Mont-Saint-Michel

Mont-Saint-Michel

After our few days in Paris, we abandoned the urban part of our trip and picked up a car to begin our road trip around France. We headed west to Mont-Saint-Michel, which we explored that evening and the next day.

Directions could be tricky

For many days, I scheduled drives that would be three or four hours point-to-point with the intention of exploring along the way, the way we do in the U.S. Scott, however, was a bit apprehensive about driving in a foreign country (more on that in a minute) and didn’t like long days, so we pretty much ended up driving straight through from place to place, usually arriving earlier than check-in time. So, we didn’t see as much on-the-way stuff as I had hoped to.

About the driving: it was much, much better than Wales (we drove on very few hyper narrow roads), but the roundabouts do take a toll. It is constant navigation, so it is much more tiring than U.S. driving. As a result, we did more turnpikes than small country roads. 

Variety

Oh, and after we got home, we got a speeding ticket for going 6 km over the limit (that’s 4 mph!!!). Between the fine and a fee to Budget, that was $100!!!! Oh, well!

Mont-Saint-Michel

One of the most iconic places in France, Normandy’s Mont-Saint-Michel is a tidal island topped with a Catholic abbey. I had always wanted to see it, hoping to get phenomenal photos as it reflected in the water around it.

This is the highest tide we saw

It was spectacular and our tour of the Abbey was marvelous, but it didn't quite accomplish my goals. 

Unfortunately, the weather was NOT cooperative. We had rain and fog and foggy rain and rainy fog with some occasional non-rainy overcast periods. 

The wind and rain put a strain on the buses; Left photo: Scott Stevens

Luckily, our morning climb up to the Abbey was just foggy. 

And, a steep climb it was; Photo: Scott Stevens

Plus, it seemed that the tide was always out, so the island was never surrounded by water. And, the night-time lighting ended at the end of August. We missed it by a week.

This is what I wanted; Photo: Normandy Tourism

Still, it’s a magical place and one of our favorite stops on the trip.

Enjoying the beauty; Photo: Scott Stevens

Just a half mile off the coast at the mouth of the Couesnon River near Avranches, the Mont occupied dry land in prehistoric times. As sea levels rose, erosion reshaped the coastal landscape, revealing several outcrops of granite in the bay: Lillemer, Mont Dol, Tombelaine (the island just to the north) and Mont Tombe, now called Mont-Saint-Michel. 

Tombelaine Island (basically just a rock)

The islands were accessible across sand flats at low tide, but unreachable during high tide.

Tidal flats from Mont-Saint-Michel

By the middle of the 6th Century, Mont Tombe was populated by religious hermits (probably some Celtic monks), who led a contemplative life and took care of the remote site.

According to a legend, the Archangel Michael appeared in 708 to the bishop of Avranches and instructed him to build a church on the rocky islet. 

A bas relief showing Archangel Michael making his request/command

The resulting chapel was dedicated to St. Michael and, two years later, Mont Tombe was renamed Mont-Saint-Michel au péril de la Mer (Mount Saint Michael at the peril of the Sea), giving a nod to the treacherous tides.

Views of the sea and sand

The chapel was too small for the growing congregation and, under the Western Roman Empire, multiple buildings were added. Charlemagne chose St. Michel as a protector of his empire during the 9th Century. Mont-Saint-Michel became a place of prayer and study, even after Charlemagne’s death when the rest of Gaul was fighting invasions.

During the Medieval period, pilgrims walked from Italy, Germany, England and other parts of France to brave the tides to get to the Abbey. Modern pilgrims can follow the similar routes using any of 10 hiking trails.

Tourists or pilgrims?

Vikings captured the Mont in 847 and drove the monks off. In 933, Mont-Saint-Michel became part of Normandy and, a little over 50 years later, areas that had been left vacant during the Viking occupation regained their bishops. The buildings were repaired and the monks returned. But, now, instead of living a life of poverty and solitude, benefactors ensured a much higher standard of living for the monks.

Evidence of lifestyle creep; Left photo: Scott Stevens

When Richard I became Duke of Normandy, he tried – and failed – to use his authority to make the monks return to a more monastic life. So, with the support of Pope John XIII, in 966 he brought in a more somber Benedictine order. Monks could convert or leave. Only one stayed. This is considered the founding year of the Mont-Saint-Michel Abbey. The new order built a double-nave pre-Romanesque church, Notre-Dame-sous-Terre, in 1060.

Stonework

In 1204, in support of France's bid to take over Normandy, the Duke of Brittany attacked Mont-Saint-Michel, set fire to the village and massacred the population. Horrified, French King Philip II provided a grant to build a new Norman-style church, including a refectory and cloister. 

Cloister

It was completed in 1228 (so much has been destroyed and rebuilt over the years, it is difficult to tell how old the things we saw were). 

The large refectory with its lavish tile floors

Charles VI added fortifications to the abbey, built towers and successive courtyards and strengthened the ramparts. Around this time, the Abbey started to be used regularly as a jail, becoming a state prison during Louis XI's reign.

The remoteness made it ideal as a prison

Mont-Saint-Michel's popularity and prestige as a pilgrimage center waned with the Reformation and, by the time of the French Revolution, there were scarcely any monks in residence. The Abbey was closed in 1791 and converted completely into a prison.

In 1794, a telegraph system was installed on top of the dome, making the Mont-Saint-Michel part of the Paris-Brest telegraph line. In 1817, the many structural modifications made by the prison administration led to a partial collapse of the building and a fire in 1834 damaged the Abbey, leading to more restoration.

The spire topped with a St. Michael statue

Influential figures, including author Victor Hugo, launched a campaign to protect what they saw as a national architectural treasure, leading Napoleon III to close the prison in 1863. The Abbey was declared a historical monument in 1874. In 1896, a Neogothic spire, rising 557 feet above sea level, was added. It was topped with a sculpture of St. Michel two years later.

The original Notre-Dame-Sous-Terre was discovered in 1898 during excavation under the floor of the church; it was completely excavated in 1959.

Even the modern(ish) Abbey shows how it is part of the rocky isle

During the occupation of France in World War II, German soldiers took Mont-Saint-Michel, which they used as a lookout. 

Occupation: Federal Archives

The island was a major attraction for Germans, with around 325,000 German tourists and soldiers visiting from 1940 to the end of the occupation. 

After the D-Day invasion of Normandy, many German soldiers retreated to Mont-Saint-Michel. On August 1, 1944, a single American soldier reached and liberated Mont-Saint-Michel accompanied by reporters from the New York Sun and the London Daily Express. 

Crowds of locals greeted them and the “liberator” signed the Golden Book, the island's record of visiting nobility, at the mayor's invitation. 

The Abbey was used as a prison for the first time since the French Revolution when male collaborators with the Germans were jailed there.

Mont-Saint-Michel and its bay were added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites in 1979.

Mont-Saint-Michel; Photo: Scott Stevens

Since 2001, the Benedictine monks have been replaced by monks from the Monastic Fraternities of Jerusalem, originally from Saint-Gervais' Church in Paris.

Mont-Saint-Michel’s circumference is now 3,150 feet and its highest point is 302 feet above sea level. Tides vary greatly, at roughly 46 feet between highest and lowest. The Mont still poses danger for visitors who attempt the walk across the sands from the neighboring coast. On rare occasions, tidal circumstances produce an extremely high "supertide."

Tourists disregarding the peril of the sea

The connection between Mont-Saint-Michel and the mainland has changed over the centuries. A tidal causeway uncovered only at low tide was converted into a raised causeway in 1879. That prevented the tide from scouring the silt around the Mont, which caused salt marshes and pastureland to form and decreased the distance between the shore and the island. 

The pasture is a good bird habitat. We saw Mallards, Cattle Egrets, Gray Herons, Great Cormorants, Eurasian Collared-Doves, a variety of Gulls (Black-headed, Greater and Lesser Black-backed and European Herring), Eurasian Spoonbills, Carrion Crows and lots of House Sparrows. Nothing new for me.

Good for birding

Keeping the water moving

In 2009, construction began on a hydraulic dam to use the waters of the Couesnon and the tides to remove accumulated silt and make Mont-Saint-Michel an island again. The project included the removal of the causeway and visitor car park. 

In 2014, a new bridge that allows water to flow freely around the island and improves the efficiency of dam opened. 

The new bridge was completely submerged in 2015 by a supertide, a once-in-18-years occurrence.

The causeway; Photo: Scott Stevens

One cannot drive on the causeway. Instead, if you are staying in the area across from the island as we were, you park in a large lot and take a bus or walk across to the town. If you are staying outside the area in view of the island, you park in more distant lot and catch the bus there.

You still have to walk part of the way

The remaining salt marsh meadows are ideally suited to grazing Sheep, resulting in well-flavored agneau de pré-salé (salt meadow or salt marsh lamb) that is a local specialty found on the menus of local restaurants.

Grazing Salt Marsh Sheep

The 990-acre community has a population of just 29, contrasted with about 3 million visitors a year. More than 60 buildings on Mont-Saint-Michel are protected as historical monuments.

The town is a Medieval treasure

Our Visit

We stayed two nights at the Hotel Vert, which is just 1.2 mi from the island. 

Our hotel

There are hotels on Mont-Saint-Michel, which might be a cool place to stay.

An on-island hotel

When I was booking our trip, however, everything on-island was already booked. I suspect rooms there go very quickly and much of the lodging on Mont-Saint-Michel are probably dedicated to organized tours.  

Also, quite frankly, like the Eiffel Tower, Mont-Saint-Michel is better to look at from afar that to be inside. 

Where we stayed, there were surprisingly few places to eat (I guess we could have trekked across the causeway to eat on the island if anything is open in the evening), but we just ate twice at the same place. 

More moules

The place we ate had a limited menu, but the food was good, especially the vegetarian quinoa-based dish I settled for when nothing else looked good. Sometimes you get a pleasant surprise. 

We arrived in iffy weather that quickly devolved into fog. We wanted to get some photos of the island the first night, but it started to rain. So, we went to bed early hoping for better skies the next day.

In the morning, it wasn't exactly clear, but it wasn't raining. 

We took the bus over ...

... walked up the steep village streets ...

... looked up to see how much farther we had to go; Photo: Scott Stevens ...

... and then took the even-steeper stairs to the Abbey; Left photo: Scott Stevens ...

... and explored near the top as we waited for the Abbey to open

I booked the first available tour in the morning because we have learned that most people don't get up and going as early as we do. The tactic worked: we had to wait, but we were the second group in. The Abbey wasn't too terribly crowded as we walked around and admired its beauty.

The nave and gothic choir; Middle and right photos: Scott Stevens

Stairs and a simple chapel

Bas Reliefs

Magnificent pillars and arches

Model ship, cloister and bell mechanism

Door and pipe organ

Some windows were leaded, some subtle stained glass

Statues; Left photo: Scott Stevens

Outside details

More outside details

We even took advantage of the light for portraits; Right photo: Scott Stevens

After, we had finished our tour, we headed back down to town, planning to have some on-island lunch.

We were shocked at how crowded it had gotten ...

... both at the Abbey ...

... and lower down in town

Plus, it was raining.

So, we decided to head back and eat on the other side rather than braving the crowds and the damp. I stopped for just a minute to listen to a local choir.

Later, we walked back out ...

It was pretty chilly

... to look for birds ...

A juvenile Black-headed Gull and a Greater Black-backed Gull

... and take more photos ...

We took tons of photos, but they all look essentially the same

That night, we waited out sunset to try to capture the evening lights on the island. But, alas, there wasn't much of a sunset (just a teeny bit of pink) and hardly any lights on the island.

A tiny bit of sunset

After this lengthy trip, I probably won’t return to France, but I would like to see Mont-Saint-Michel on a sunny day or a clear night when the lights are on.

Beautiful!

Trip Dates: September 4-26, 2024