Well Worth the Trip

Day 7 started pretty early - a 5:30 am wake up for a 6:30 departure. We're hitting the road on a bus tour to Mont-Saint-Michel!

To get to the Mont requires a 5-hour bus ride through the lower portion of Normandy (no, not the famous beaches, but some very lovely countryside). It was not a difficult ride, as the company that put the tour together has this thing wired. It was interesting that the English speakers were by far the minority (only a handful of us between two buses - Japanese was the big group, followed by the Portuguese). We each had our own tour guide, and I thought it was somewhat fascinating to watch our guide speak to us in English, then the other guide speak to her group in Japanese, and then communicate with one another in French. It makes me feel like I really need to branch out and learn another language...

The trip, though long, went smoothly. We stopped at about the 1/2 way point at the European version of a 'Gas & Sip' to take a rest room break and get something to eat. We got a bit of history on lower Normandy, including the fact that Camembert cheese got it's start in this region (I bring you all of the fascinating info, I know). We rolled into town right in time to take in lunch at a local restaurant featuring the 'world famous Mont Saint Michele omelets', as well as salmon, rice and a whipped cheesecake. The omelets were not something that we would order again, but we can say that we tried them! Props to the people at Terrasses Poulard for serving everyone so quickly and the food at the right temperature (I think that there were 4 tour buses all at the same time)

Once lunch was complete, we boarded back on the bus and set across the causeway to the Abbey. It was truly stunning to see the Mont from the different angles as we reached the base and then climb up to see it. Our guide was a fountain of information and the hour and a half tour was over in what seemed like no time at all. We of course took some excellent pictures which you can view here in the album, Paris - Day 7.

This visit reminded me a lot of the trip that we took to the Holy Island in Northern England earlier this year, as it has also been a place of pilgrimage. Pilgrims were given a sea shell to identify them as travelers and mark where they have visited; today that shell sign of hospitality lives on in the gasoline service station 'Shell' (except of course for the fact that one has to pay today!)

The history of the Mont dates all the way back to 708 and has experienced wars, disillusionment and revolutions throughout its evolution. Each of the periods of unrest or change are marked through different architectural styles and functional elements on the 'rock'. Much like the San Francisco landmark of the same nickname (we are talking Alcatraz of course), the Mont was also used as a prison for about 50 years.

The Mont was declared a historic monument in 1863 and a concrete causeway built in 1979 - the Mont is the 2nd most visited location in France (first place goes to the Eiffel Tower). While the causeway has done much to ease the arrival and departure to Mont-Saint-Michel, it has inadvertently interfered with the natural ebb and flow of the sand and sea, so they are working to replace the causeway with a suspension bridge to allow the natural tide to return and keep the Mont an island (the work won't be done for about 10 years still!)

More wandering around the village, lots of pictures and general enjoyment of the fresh air wrapped up our afternoon and then it was time to get back on the bus, enjoy a bit of the French countryside before the sun set and trek back to Paris. Dinner was a fancy event at the Gas & Sip (I don't do it justice using that name; it was actually pretty well stocked and was set up to handle volume). We arrived back right around 9:15 pm or so after a very full and very enjoyable day. It was a long jaunt, but well worth the trip.