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Climbing to the top of the Mont is like climbing a small mountain except that some of the route is outside and some is inside. It's steep either way. Hundreds of stairs scalloped by centuries of climbers.   As you climb higher your breath becomes more and more ragged. In spite of the conditioning from all those days of pedaling you need to stop for breath every so often. When these stairs were built suffering was regarded as a good thing. Luckily the the views are so stupendous they furnish an excellent excuse for repeated (gasp) pauses.
Beer was very often made (and served) in monasteries, Maybe it helped the monks accept the cuisine: gruel most days, once a week meat and bread on a hollowed out slab of wood. Visitors to this chamber are not silent as the original monks were but they do tend to keep their voices down. Conversations are muted and seem to be absorbed by the stone. For decades the monks lifted the building materials for the Abbey from the sands far below.
The honor of the highest point on the Mont is given to Saint Michael after whom it is named. A few years ago the statue was taken away to Paris and refurbished, given a bright new coat of gold. Then suspended beneath a helicopter, Saint Michael was then flown back to the Mont Saint Michel. So many requests for a flyover came from towns and villages along the route in rural France that a projected ninety minute flight took most of the day.
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By treading the inside of this gigantic wheel like determined gerbils they wound four hempen cables, thicker than your arm on a great drum. One by one the huge granite blocks were pulled foot by foot up a steeply inclined ramp. At the top they were unloaded and taken to their places in the ramparts. Later novitiates raised their daily supplies the same way. Talk about a wheel with a lot of mileage! These were some of the very first groined arches ever built anywhere. By daylight it's possible to see that the stonemasons were still learning their craft. Here and there some of the arches do not actually meet.
Unfortnuately the Mont is not that easy or pleasant to visit during the daylight hours. Outside of Paris itself it is the greatest tourist destination in France and quite possibly in all of Europe. During the day the spiral streets are jammed elbow to elbow. Tourists are fighting their way between crowded restaurants, souvenir shops and free-standing postcard racks in the street. The secret of Mont Saint Michel is that there are very few hotels and at the end of the day the throngs leave. Then a different sort of Mont appears. Streets are calm. People sit quietly in the restaurants and enjoy the view of evenings advance over the tidal sands. When it's fully dark, which may not be until almost midnight, it's time to enter the Abbey to experience Les Imaginaires". In this adventure you drift from chamber to chamber as you walk on carpets of light that seem to swirl over your feet like mist. Music from classical to new wave gently carries you from chamber to chamber. The experience is dreamlike. No photographs are allowed at this time but they would be difficult or impossible to take. They could not possibly convey the altered sense of reality that is all around you.
After having climbed seemingly forever you come to a chamber filled with huge pillars. The room has a sort of underground feeling. Since you know you must finally be near the top, you wonder what these pillars could be supporting. They support the church which sits atop the Mont, still far above you.
The best way to describe the church is awe inspiring. It is one of my favorite places on earth. It commands the coastline of Brittany for miles. From the terrace in front of the church you can see from Cancale all around the bay to the west and up most of the Cotentin Peninsula to the east.