Between Bretagne, Normandie and the sea

Monday, 11 August 2008

Abbaye du Mont-Saint-Michel

European Adventure Travel Day 9
Le Mont-Saint-Michel, France

The train from Rennes to Pontorson was much smaller than the high-speed trains, and as it turns out the station is near the end of the line and has only one track. At the station, I jumped on a big bus with a sign in the window for the abbey (2 euro). The bus careened around the bends in the narrow road out toward the coast, and we passed a windmill that one of the Americans sitting in front of me defined as a "pointy building with a big fan." I think she was joking...

First look at the abbey

The sheer number of people out at the abbey was overwhelming. Never go anywhere in August! Tourists had pretty much taken over a field with their cars, buses and campers. People were walking in the narrow road and didn't even seem to notice when the bus lurched by, mere inches from their bodies. Sometimes, a fellow tourist would pull another one out of the way.

Coastal parking lot

The history of Mont-Saint-Michel is interesting. It began as a shrine to the archangel Michael in 708, and became a site of pilgrimage. As it evolved over the centuries into more than a sanctuary, the abbey was built wrapped around the hill and crowned with the abbey church. The Benedictines settled in the abbey in the 10th century, and after that a village began to grow below its walls, extending all the way to the foot of the rock by the 14th century. It was a stronghold during the Hundred Years War, then a prison from the revolution until 1863. People of the middle ages regarded the abbey as a representation of the heavenly Jerusalem on earth, Paradise.

To get to the abbey, you have to walk up the steep, winding streets, just wide enough for four people to stand abreast. Of course, in August, there are about four lines of people trying to go down and two lines pushing their way up, so progress is very slow. The streets are lined with shops full of postcards and ice cream, and the beer is as cheap as water.

Enochlophobes, beware!

After climbing up to the actual abbey, there was a line to stand in for tickets (8.5 euro). The five Americans from the bus and I noticed each other scrutinizing the time tables for the train, so we started talking. It turned out that we were all headed back to Paris, and we needed to catch the last train out of Pontorson about seven o'clock. By this time, it was late afternoon and we knew we didn't have time to dawdle along with the audio tour, so I sort of joined up with them to see the place.

The abbey is magnificent. It's cool and dim inside, especially in the huge rooms with vaulted Gothic ceilings and massive pillars. There are rose windows set in round the top, so light streams down from above, casting strange shadows on the floor. There was a an international art exhibit going on as well, so we would pass the altars and crucifixes in alcoves and come out by the photographs of China and the Serengeti. I wish I could have seen the abbey without anyone in it. The arrows pointed us our through a little door, and we emerged in a flagstone courtyard, with a wall overlooking the Bretagne coast. People were on the beach below scrawling all sorts of things in the sand and waving at everyone who would look down.

Vive le libre!

Inside one of the galleries are a set of models, depicting the different building stages in the history of the abbey, literally from the ground up. The statue atop the belfry was designed at the end of the 19th century, and was cleaned and restored to its postition -via helicopter- in 1987.

That's St. Michael up at the top

Aware that we were running out of time, we pushed our way down the streets to the bottom of the hill. Half the group made it to the bus stop on time, but let the bus go because the others were late. The next bus came an hour late, so Brent-from-Texas and I left the others and took a walk around the base of the hill. This little chapel is built on an outcropping of rock and is reached by stone steps. The wind kicked up all of a sudden, blowing sand in our eyes. This picture makes me laugh... it looks like the tourists have chucked one of their own over the side and are telling him "Spain will be on your left in a bit!"

Man overboard at the chapel!

Brent-from-Texas was quite nice, and smart. We got back around to the others, but decided worrying about the bus coming on time wouldn't help anything, so we sat and talked. As it turned out, the bus came on time, but that parking lot full of cars was emptying onto the road when we pulled out, so it took an agonizing 36 minutes to get back to the station, during which the two girls kept an eye out for hotel vacancy signs. We pulled up to the station with one minute to spare. We could see the train coming toward us, so we literally bailed off the bus and dashed through the tiny station. The conductor was standing on the other side of the tracks, hollering for us to jump because the train was coming (because it's a one track station, Paris-bound train board on the far side so you have to walk across the tracks).

I wish you could have seen how utterly ridiculous we were... hot, sweaty, desperate tourists madly sprinting through a building and flinging ourselves across the tracks. The station master must have had a good laugh after our train pulled away!

Said goodbye to the other Americans when we changed trains in Rennes, went to the ticket counter and asked, in French, for un billet pour Paris.

Got back to L's flat long after dark, found her a little bit worried by my tardiness, and quickly settled in to exchange my tales of bomb threats and mad dashes for hers of the Tunisian sun. She made me a Tunisian royale (Tunisian fig liqueur and champagne) and my Paris adventure started in earnest.