Mont St Michel

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The holiday begins

We set off at 7am to catch the ferry from Dover to Boulogne. We now travel with Speedferries. It takes 50 mins to cross and is really cheap. A great service. If you buy the Supervouchers you can travel at any time and it costs £62 return well worth it.

We arrived in Boulogne at about 1pm French time stopped for bread and were then on our way. The roads in France are superb forget M25 snarl ups they don’t seem to exist here. Apart from our regular picnic breaks at the Aires which are about every 15 miles on all motorways we did not stop until we reached Mont St Michel.

Mont St Michel is a world heritage site and somewhere we have always wanted to visit. Believe us it was worth the wait. You will get some idea from the photos we have posted here but really you need to experience it to fully appreciate the phenomena that it is. Unfortunately it was a bit misty when we arrived so you cannot quite get the full visual impact from the photo as we crossed the causeway. When the tide is in the Mont is completely surrounded by water.

We booked into a hotel on the Mount it was a nice little place called Le Mouton Blanc and we recommend it if you are thinking of going there. Do not stay at the cheaper hotels that are not on the Mount as you need to be up there to fully enjoy the visit. Our hotel looked down onto a narrow medieval street - see picture. The room was comfortable and very clean. We ate at the hotel and the food was ok - best to choose from the set menus in france and then you can decide what you want to spend and there is always a good selection.

We spent the evening exploring and walking around the ramparts - you will see from some of the photos how impressive the views are. I am particularly proud of the ones which show the shadow of the Abbey on the sands in the evening sun.

Monsieurs friend Madame Alex had told us how crowded it gets there but there were very few people around in the evening, however, the next morning was another story. Coach after coach arrived in the car park and spilled its contents out to climb up the Mount to the abbey. We were so glad we stayed there the night before as if we had only seen the Mont in these crowds we do not think we would have enjoyed it so much. We set of to climb up to the abbey early and missed the worst of the rush of tourists. I will say no more except to tell you to look at the photos. I have posted some here and you can look at the rest on the web - link at end of blog.

For those of you who are interested here is a short history lesson.

Mont Saint Michel is thought to date back to 708 when Aubert, Bishop of Avranches had a sanctuary built on Mont Tombe. The Mount soon because a major focus of pilgrimage and even to this day pilgrims can be seen walking across the sands and tides to the Mount (see picture). In the 10th century the Benedictines settled in the abbey, while a village grew up below its walls. By the 14th century it extended as far as the foot of the rock. An impregnable stronghold during the Hundred Years War, Mont Saint Michel is also an example of military architecture. It ramparts and fortifications resisted all the English assaults and as a result the Mount became a symbol of national identity.

Following the dissolution of the religious community during the Revolution and until 1863 the abbey was used as a prison (absolutely no chance of escape from here!).

Classified as a historic monument in 1874 it underwent major restoration work. Since then, work has gone on regularly all over the site. The result is that visitors can now experience the splendour of the abbey that the people of the Middle Ages regarded as a representation of the heavenly Jerusalem on earth, an image of paradise.

The reason St Michel is worshipped is that he is seen as head of the heavenly militia, which was of great importance to the Medieval religious sensibility. In the New Testament, St Michael appears in the Book of Revlation where he fights and defeats a dragon, which is the symbol of the devil. To medieval man living in expectation and dread of the hereafter, St Michael was the one who led away the dead and put their souls in the balance on the day of the last judgement. Very widespread in the East from the 4th century, the worship of St Michael only appeared in the west in the late 5th century with the building of the first sanctuary at Monte Gargano (Italy) in 492. Around the year 1000, churches and chapels dedicated to the saint proliferated all over Europe, often on the top of hills or promontories. After the Hundred Years War, devotion to Saint Michael took on a special dimension because of the resistance of the Mount against the English. Finally, this worship expanded rapidly with the Counter-Reformation, for in the eyes of the Church it was only the warlike angel who could fight against the Protestant heresy. In Christian iconography, Saint Michael is often depicted holding a sword and a set of scales. Popular traditions and cults have made St Michael the patron saint of knights and of all guilds associated with arms and scales. The statue that stands on top of the belfry has the traditional attributes of the archangel. It was made in 1897 by the sculptor Emmanueld Fremiet and commissioned by the architect Victor Petitgrand who wanted to see the new 32 metre steeple suitable crowned. The statute was restored in 1987 and put back in place by helicopter! (see picture from exhibition).

Mont Saint Michel has been listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO since 1979.

We hope you enjoyed reading this blog and now have this site on your list of places to visit. It was far more than anything we imagined or hoped for - it is beautifully restored and walking through gives you a feeling not only of the past but also the stories associated with this marvellous shrine.

Monsieur et Madame will blog to you all again soon…xx

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Comments

[Madam Alex]

so impressed!
This blog idea is fantastic! I've never seen one before. It's like a sort of travelogue - have you got a laptop with you? You seem to be having a great time, and the photos are brilliant. Tell me more. Lots of love to vous from moi