We took a trip to Mont St. Michel last weekend and it was amazing. I took many pictures but they can never really describe or capture everything.
First, we met at the metro station in the morning. I met my Portugese friend Natasha there and we walked to Champion, the grocery store a few blocks away. We needed to bring our own lunches for a pique nique. Then we all got onto the charter buses. The buses are like American buses, so they're pretty wide. I was sure that they were going to be too wide for the streets of Rennes, but we managed to get there ahead of schedule.
I had seen pictures of the monestary in my lovely travel books, but it was so much bigger and far more beautiful than I expected! When we got out of the buses, and stood there before the building, I felt like I was living in an ant's world! When we walked into the enterence, we were greated by rows of kitchy little gift shops and creperies up and down the streets. It was cramped but cozy. We had to walk up in a spirel, then up some stairs, and more stairs, and more stairs...until I thought I my legs were going to fall off.
The final reward for all of those stairs was the terase at the top. The world seemed to open up and rivers converged at our feet before being lead to the channel. You could see smaller villages for miles before the landscape drifted away into a hazy horizon. This was not quite the tiptop where the golden St. Michael is perched, but that was within clear view. Here I ate my pique nique and talked with students from the States, Canada, China, Portugual, and Sweden, feeling oh so continental.
From there, we got to walk throughout the mazes of rooms and hallways that make up the interior of the monestary. In one of the larger halls, there was a sign saying that the monks ate their meals there, but they had to remain perfectly silent throughout the meal while someone read holy texts to them. This picture was so removed from the chatter and noise of taking pictures that we tourists were making.
Down a few more hallways and up several more flights of stairs, we came to the place that housed the prisoners kept in Mont St. Michel when it became a prison after the Revolution. I almost expected to see skeletons still in irons against the walls inside.
From there, we were able to move freely around the exterior of the monestary once again. There were so many levels of terraces it was difficult to no whether we were headed in the right direction. We ended up lost for a good 30 minutes, but when the view is so good, no one complains! We eventually found some tiny narrow passage that we could squeeze through, and we were back to the gift shops once again. I bought some postcards and we broused the overpriced goods. The weather was beautiful, and the sun was pleasantly warm, it was a shame to have to get back on the buses and go!
Many of my pictures can be found on facebook, or you can ask me for some!
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