Blogs from Mont Saint-Michel, Lower Normandy, France, Europe

Our Grand Tour continued from Germany into France with a very early morning train. Things were going quite well until our first of three trains was delayed by about 40 minutes, causing us to miss our connecting train to Paris. A word of warning to anyone traveling by the Deutsche Bahn: delays and late trains have become more and more frequent over the last few months. Allow for disruptions to your journey! Thankfully, we were able to be rebooked onto the next train - though there were no seats - and made our connecting train in Paris which took us out to Caen in Normandy. The next morning, Dad and I went to pick up our rental car and begin our first day trip to the Abbey on Mont Saint-Michel. This island fortress is a UNESCO ... read more

Sunday morning and we’re up early. We were given our marching orders last night, Jelly toast for breakfast and on the road to Mont St Michelle. Our first stop is in Rennes. Hmmm, can’t say much about this city so I won’t. Very industrial, how’s that?. The next stop is Concale, I suggested St Malo, Kirsten and I were there years ago on our first Transatlantic cruise. However, Kirsten wanted a different village and found out it was market day today. Well, it turned out it was like Daytona Beach during bike week. Yep, butt to butt. Motorcycles everywhere I was felt up and down and didn’t even get kissed. More leather and skin than I ever want to see. After not being able to even get a table for a beer, we’re back in the ... read more

I was reluctant to have kids: they are for life! I mean, the responsibility of looking after someone for the rest of my life was a bit overwhelming, as even when they leave home to start their own lives you still worry about them. However, as I grew older this changed and we decided, after all, to have kids BUT we were sure this will not change our lifestyle and we will continue traveling and doing the things we like. Has this happened?, well, not quite. Let me explain myself: When Dax and I met we were both very outgoing and liked being with people and doing things: we met friends in the pub or for a Sunday roast, we traveled by van to different parts of the UK, we got married in the Cook Islands ... read more

These were two places I had on my list-to-visit before leaving France. In a previous post I wrote about my time staying with a woman named Anik Heraux in a town called Rochefort. I contacted Anik through an organization called “HelpX” and that’s how I ended up staying with her for 5 weeks, helping around doing odd jobs in exchange for accommodation and food. But Anik belonged to several other such types of organizations, like couchsurfing, etc. This included one called “Route des Sel” (a sort of “French Couchsurfing”). Through this last one she put me in touch with a woman named Dominique Catalifaud, who turned out to be the president of the organization. She lived between St. Malo and Mont St. Michel, so the location was perfect to do day trips to both places from ... read more

We solved partly the hard bed last night by putting the two deck chair pads under the bottom sheet to provide some softness and also to stop the ‘roll together’ in what was just a standard size double bed.It worked pretty well and our sleep was better than the night before. Today we had planned to take a scenic road along the coast towards Mont-St-Michel(hereafter called MSM) which is essentially an island a kilometre off the coast but connected to the mainland by a causeway which in 1879 was upgraded so that access could be achieved no matter the level of the tide. We arrived on the coast at the very French named town of Meloir-des-Ondes and started the 37km run along the coast. Part way along we took a stop at a small tourist shop ... read more