France: Unique Mont Saint-Michel

 

You get to see just about everything in Mont Saint-Michel from the causeway that you
cross to reach it.  You end up at the start of the cobblestone Grande Rue and on your left
almost immediately is Mere Poulard, the restaurant and hotel. The street, lined with more restaurants
 and shops, wends its way to the abbey entrance. The figure of the archangel Michael atop the
spire is about twice as high above sea level as the top of the rock that forms Mont Saint-Michel. 

 Mont Saint-Michel has been dealing with visitors for more than a thousand years: religious pilgrims, would-be invaders, French prisoners,  and modern tourists. 

It started out as a topographical anomaly, a huge rock almost but not quite out in the ocean. When the tide was out, the rock could be reached by foot or horseback from the mainland, a kilometer away. When the tide comes in, the sea can rise almost 13 meters (about 42 feet), making it an island, which was called Mont Tombe until the 8th century and was populated by religious hermits. In 708, the bishop of Avranches had a repeated vision of the archangel Michael telling him to build a church on  the rock.   

Mont Saint-Michel figures in the story of William the Conquerer as told in the Bayeux Tapistry when the would-be usurper Harold Godwinson rescues two Norman knights from quicksand in the tidal flats. Visitors today are still warned about the danger of quicksand in the flats and about the risk posed when the tide comes in quickly. The abbey's natural defenses made it a French stronghold during the Hundred Years' War with Britain 

Mont Saint-Michel remained an abby, dedicated to Saint Michael and built and funded by th Duchy of Normandy, until the French Revolution. In 1791 it was turned it into a prison, which it remained until 1863. It was shortly declared a national monument and has never again been used as an abbey. During World War II it was occupied by German soldiers as a lookout point and, oddly, a wartime destination for German tourists. After the Allies liberated the island, the old prison cells were used to house people who collaborated with the Germans. 

Depending on the tour one takes, you can see almost every part of the abbey, from the old prison cells (tiny, dark and scary after the guide closes the door on you) to the crypts, nave, cloisters, scriptorium and refectory. My advice is to take the most extensive tour you can. Our guide kept pulling out keys to take us through doors that were not open to other visitors. 

 Our visit began on Friday, May 16, 2025, when we parked our rental car as instructed in a lot on the mainland and took the free shuttle most of the way to the Mont. It dropped us off maybe a 100 meters from the island. We immediately found our destination, an historic restaurant called  Mere Poulard, which also has a few hotel rooms and where we would be staying one night. It was one of the worst hotel experiences in my life. Our room was up five steep flights of stairs and contained a standard double bed with the worst, most worn-out mattress I have ever tried to sleep on. The restaurant, however, was good, serving the pre-sale (salt-meadow) lamb that Mont Saint-Michel is famous for. Our breakfast the next morning was fine, too. Mere Poulard is famous for its omelets (they supposedly were invented here centuries ago) but we saw them only on other diners' plates.

In the early 1990s I visited Mont Saint-Michel as a daytrip from Caen, a nearby town in Normandy. I had two small children at the time and didn't attempt to tour the abbey. This time I wanted to see the abbey, so we stayed over. In retrospect, other than the abbey, there's not much to see here and a daytrip would have worked. We ran into someone we knew from San Diego and he and his wife came for the day from one of the mainland towns.  The abbey is worth the effort. There are few other structures like it in the world that have survived centuries intact. Part of this amazing feat of engineering is called La Merveille, which means The Wonder. And it is. 

Here are some snapshots:

Visitors at far left enter the gate at the beginning of the Grande Rue, the island's only street.
I think the building to the right of the red and yellow flag is Mere Poulard. 

You can see buses at the shuttle stop on the left end of the
causeway. It's a pretty quick walk to the island from there.

After going steadily uphill on the Grande Rue,
you come to these steps that will take you to
the abbey entrance. More steps are inside.

Entrance to the abbey.

The nave or sanctuary of the abbey.

The cloister is at the top of a building known
as Le Merveille, built in the early 1200s.

This is called the Crypt of the Great Pillars. It's actually part of the middle level of the three-level
abbey. The pillars were built in the mid-1400s to support construction of a new choir in the
church above after the original one collapsed in 1421. 

The ruins of a chapel from the abbey's
earliest days.

Alpha and Omega (the first and final letters of the Greek alphabet)
were a metaphore for divinity: first and last, or everything.

The archangel Michael, who supposedly ordered
the creation of the abbey, sits atop its highest
spire. The figure was added in 1897 and was
regilded in 2016.

Other carvings at the abbey show the
effect centuries can have on stone.

People on the lower walkway are departing the abbey.

Abbey visitors have views over the tidal 
flats to the mainland, a kilometer away.

Mont Saint-Michel as seen from the mainland several
miles away. In the foreground are recently  plowed fields.

One advantage of staying overnight at Mont Saint-Michel is the possibility of a splendid sunset.