Mont St Michel

We left Bayeux and made a bee-line to Mont St Michel, figuring that we would want to spend a lot of time there. The approach to Mont St Michel is amazing. Other than all the road signs that tell you how to get there, the first indication is a hazy bit of steeple peeking over small hillocks covered in farms. You then take a turn and there it is, across a large marshy bay, an unbelievable, monumental construction.

From a distance you expect to see dragons flying around the abbey, wizards with long grey beards evoking lightning from the heavens, good kings and queens, knights in shining armor, long lines of pilgrims and supplicants. It gets more amazing at every turn as it emerges from the Normandy haze. Kate turns and says: "It's like Disneyland, but it's real!"

Then we get to the parking lot at the base of the causeway and again, somewhat glumly, think: "It's like Disneyland!" We park in section C. (Note: parking is much cheaper than at Disneyland, at a reasonable 5 euros)

We start walking along the causeway. Mont St Michel is even more magnificent up close. We stop to take pictures. We look out over the bay at the people trekking through the marshes and sands. We don't pay too much heed to the parking lot of tourbuses at the foot of the mountain. We enter within the walls and are immediately thrust into a crush of humanity.

We grab a sandwich and start up the mountain. The amount of memorabilia that people buy is amazing. The amount of time that people spend staring into the stores at the memorabilia from the path is also amazing: "this pewter warrior? or maybe that one?" They block the 6 foot narrow pathway that winds up the mountain in between the shops and the restaurants. It is hot in the sun; there is no breeze on the small walkway; there are many people; we start getting frustrated. Note the now common refrain: "It's like Disneyland!"

We finally reach the top and the entrance to the abbey. There is a small line at the top, but no matter: we take a few minutes to catch our breath, happy to be in the shade with a breeze and not too many people. We climb the stairs into the abbey, note the not unreasonable ticket price, turn the corner to pay it, only to find that the line to the ticket counter stretches in front of us for roughly 50 meters. It isn't moving. All togethor now, "It's like Disneyland!"

We figure we'll see plenty of abbeys, we turn around, and take a nice stroll on the ramparts instead. The views of the bay and the abbey are stunning. We make our way down, and back to the car. We figure that we had just spent the cheapest and shortest trip to Mont St Michel in history. We should call Guinness: 1 hour and 15 euros for parking and two sandwiches.

If we were to go again, we would (1) go early in the morning; (2) just after entering the walls, near the post office, there is a set of stairs that go up quickly to the right, we would take these stairs, and then walk up along the ramparts instead of going up the walkway of schlock buying schlubs; (3) go during low low low season.

One of the best parts of Mont St Michel (and you don't have to actually cross the causeway or pay for parking for this) is that on the way onwards to St Cast le Guido you get to go through the town of Ploubalay! That's right, a place where people live, work, pray, eat, drink, make love, watch soccer, brush their hair, etc, called Ploubalay! And then, you can say Ploubalay for the next two days! Try it, I assure you that the constant outcries of Ploubalay make your wife happy! I would recommend a trip to Ploubalay, or at least to a roadsign that points to Ploubalay, or to a map with Ploubalay written on it to anyone with a mouth to say it out loud, ears to hear it being said, and a mind to understand the amazing humour of it all. Here's a picture of the church in the center of Ploubalay, taken by my lovely wife as we drove through town.