Majestic Mont St Michel

Day 11 - 18th October 2006
The girls (or rather my girl) were up to mischief as usual, while we were going about getting ready.

Kara: Terelle look at these lovely yellow flowers! *poke poke*

Terelle: Yeah they're pretty! *crush crush*

Kara: Oh no! All the petals are on the ground!

Terelle: Let's crush more!!

More flowers would have died in vain if not for hubby's timely intervention. More of Terelle's Mafia-like influence on her innocent friend!! *faint*

We figured that it would be a waste if we didnt explore the quaint little town surrounding our logis, so we had a walking breakfast while checking out the rows and rows of shops today.

Croissants again???

Evon found this pair of pretty boots in one of the shop displays and just had to get them, her excuse being that her current pair were worn out and unsightly. I had to help back her up in her quest to wrangle the credit card out of Caleb's hands!

Kara: Daddy, what about me? I want new shoes too!!

Our last stop before heading for Mont St Michel was this monument, set right in the middle of the town square. It glorifies the American army of General Patton for playing a significant part in the liberation of France.

If you look closely, Terelle is still eating a piece of croissant from an hour ago! She takes a loooong time to finish her biscuits and bread, she's just content to hold on to it and take little nibbles from time to time!

The drive out to Mont St Michel was only about 30min and we were awe struck as soon as we had our 1st glimpse of it. There it was, surrounded by absolutely nothing for miles and miles, rising magestically up to the sky. I felt that it had a defiant and almost arrogant presence.

A brief history lesson: In the early eighth century, the Archangel Michael appeared to Bishop Aubert of Avranches, who started an oratory. It later became a Benedictine monastery, an Abbey Church, and when the spiritual foundations of the abbey waned, it was used as a prison.

Mont St. Michel is a small quasi-island, separated by approximately one kilometer of waves from the mainland at high tide. It is about one kilometer in diameter and about 80 meters high.
At low tide, however, it is separated from the mainland by approximately one kilometer of sand. Before a causeway was built in 1879, the only approach to the Mont was by foot over this land bridge.
However, the tides here are among the greatest in France, with a swing of up to 14m between the high and low water marks. Also, the force of those terrible tides shifts the sands about unpredictably, leading to unchartable quicksand fields. Many unsuspecting tourists had drowned while making their way to the Mont before the causeway was built.

Views of the magnificent Mont as we approached

The kids were fast asleep when we arrived, so Evon and I had no choice but to lug them up the Mont. We were tired out even before we started on the 900 steps climb!

This carpark that we are standing on will be submerged when the tides come in

They had a signboard that informed tourists that the tides would rush in at 5pm that day, so we had a good 4hours to explore the place! More than enough time, we thought!

Terelle woke up just as we entered the village, which was a good thing! Now i dont have to carry her up the 900 steps!

All fresh and ready to tackle the climb!!

Since we didnt want to spend money buying the postcards, Caleb had a brilliant (albeit cheapo) idea of taking pictures of the cards....

Oh my god! Do we have to climb that high??

Its ok no problem! We can do it!

In a little cemetery, specially for the inhabitants of the village

Please do not feed the 'hungry ghosts'...

We made our way up slowly and painstakingly, lugging huge bags and even heavier babies...

Can we bring him home too? Along with Pinocchio?

*Pant pant* We need a break!!

*Phew* We need a break too!!

We took a breather in this little shrine for the Arch angel Michael. It was a serene little alcove, with a couple of pews, an altar to the angel and stained glass windows. But what caught my eye was this little verse, set atop rows and rows of small, colorful tealights that you could purchase for 1Euro as an offering.

The verse translates: " I dont know how to pray, I dont know what to say, I dont have alot of time. Therefore, the light that i offer is a bit of the good in me, a bit of my time, a bit of myself"

I just simply love all these little bits of sentimentality, guess im just a romantic fool at heart.

Finally, after much huffing and puffing, we reached the Abbey Church at the top of the Mont. These are the views that greeted us...it was definitely worth the climb!

A quick history lesson from Evon, our very own "historian"! She always had to read to us, cos all of us were too lazy to scan the wordy pages of the guidebook!

Whoa! We're so high up!

Just imagine, if the tide suddenly comes in, all the cars parked beneath will be swept away!

And insteading of oohing and ahhing in this sacred place, this is what the girls do in a world famous monument...Presenting the monkeys of the Abbey church!

Note: These photos are not posed, they got into these positions by themselves! Only they know what they are playing at...we can only guess...

Row row row your boat???

After noticing that Kara was always being slung in Evon's sling, Terelle also wanted to have a go at it. And she absolutely hates it back home! Cos she always gets hot and sweaty in it. I guess its a different story here, the weather is cool and it feels nice to be all snuggled up next to Mummy!

Me and my little koala!

The monks' rooms lead out to this pretty little sculpted garden

Lemme go lemme go! I wanna see what's in the rooms!

Yay! Free at last!

By then diapers were bursting again, and we couldnt expect monks to have had babies in the Abbey, much less diaper changing rooms. So we had to discreetly change the girls on a bench in what used to be the monks' dining hall...It really is hilarious come to think of it now, all the places that we had to change them!

More views of the Mont as we made our descent

*Gasp!* Did he or did he not???

It was almost 5pm so we rushed out to retrieve our mini bus from the carpark before it drowned in the waves. We drove out, hoping to find a small eatery nearby so assauge our hunger and also to watch the waves come in; as the guidebook promised that it would be an unforgettable sight, equivalent to hundreds of wild horses galloping in!

But try as we did, we couldnt find any eateries that were open now. All of them had siestas until 7pm! Arrrrgh another silly French practice! We debated whether to go back to the hotel or return to the Mont, cos we wanted to stay to have dinner and watch the Mont light up at night.

The girls were oblivious to the heated debate, they were content to be playing with each other! This has got to be one of my favourite photos. It's rare that both the girls are looking at the camera at the same time, and even more so that they are holding hands AND smiling!!

In the end, we drove back into the Mont and enquired at the Tourists' Office if we could park on the causeway, since the tides were going to come in soon. They informed us that the tides wouldnt be coming in for a week so it was still safe to park below. So much for rushing madly out of the Mont just now...

We had a traditional French dinner at one of the eateries in the Village, where we finally had cider and escargot. It was rather fun trying to figure out how to work the utensils so that we could get the snails out of their shells!

Even the girls were fascinated!!

The following clip shows how the famous Mere Poulard omelettes were made. They had to beat the eggs to a fanciful rhythm! But if u ask me, the omelette wasnt as fanciful as the way they were made! And expensive too! I can have the same "foo yong" egg at the coffee shop at a fraction of the price!

The view of the Mont at night, which we wanted desperately to see

It wasnt that great after all...

As even Terelle can testify...

Sigh...we should have just headed back to the shops around the hotel for more shopping...