Mont St Michel

Today we visited Mont St Michel on the Normandy coast. It was a bit of a detour but we tied it in with a trip to visit the Bayeax tapestry about 1 hours drive north, so it was well worth the extra driving. We were extremely lucky with the weather as it had absolutely poured all night and everywhere you could see evidence of it having rained a lot

Although the sky was incredibly stormy the rain held off and we managed to explore the narrow streets and wandered around the ramparts of the town as we made our way up to the abbey.
Mont St Michel is such an atmospheric place and you can see the massive abbey dominating the landscape from quite a distance. The town is really just the abbey (and lots of tourist shops) perched up high on a huge rocky outcrop. Anika really enjoyed her visit to Mont St Michel from the drawbridge and portcullis, the old wooden gates with the little grille you could open to see whether it was friend or foe at the gate, wandering along the ramparts, and winding up through the little alleyways to looking out over the town walls to the wild coast around the island. It was everything she'd ever read about in all her books.

We went through a tour of the abbey and it was great as there was so much of the place that we could wander through. You could look up at the fancy gargoyles way up high on the spires of the abbey, see the huge statue at the top of archangel Michael, wander through crypt after crypt, and the cloister section of the abbey was absolutely beautiful - double arched ornate columns around a quadrangle of grass and fantastic views out to sea and the wild water. There was also a huge wooden wheel that they used to hoist provisions up to the prisoners, lots of stained glass and in the main chapel section there was even a religious service underway. It all reminded me a bit of "The Name of the Rose". Anika also had a great time peering through keyholes and trying to open up doors in the hope of discovering hidden passages or secret staircases. The imagination could run wild in a place like this, and in stormy wild weather with the quicksand areas around the island and the fast tides you could easily imagine a great dramatic/heroic rescue scene featuring in a movie or book.
The tides were turning as we walked around the Mont and the ripples and small waves created long geometric patterns over the mudflats and estuaries. There were quite a few God moments with bursts of sunshine lighting up sections of the cathedral against a blue black sky.

The rain finally came down again but by this time we were safely back in our camper, noses to the windows watching wet sheep escaping wet paddocks and searching for grass snacks in the car park. The mists and rains continued and we headed north to picturesque Honfleur, a seaside harbour near Le Havre.