Mont St. Michele, France (Normandy region).

3 levels, top the abby, middle village,  lower the fortress

I always wanted to visit this sightseeing masterpiece of architecture. The effort to get to Mont St. Michele (Mont Saint-Michel) started rocky but fortunately it resulted in a smooth trip. I have always wanted to see this abby on an island in the bay that has the highest tide changes in Europe. Unbelievable stuff and very dramatic setting. At first I was going by train but it is a little train station in Bayeux. So I went at night to buy a ticket and it was closed. I tried to read the schedule on the door and thought I needed to be there the next day at 7 am but also thought there were other options. Then I go in the morning at 7:50 am to buy a ticket and it is 20 minutes too late for the only reasonable train. The other train options were not viable.Walking home and not wanting to give up, since this is the ONLY day I could go,  I was looiking through my Bayeux guide and find a mini-shuttle that leaves at 8:30 am. I call and they have room for me and walk directly to the shuttle.

It was worth t extra euros for the shuttle. The shuttle driver took us up the back stairs and treated us as a tour and then bought our tickets without waiting in this HUGE line. She got us audio-guides and the most expedient route to take on the tour. On the way to and back to the Bayeux she provided some commentary. It was a good deal.



When we left Mont St. Michel there was a 11 km line of traffic to get to Mont St.Michel. It was just enough for the audio-guides, as there were massive amounts of people in this very small place. There is really only one lane to go and everybody is zombying along the walkway. At least you can't get lost. See the picture of the walkway with 3 levels of tourists.

The driver said there were 10,000 people at Mt. St. Michel yesterday who bought tickets for the abby while not all visitors go to the abby. Take a look at wikipedia for the place. There is a grand total of 32 residents and it is small, but a dramatic locale.

This area has the largest differences in tides in Europe and the ocean at low tide is 13 km away. See the landmass in the distance with the photo on the left. in the photo on the left, all the area that you see and more will be ocean when the high tide happens.

So visitors take walks with a guide along the low tide areas. The guide is important to the know the tide schedule and quicksand is prevalent. At the top of the abby at Mt. St. Michele there were emergency lookouts who were looking for people stuck in the quicksand. The sand is like cement and very clingy.

I always wanted to go here and luckily it all fell into place. Although 3 hours visit was more than enough because of the volume of tourists.