Along with Mike and Corri Palmer (Mike is Hal's cousin) we had an eight hour drive across France to le Mont St. Michel, an island on the west coast of France.
With the fields in the foreground, it doesn't look like an island here, but it is as will be shown later. Because it is an island it often appears misty and surreal. It is a magical place. I don't know if it's the small island atmosphere, the impressive Abbey, the closeness of the buildings, or a combination of all along with being centuries old, but there is something special about this location. We've been asked what was the favorite place we visited, and we generally have said it is really hard to pick one as we some some incredible places on our trip. If we had to narrow it down to just one, this would be it. Because it is off the normal tourist routes it is not as heavily visited as many tourist sites, but it is definitely worth the effort to get here.
You can't drive your car onto the island. It used to be that if you were staying the night you could park on the causeway, but they are getting ready to replace the causeway with a bridge, so now you park a couple of miles away and take a shuttle bus. Corri and Mike are just ahead of me.
Here you can see the causeway on the right and on the left you can see the tide coming in to surround the island. This is about as far as the tide came, but when Mike and Corri were here two years earlier the tide was higher and completely filled the area around the island.
When we arrived in the late afternoon there were still a lot of tourists on the island and the narrow streets were pretty packed.
This is later when most of the tourists had left and we kind of felt like we had the island to ourselves. The sign for La Vielle Auberge is for our hotel.
We actually stayed in the annex across the street and up a bunch of stairs from the hotel entrance. Here we're standing at the door to the annex. 
Mike caught a picture of both Corri and Diane taking pictures - they were our main two photographers.
The island is not ADA accessible - you've got to climb lots of stairs. We didn't get there until around 5 pm, but Corri's pedometer said that we climbed 86 flights of stairs that day! Some flights of stairs were very long like this one. This is just part of the climb to the Abbey on the top of the island.
Outside the chapel at the very top.
Inside the chapel.
We began our self-guided tour at the top and worked our way down through a maize of rooms in the Abbey. Here's a garden area part way down. Because space is a premium on the island you don't find very many garden spots like this one. Below is an up close view of the pillars surrounding this garden.
Under the chapel there are four rooms with massive columns like this one. They hold up the 500 million tons of weight from the chapel.
We didn't start out as the last ones on the self-guided tour, but we soon became the final visitors for the day. A man was following us locking up each area as we finished, assuring us that we could take all the time we needed. When we got to this room with the pillars he started to talk to Mike and Hal and told us we were there at the perfect time, no rowdy students, no noisy tourists, but in a quiet atmosphere as an Abbey should be - I think he liked it quiet and that we were respectful and quiet. We found out that he was an English tour guide. He soon became our personal guide. He pointed out that the Gothic beams on the left that came together were not put on top of the rock in the columns, but rather were carved as part of the rock itself, and each fit perfectly. The rock was carved 35 kilometers away and transported by boat to the island.
This large wheel on the right was used as a primitive elevator to get materials up into the upper reaches of the Abbey. Humans acted as the power to move the wheel by walking side by side on the inside.
The wheel is just inside the hole in the wall in the top right. Below it is a track made of rock with slats on the outside on which a big wooden sled would run. Human power would turn the wheel to raise or lower the sled which would be loaded. This is no longer used. To the left and a little higher up is another large opening. There are metal cables (you can't see them in this picture) and an electrical winch is used to raise and lower a cart which holds the load.
The picture is rather dark, but this is the first chapel in the Abbey and it is several levels down from the top. It is not open to the public, but our new friend, the English speaking French guide showed it to us.
Before anything was built on the island, it was a massive rock extending upward. Everything was built around the rock and upward. In the center bottom you can see the original rock and then at the top the rock and masonry as the Abbey was built on top.
Corri, Mike and Diane with our friendly French guide. Diane is holding the keys he was using to lock the rooms behind us. He made our tour of the Abbey very special and personal, which just added to the magical feel of Mont St. Michel. We viewed this "coincidence" as one of many tender mercies we had throughout our tour of Europe.
Some shots of various buildings on the island. The roofs of these buildings are made with a slate shingle.
There's not a lot of room for gardens, except on the outside of the buildings.
A small cemetery on the island.
The rising height of the buildings adds to the mystique and magical feel. |
| Our hotel room windows are the middle left building. |
To the left Diane is standing in a narrow alley that climbs up the hillside. We went exploring and were followed by a group of Asian tourists that thought we had found some hidden sight to see.
At twilight the large lights on the side of the Abbey started to come on a section at a time. It was time to head back out to the causeway to try and get some night time shots.
Mike, Corri, Diane and Hal in front of le Mont St. Michel at night.
A last view at twilight.
The four of us had a great late afternoon and evening on the island. Mike and Corri had been here two years earlier, and enjoyed it as much the second time. I had wanted to come here since reading Corri's blog about their first visit, and Diane and I were not disappointed. It really is a magical island.
Tomorrow we head for Saint Mere Eglise and Normandy.
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