On Sunday the 19th January 2025 we woke up in the apartment in Dinan we have breakfast and I walk back to retrieve the car park. It’s covered in thick ice and takes a while to clear it.
We drive back to the apartment and park outside as it’s free on a Sunday. We load the car aprk we drive off to Mont St Michel, our next stop on our French Road trip.
After about 45 minutes we arrive and drive through Ponterson and down the D776 and pass our next room we had booked here.
We arrive at a free car park on Rue De Asteriac in Beauvoir. From here we walk back up to the D776 and walk on towards Mont St Michel.
The town of Beauvoir is located on the right bank of the Couesnon at the foot of Mont Saint-Michel. The relief is quite marked in the village level with a peak at "The Corcane" with an altitude of 43 meters. The low point, meanwhile, lies in Polder with a height of 7 meters.
In 1973, the town merged with Pontorson, Ardevon, Boucey, Cormeray, Curey, Moidrey and The Pas. Beauvoir regained its independence in 1989.
We pass shops, restaurants and Alligator Bay which was closed for the season. Mont St Michel still looks a fair distance away and the walk is cold.
Reaching the pay to park car park for Mont St Michel, we see the free shuttle bus pull in. So we decide to run for it to save further walking. We needn’t had run as after we boarded we had to wait a while before it left.
Anyway after a while we were on our way with less walking and out of the cold. Mel makes a friend with a French old lady who tells her, that her husband was from Edmonton, London and went on to inviting Mel to a church service.
We arrive at the foot of Mont St Michel and the footbridge over to it.
After waiting for the crowd from the bus to disperse, we posed for a few photos before making our way over.
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| Pont Passerelle du Mont Saint-Michel |
Mont Saint-Michel is tidal island and a UNESCO World Heritage Site located off the coast of Normandy, France. The island is rich in history, dating back to the medieval times. It’s probably most famous today for the abbey that sits on top with its stunning, gothic architecture.
La Grande Rue is a very narrow and steep cobblestone pathway that is the main street in Mont St Michel. This is where most of the restaurants and gift shops are located
We walk down all the medieval streets and stop to browse in the many tourist shops. Walking down the streets truly transports you back in time!
The crowds are manageable, I imagine it’d be shoulder to shoulder in the Summer!
The cobbled streets here look something right out of a Harry Potter Movie. Very quaint and a lovely medieval feel to it.
Shame the Christmas lights left up spoil the view.
We pop in and out of a few shops and get a nice print of Mont St Michel for our wall back home.
The Abbey has a long standing history starting back in 708 when Bishop Aubert erected a first sanctuary on Mont Tombe in honour of the Archangel.
While you don’t have to pay an entrance fee to enter Mont Saint-Michel, you do have to pay a small fee of 11€ to explore the Abbey if you do not live in one of the EU countries. It’s recommended to purchase your tickets in advance online for a specific date. Tickets can be purchased in person during your visit but only if they aren’t sold out.
We bought ours online. We were early for our allotted time but chanced it and they were happy to let us enter early. I suspect this was only so as it was low season.
But first we stop to look at the ramparts and the surrounding area.
Mont-Saint-Michel is a tidal island and mainland commune in Normandy, France.
The island lies approximately one kilometre (one-half nautical mile) off France's north-western coast, at the mouth of the Couesnon River near Avranches and is 7 hectares (17 acres) in area. The mainland part of the commune is 393 hectares (971 acres) in area so that the total surface of the commune is 400 hectares (990 acres). As of 2019, the island had a population of 29.
The commune's position—on an island just a few hundred metres from land—made it accessible at low tide to the many pilgrims to its abbey, and defensible as the incoming tide stranded, drove off, or drowned would-be assailants. The island remained unconquered during the Hundred Years' War. A small garrison fended off a full attack by the English in 1433. Louis XI recognised the benefits of its natural defence and turned it into a prison. The abbey was used regularly as a prison during the Ancien Régime.
We climb the stairs up to the Abbey and are let in early.
Mont-Saint-Michel and its surrounding bay were inscribed on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites in 1979 for its unique aesthetic and importance as a Catholic site. It is visited by more than three million people each year, and is the most-visited tourist attraction in France outside of Paris. Over 60 buildings within the commune are protected as historical monuments.
Now a rocky tidal island, the mount occupied dry land in prehistoric times. As sea levels rose, erosion reshaped the coastal landscape, and several outcrops of granite emerged in the bay, having resisted the wear and tear of the ocean better than the surrounding rocks. These included Lillemer, Mont Dol, Tombelaine (the island just to the north), and Mont Tombe, later called Mont-Saint-Michel.
There are fantastic views back to the causeway and the bridge over.
Mont-Saint-Michel consists of leucogranite which solidified from an underground intrusion of molten magma about 525 million years ago, during the Cambrian period, as one of the younger parts of the Mancellian granitic batholith. Early studies of Mont-Saint-Michel by French geologists sometimes describe the leucogranite of the Mont as "granulite", but this granitic meaning of granulite is now obsolete.
The mount has a circumference of about 960 m (3,150 ft) and its highest point is 92 m (302 ft) above sea level.
The tides vary greatly, at roughly 14 metres (46 ft) between highest and lowest water marks. Popularly nicknamed "St. Michael in peril of the sea" by medieval pilgrims making their way across the flats, the mount can still pose dangers for visitors who avoid the causeway and attempt the hazardous walk across the sands from the neighbouring coast.
Polderisation and occasional flooding have created salt marsh meadows that were found to be ideally suited to grazing sheep. The well-flavoured meat that results from the diet of the sheep in the pré salé (salt meadow) makes agneau de pré-salé ('salt-meadow / salt-marsh lamb'), a local specialty that may be found on the menus of restaurants that depend on income from the many visitors to the mount.
The connection between Mont-Saint-Michel and the mainland has changed over the centuries. Previously connected by a tidal causeway uncovered only at low tide, this was converted into a raised causeway in 1879, preventing the tide from scouring the silt around the mount. The coastal flats have been polderised to create pastureland, decreasing the distance between the shore and the island, and the Couesnon river has been canalised, reducing the dispersion of the flow of water. These factors have all encouraged silting-up of the bay.
In June 2006, French prime minister Dominique de Villepin and regional authorities announced a €200 million project to build a hydraulic dam using the waters of the Couesnon and the tides to help remove the accumulated silt, and to make Mont-Saint-Michel an island again. The construction of the dam began in 2009. The project included the removal of the causeway and its visitor car park. Since April 2012, the new car park on the mainland has been located 2.5 kilometres (1+1⁄2 mi) from the island. Visitors can walk or use shuttles to cross the causeway.
In July 2014, the new bridge, by architect Dietmar Feichtinger, was opened to the public. The light bridge allows waters to flow freely around the island and improves the efficiency of the now-operational dam. The bridge, which cost €209 million, was opened by President François Hollande.
On rare occasions, tidal circumstances produce an extremely high "supertide". The new bridge was completely submerged on 21 March 2015 by the highest sea level, a once-in-18-years occurrence, as crowds gathered to snap photos.
Before the construction of the first monastic establishment in the 8th century, the island was called Mont Tombe. According to a legend, the archangel Michael appeared in 708 to Aubert of Avranches, the bishop of Avranches, and instructed him to build a church on the rocky islet.
Unable to defend his kingdom against the assaults of the Vikings, the king of the Franks agreed to grant the Cotentin Peninsula and the Avranchin, including Mont-Saint-Michel traditionally linked to the city of Avranches, to the Bretons in the Treaty of Compiègne. This marked the beginning of a brief period of Breton possession of the Mont. In fact, these lands and Mont-Saint-Michel were never really included in the duchy of Brittany. Around 989–990 these traditional bishoprics, dependent of the archbishopric of Rouen and that had been left vacant during the time of the Viking raids, regained their bishops.
The mount gained strategic significance again in 933 when William I Longsword annexed the Cotentin Peninsula from the weakened Duchy of Brittany. This made the mount definitively part of Normandy, and is depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry, which commemorates the Norman Conquest. Harold Godwinson is pictured on the tapestry rescuing two Norman knights from the quicksand in the tidal flats during the Breton–Norman war. Norman ducal patronage financed the spectacular Norman architecture of the abbey in subsequent centuries.
In 1067, the monastery of Mont-Saint-Michel gave its support to William the Conqueror in his claim to the English throne. This he rewarded with properties and grounds on the English side of the Channel, including a small island off the southwestern coast of Cornwall which was modelled after Mont-Saint-Michel and became a Norman priory named St Michael's Mount of Penzance.
During the Hundred Years' War, English forces unsuccessfully besieged Mont-Saint-Michel (which was under French control) twice. The first siege started in 1423, and was lifted the next year. In 1433, an English force equipped with wrought-iron bombards and under the command of Thomas Scales, 7th Baron Scales again besieged the island. It was likewise lifted the next year. Scales's men abandoned two bombards they had used during the siege on 17 June 1434; they were recovered by the French and are currently on display.
When Louis XI of France founded the Order of Saint Michael in 1469, he intended that the abbey church of Mont-Saint-Michel become the chapel for the order, but because of its great distance from Paris, his intention could never be realised.
The wealth and influence of the abbey extended to many daughter foundations, including St Michael's Mount in Cornwall. Its popularity and prestige as a centre of pilgrimage waned with the Reformation, and by the time of the French Revolution there were scarcely any monks in residence. The abbey was closed and converted into a prison, initially to hold clerical opponents of the republican regime. High-profile political prisoners followed. By 1836, influential figures—including Victor Hugo—had launched a campaign to restore what was seen as a national architectural treasure. The prison was closed in 1863.
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The cloister offers a timeless experience, between sky and sea. The Merveille is a group of Gothic buildings, built on the north side of the rock, composed of three levels, a magnificent testimony to the know-how of the 13th century builders. The opening of the cloister is the ideal place to take advantage of the inescapable point of view which opens on the bay and the polders. From this astonishing opening, you can also observe the beginnings of the foundations of the third block that was originally intended to complete the building of the Wonder: for example, a chapter house was to be built in the extension of the cloister. |
In 1872, French architect of historic monuments Édouard Corroyer was responsible for assessing the condition of Mont-Saint-Michel. It took him about two years to convince his minister to classify it as a historic monument, and it was officially declared as such in 1874. From then on Corroyer, a member of the Academy of Fine Arts, devoted fifteen years of his life to the restoration of "la Merveille". Under his direction, gigantic works were undertaken, starting with the most urgent. He wrote four works on the building.
During the occupation of France in World War II, German soldiers occupied Mont-Saint-Michel, where they used St. Aubert church as a lookout post. The island was a major attraction for German tourists and soldiers, with around 325,000 German tourists from July 18, 1940, to the end of the occupation of France.
After the Allies' initial D-Day invasion of Normandy that began on June 6, 1944, many exhausted German soldiers retreated to strongholds like Mont-Saint-Michel. On August 1, 1944, a single American soldier – Private Freeman Brougher of Pennsylvania and the 72nd Publicity Service Battalion – reached and liberated Mont-Saint-Michel accompanied by two British reporters, Gault MacGowan of the New York Sun and Paul Holt with the London Daily Express. Jubilant crowds of locals greeted Brougher, Holt and MacGowan, and Brougher signed the Golden Book, the island's record of visiting nobility, at the mayor's invitation. The abbey was also used as a prison for the first time since the French Revolution when male collaborators with the Germans were jailed there.
Mont-Saint-Michel and its bay were added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites in 1979, listed with criteria such as cultural, historical, and architectural significance, as well as human-created and natural beauty.
In June 2023, President Emmanuel Macron visited Mont-Saint-Michel to mark the 1,000-year anniversary of the abbey. He stated that the changes since the hydraulic dam and the new bridge opened have lessened the silting, making it an island again.
In the 11th century, William of Volpiano, the Italian architect who had built Fécamp Abbey in Normandy, was chosen by Richard II, Duke of Normandy, to be the building contractor. He designed the Romanesque church of the abbey, daringly placing the transept crossing at the top of the mount. Many underground crypts and chapels had to be built to compensate for this weight. These formed the basis for the supportive upward structure that can be seen today. Today Mont-Saint-Michel is seen as a building of Romanesque architecture.
Robert de Thorigny, a great supporter of Henry II of England, who was also Duke of Normandy, reinforced the structure of the buildings and built the main façade of the church in the 12th century. In 1204, Guy of Thouars, regent for the Duchess of Brittany, as vassal of the King of France, undertook a siege of the Mount. After setting fire to the village and massacring the population, he beat a retreat under the powerful walls of the abbey. The fire which he lit extended to the buildings, and the roofs fell prey to the flames. Horrified by the cruelty of his Breton ally, Philip Augustus offered Abbot Jordan a grant for the reconstruction of the abbey in the new Gothic architectural style.
Charles VI is credited with adding major fortifications to the abbey-mount, building towers, successive courtyards, and strengthening the ramparts.
This large wheel (la grande roue) is a typical wheel of the Middle Ages; it was installed in 1819 to raise food and supplies for the hundreds of prisoners living there. Six men, walking the wheel in pairs of two, could hoist more than two tons.
We exit via the gift shop and make our way back down.
After our Abbey visit we make our way back down and stop in La Belle and buy a Ham and Cheese baguettes, Nutella Crepes and hot Chocolates. This was very nice too!
We now make our way out and to the bridge and stop for more photos.
We catch the bus back to the car park and walk the short distance back to our car in the free car park stopping at a few shops on the way.
We drive down to our room at La Villa Saint-Martin, 19 Route de la Gr Ave Moidrey 500170 Pontorson booked on Booking.com
It was a nice room with ensuite and it took a while for it to warm up, but once it did it was cosy. Out the back was a lake with ducks, and an enclosure with goats and pigs and an apparently a donkey but we didn’t see him.
We had a nap and awoke later and decide to drive to find some dinner, the nearby restaurants didn’t have anything that took our fancy. So we drove into the town on Pontorson, again nothing. So we ended up in McDonalds nearby before returning to the room for the night. Tomorrow we drive onto Honfleur.
