It turns out that last week was just a warm-up...

I knew that I wanted to see Mont St-Michel. It's a UNESCO world heritage site, and more importantly, it plays a role in the 1940's espionage novel Assignment in Brittany by Helen MacInnes. The scene where the hero is saved from discovery by the dangerous Nazi being sucked into the quicksand near the mount left quite an impression.

Back when I was still planning this trip, I had considered a bus tour. The intelligent people at tripadvisor.com suggested that it would be more pleasant to take the train to MSM the night before, stay the night, then go to the abbey bright and early before the hordes of tourists. You get to see MSM all lit up at night and avoid spending 8-9 hours on a bus. (Trust me, I appreciate the irony.) It turns out that it's also rather cheaper to do this, too. I booked the trains and hotel and was jazzed.

For the unaware, MSM is a large rocky island just off the north-west coast of France, in Brittany, connected to the mainland by a causeway. The main attraction is a 10th century benedictine abbey that that has been added to over the ensuing years. There is a small village at the base of the mountain which now pretty much exists to cater to the tourists. After the French revolution, the abbey was used as a prison until 1863. It was designated as a historical landmark in 1874 and a UNESCO world heritage site in 1979. /lesson

After my what-should-have-been-4-hour-but-became-a-six-and-a-half-hour not-quite-ordeal-but-still, I went for a walk along the causeway to get my first look at the place. I wasn't staying on the mountain itself, but about 2 km away on the other side of the causeway in what is pretty much an upscale motel strip called la Caserne. There is a curve in the road, so the mountain gradually reveals itself and I must say at my first sight of it, I gasped. Totally worth the trek.

From Mont St-Michel 2010

It looked like a dreamscape, faint and grey and floating slightly above the fog. It was quite ethereal in the sunset.

From Mont St-Michel 2010

Remember that fog, later.

I thought about going all the way to the mount to have dinner in the village, but I'd been told that the food was less expensive and just as good in la Caserne. I had a dinner full of Breton "specialties": kir normand, the famous omelette aux lardons (basically, bits of ham), galette paysanne (a galette is a buckwheat crepe; this had chicken, potatoes, leeks, more ham, in a cheesy cream sauce), and a bolée de cidre (a bolée is a large pottery cup that holds 20 cL (hee -- again with the centilitres!)). I'm sorry I have no pictures of dinner. I'm always forgetting to take pictures of my food. The omelette and galette were both listed as appetizers, but they were a meal in themselves. I tried, but I couldn't finish the galette. No dessert for me.

After dinner, I bundled up against the wind and went off to see the mount all lit up at night. I hoped I would see something like this.  I rounded the corner where I caught my first sight of the mount earlier that evening and...

Nothing.

"Huh," I thought. "I should see something by now. It's a pretty big place."

Then I remembered the fog and clouds rolling in. No doubt that was the issue. No problem. I would just walk towards the mountain until I could actually see it.

Two things about the causeway (or la digue): 1) it isn't lit (which would have been all kinds of terrific if I could have seen the mountain or stars) and 2) there are two pedestrian paths on the west side of the road. One down next to the water (and the rising tide) and one right next to the road. It was easy to see the path in the dark because, like Dover, the soil is a white chalk and stands out against the dark grass. Until, that is, you are being blinded by the high-beam lights of an oncoming car. Ask me how I know.

Oh, the cars thoughtfully lowered their beams for any car going in the opposite direction, but not for the hapless pedestrians. I had to stop every 20 metres or so as another car passed me because I could no longer see the path. Every time I got my night-vision back, I'd be blinded again.

After about 20 minutes of this, I got about 3/4 of the way towards the mountain and could only barely make out the lights of the wall at the bottom. I would probably have to go right up to the mountain to see anything, and I still wouldn't see the top. Plus, it wasn't fun being blinded every five minutes.

I probably could have saved myself some grief if I'd walked along the lower path, but the tide was coming in. I'd been told that it covered the parking lot, which was actually higher than the path, and as exciting as reading "and then I got swept away by the tide" would be for you, I decided not to risk it. So there I was, staring at nothing, getting blinded every five minutes, and being buffeted by the wind. I went back to the hotel (a much easier journey, since fewer cars were going to the mount) and slept the sleep of the more than slightly put-upon.

But tomorrow is another day, and after breakfast, I checked out and walked to the mountain.

Sheep grazed in the meadows and along the flats. The sun peaked through the clouds. The sea air was fresh, and I wasn't being blinded by headlights. It was a lovely walk.

When the first roman church to Saint Michael was built here in the 8th century, it was actually called Mont Tombe, which sounds grim until you find out that that just means "high place." What makes MSM special, or la Merveille as the brochure kept calling it, is that instead of leveling off the mountain as they did in other places, they built up and around it. You can see bits of the original rock at the base of the abbey.

To get to the abbey, you have to make your way through the one narrow, winding, climbing road of the village, which is chock-a-block with souvenir stores, restaurants, and people hawking historical tours. I read a review that said how the commercialism of the place nearly ruined it for her, but the way I see it is: MSM has been a place of pilgrimage (religious or otherwise) for about a thousand years, and where people go, so follow other people who want to sell 'em stuff. I bet there was a 12th century pilgrim who arrived at MSM and said "Look at this! It's gone right downhill and commercial-like." (And yes, I hear Terry Jones as Mandy saying this.) I also bet they were selling the 12th century version of MSM-in-a-plastic-pyramid. And bags that say Paris. Because that's all there is to France, really.

From Mont St-Michel 2010

MSM is a mountain. It's in the name. That makes for a lot of climbing. Once you've cleared the road, gone up the first set of the 900 or so stairs you wind up climbing in total, and pause, breathless, to gaze up at the entrance of the abbey, you can see why it's called la Merveille. No doubt, the sense of grandeur was exactly what the builders were going for. They got it.

You can see my pictures of my tour by clicking on the photo below (you'll start with yesterday's photos).

Mont St-Michel 2010

My advice, for what it's worth: if you go, go early. I got through the tour by about 10:45 and there were a lot of people on their way in: the tour buses had arrived.

I decided to not stick around until 2:30 and risk missing my train if the bus was late because, really, what was left to see (the prisons, for example) had really long lines already and I'd seen what there was to the street, so I made my way down to the bus stop outside the town wall. If you've seen the photos, you saw how narrow that street was. It was packed with people, all going the opposite way from me. Like swimming upstream. Downhill. I was glad to get out of that, although I regret not buying an expensive mariner shirt. No matter, I'm sure I can get one equally, if not more, expensive in Paris. They're in, this season.

I had a fairly uneventful bus ride back. The bus was five minutes late, and I was feeling good about the plan. I thought of seeing what there was to Rennes while I was there, but there was no tourist information at either the bus or train stations, so I guess there isn't much to see. :) I had a huge lunch in a café across from the train station that offered free wifi and stayed there until it was time to leave for the train.

By the way, the passport thing wasn't an issue. And yes, I did jinx the ride home. The train was delayed en route by an hour due to an electrical fault on the line. Happily, the only connection I needed to make was the metro. But I did get a bit of sunstroke from sitting out for three hours yesterday.

And now I'm wondering whether the 1 1/2 hours I have between my train from Avignon and the train to Venice will be enough of a buffer!