it presumably, than three or four 10 second clips were filmed of her her food, her, and the décor around them. It was amusing to watch. We had a salmon goat cheese ball (great), mushroomy egg (ok) and veal tartar (good) for appetizers, and then lemongrass scallops (decent) and lamb (good) for lunch. Ty really liked it all though, so that was good. A ‘sweet egg’ was for desert, and it was bizarre. An omelet soaked in alcohol served with fruit. Graham didn’t get it, but Ty loved it.

Please enjoy the following photo collection, birds of Mont St Michel. They were everywhere.

We spent the afternoon wandering the surrounding beaches of Mont St Michel. The attraction is really better spent outside of it looking in than inside looking out. Discovering a small extra shrine on the coast was cool. The tide rolled in very quickly too, and as some parts had a really shallow slope, you could watch the tide come in at real time, which was awesome. Groups of tourists seemed to have fun standing in the water like flamingos. We didn’t really get it. A couple seals popped their heads in too.

We took the bus back to Ponterson, and tried to find dinner, but everything was closed! We even had a quick conversation with another tourist couple, who were just as confused as we were. They settled on the only open place anyone could find, Istanbul Kebab (burgers, tacos, kebab). We went to the grocery store and got some meats, crackers and cheeses and made our own charcuterie for dinner instead.

Overall it was an interesting day. We probably could have cut some time at Mont St Michel and gone to a nearby Alligator zoo thing for some time, but that’s ok. It was still a cool day. The journey out to see the island in person is worth it.

Back to inland France tomorrow! We will see you there!