A Trip to Mont St Michel

On Saturday, April 15, we decided to take the train to Rennes, and from there visit the famous 10th century abbey, Mont St. Michel. I am sure that most of you have seen pictures of it – it sits on a little jetty, and the tide rises and falls alongside it. In the olden days, the tide would cover the road to the mainland, but now there is a regular dike built to the rock, and that no longer happens.

Mont St. Michel

It was a cold and rainy day in Paris, and we had hoped that it would be less so on the coast. That, alas, would not be the case. We had looked up ways to visit the abbey, and found out that there is a train from Rennes to Ponterson, and then you could get the bus to Mont St Michel. So we decided to go to the train station and get it all figured out.

We discovered at the train station that the train leaving for Ponterson departed at 4:00 PM (well, 16:03) and we would have to spend the night. That was not in the cards, so we looked for an alternate route. We were told (This is by the Information person at the Gare de Montparnasse in Paris) that there is a bus from Rennes to Mont St Michel, and we could take that. We were given a brochure, and headed out to the train.

France has a wonderful network of trains, and Doreen had purchased a couple of Eurail passes in the US – two for each of us. These passes allowed for six days of travel in any two-month period. We had to get these validated (which we did at the station) and then you are supposed to write the date of each trip on the ticket that you give to the conductor. Well, we are STILL not quite exactly sure if WE are supposed to write the date, or THEY are. So, with a validated pass in hand, we head to the train.

The train from Paris to Rennes is a TGV (Tres Grand Vitesse, Translated by one of my books as "Really Big Speed") and they are amazing things. They travel in great comfort, in great speed, and very quietly throughout the country. They look like the front end of race cars or airplanes, and with their red tail lights have a faintly sinister appearance.

TGV trains at the station

The train station showed which track the train to Rennes was departing from, and we headed in that direction. Train travel seems so much easier than air travel – with one exception. You cannot check your bags. While this is not a problem on this trip, I am dreading our trip to Venice where we will be carrying all our bags. The NICE thing is that you pass no security, you just find your train an jump on in. You find your own seats (but many of the crowded international lines now have revervations) and you stash your own bags.

We had first class tickets, so we found the car with the big "1" in red letters on it and stepped in. It is a comfortable way to travel, and we enjoyed the scenery. Though wet, it was still beautiful. There are fields and fields of a yellow flower that we passed. I am not sure what it is, and I theorized that it is mustard. It reminds me of the mustard fields that I remember from Wisconsin as a child. Anyone who knows what this is, let me know.

The conductor came by our seats and asked for our tickets. We handed him our Eurail pass, duly validated. He looked at us and asked for our reservations. This took us both by surprise. We asked what he meant, and he kept on asking for reservations. We just kept handing him back the ticket, and he finally gave up and walked on. I think that the ticket was just as confusing to him as it was to us, and he didn’t want to make a big deal of it.

As we pulled into Rennes we realized that this was a bigger city that we had thought. It has about 250,000 people, but I had hoped that we would be able to find our way around easily. This will come back to haunt us a little later.

We walked over (In the freezing cold wind) to the bus station to find out when the next bus left. Much to our chagrin, it left at 5:00 PM! Later even than the train. So we sit and ponder for a while, and decide that since we have come all this way (train ride was about two hours) that we should really try to make a day of it.

So we stopped by the National car rental place, and they were out of cars. Then we went to the Budget office, and picked up a nice little Renault Clio for the trip.

Dan avec Clio in the Pluie. Clio is green.

It was an almost new little car, it had remote control door locks, four doors, steering wheel controls for the stereo, and very tiny tires. It was everything that we needed for the day, and absolutely nothing more. I fit in with little problem, and after getting used to the clutch and brakes, we took off to find Mont St Michel.

Finding a small place with good signs is not hard. We followed the signs to MSM for 80 km, in the cold, rainy, windy day. The traffic was not bad, the traffic circles were easy, and everything went fine. I am not sure when France changes this traffic law, but until recently traffic circles here worked differently than I was used to. The right of way was given to the traffic ENTERING the circle, rather than to the traffic IN the circle. (The was the "right of way to the right" law) People would just barrel into the circle without any hint of looking, and you had better get out of their way. Now they have signs as you approach the circle that says "YOU DO NOT HAVE RIGHT OF WAY" and a yield sign right as you enter the circle. It makes it much easier, well, for ME anyway)

About 10 km from the abbey we could start to see it rising from the mist. It was quite a dramatic view, and we were glad that we made the decision to drive up. We came up to the parking area, and saw many people walking about a half a mile in the driving rain (Sideways, by this point) to get to the church. We wisely tried first o find a close parking spot, and were rewarded by the car’s small size. We had to walk a very short way, and got onto the rock and out of the wind quickly.

Mont St Michel in the Mists

We walked up the ramparts and into the walled city. It was an amazing creation, which started in the 10th century and populated by Benedictine monks from Montecassino in Italy. This rock is where William the Conqueror took started from when invading England in 1066. It was there he rallied his knights and then read the Chanson of Roland to inspire them. The Mont is surrounded by quicksand, and in the Bayeux Tapestry it shows soldiers getting sucked in to the sand while trying to attack the abbey.

Ramparts of Mont St Michel

We walked to the top of the Abbey and were able to see the various internal rooms where the monks lived and dined

The Chevalier’s room in Mont St Michel

And get a nice view from the top, in spite of the bad weather.

View from Mont St Michel

Walking around the abbey, you would sometimes have just amazing views

Towers at Mont St Michel

So we spent many hours at the church, partly because we did not want to have to get back out into the cold.

We decided to take the drive home while it was still light, though, and headed out in good time. We knew (or thought, rather) that the last train left around 8:00, so we wanted to get there earlier, so we could catch an earlier train, if possible.

Getting back to the city of Rennes was no problem. Trying to find the train station, on the other hand, was a mess. We started by following signs to the city center, but then ended up following signs to malls (Malls are called CentroCommercials, or something similar to that. The center of the city is called Centre d’Ville – or something like that. You can see how confused I am!) we drove around for a while and finally stopped to ask directions. We were given rather complicated directions, but they got us in the more or less general area. From there we had to ask for directions three more times before we saw the signs to the SNCF GARE (Train station) and then we were ALMOST home free. I STILL made a wrong turn and ended up in the taxi stand before we got to the rental car return.

In what has become a rather common occurrence on this trip, after all that rigmarole, we missed the 6:50 train by maybe 5 minutes. Oh well. We decided to eat in Rennes and walked back a little ways from the train station. (As a general rule, the best food in a town is not near the train station. There are exceptions, but…) We had a very nice meal for less than one-half of what it would cost in Paris, and made our way back to the station for the next train, which left about 8:45.

This train was quite full, and Doreen had enough snap left to get us a couple of good, forward looking, side by side seats. We sat down, tired but happy, and waited for the conductor to come by again. When he did, he just looked at the ticket, told us to write in the date, and walked away!

We made it back to Paris late, but felt very satisfied at having had a very nice trip.

RETURN TO GRAND TOUR HOMEPAGE!

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