Mont Saint-Michel
After our fantastic lunch in Chateau Richeau, we headed to Mont Saint-Michel. We had a little bit of an adventure getting to it. The GPS wanted to take us the scenic route though some lettuce fields. Don't fight the GPS. Eventually we got there.
Mont-Saint-Michel was used in the 6th and 7th centuries as an Armorican stronghold of Romano-Breton culture and power, until it was ransacked by the Franks, thus ending the trans-channel culture that had stood since the departure of the Romans in AD 460. Wikipedia for more...
To look at this ancient site, The Mont-Saint-Michel and its bay are part of the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites is amazing, however the commercialism getting to the cathedral is like running a gauntlet of Mont-Saint-Michel tee shirt and coffee cup vendors, and stores selling wooden swords to the kids, is pretty disturbing. It reminded us of Carcassone in Southern France. the largest intact fortress in Europe is magnificent but ruined by the commercializm.
It didn't help that it was raining pretty hard and we had to fight our way through the gauntlet with scads of Japanese tourists. It's a good mile and a half hike to the buses that take you over the causeway, to the base of the Mount, then you have to climb up what amounts to be a 12 story building over slippery cobblestones to reach the actual abbey. Now your wet and sweaty. Lot's of wet dog smell. If I had to do it over again, I'd probably skip it. The abbey it'self was pretty austere but the central garden area was pretty nice. The place was overrun with tourists, me included.
Mont-Saint-Michel was used in the 6th and 7th centuries as an Armorican stronghold of Romano-Breton culture and power, until it was ransacked by the Franks, thus ending the trans-channel culture that had stood since the departure of the Romans in AD 460. Wikipedia for more...
To look at this ancient site, The Mont-Saint-Michel and its bay are part of the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites is amazing, however the commercialism getting to the cathedral is like running a gauntlet of Mont-Saint-Michel tee shirt and coffee cup vendors, and stores selling wooden swords to the kids, is pretty disturbing. It reminded us of Carcassone in Southern France. the largest intact fortress in Europe is magnificent but ruined by the commercializm.
It didn't help that it was raining pretty hard and we had to fight our way through the gauntlet with scads of Japanese tourists. It's a good mile and a half hike to the buses that take you over the causeway, to the base of the Mount, then you have to climb up what amounts to be a 12 story building over slippery cobblestones to reach the actual abbey. Now your wet and sweaty. Lot's of wet dog smell. If I had to do it over again, I'd probably skip it. The abbey it'self was pretty austere but the central garden area was pretty nice. The place was overrun with tourists, me included.
This is what I mean about the weather here, raining hard for 1 1/2 hrs, then the sun comes out for 20 minutes, then back to overcast...
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