French road trip Day 1: Mont-Saint Michel

We rented a car for a few days and headed north. Our first stop: Le Mont-Saint-Michel, a town built into a mountain in the ocean. It’s a walled city and at the top is a huge abbey. When the tide is in, it looks like it’s floating in the ocean. We had seen pictures of it, and as we drove closer, we could see it in the distance, on its own, towering above the fields that lead to it. We stopped and took some pictures. Looks pretty big, eh?!

As we got closer, we parked in a designated parking area, and from there you can take a shuttle (20 minutes) or walk (35 minutes). We walked across the bridge, which was a good choice, because you can see the city as you get closer and closer. There were huge crowds walking in both directions.

When we got there, the tide was out, so we walked along the sandy beach and got to enjoy the view from below. I think I took the most photos so far on this trip here… it’s absolutely incredible. The first church was built here in 966, after a bishop had a series of dreams telling him to do so. It grew, was improved and the town was built over an impressive 1,300 years.

Inside the city, the streets are narrow, cobbled, uphill…. and absolutely packed with tourists. The shops sell tacky souvenirs, the restaurants serve an omelette soufflé, which is famous here. You can also find plenty of crêpes and ice cream. We made our way to the exterior walls and walked all around. It’s a bit of a maze and we definitely found ourselves retracing our steps more than once, but it’s all part of the charm.

We even found one super tiny narrow street.

We had arrived around 3pm, and as evening set in, the crowds dissipated. After supper, we went back out to the beach. The tide was still out, the sun was going down, and things were about to get really dramatic. The kids ran around chasing seagulls and jumping in tide pools. We let them wander and finally decided to head back to the mainland on the sand rather than on the bridge, since we were already partway there. We made the call at just the right moment, because unbeknownst to us, the tide started coming back in, and rather than a slow trickle, the water was rushing in very quickly toward us. We made it to shore with time to spare, but the tides definitely took us by surprise.

Once we had settled back on dry land, we took our time to enjoy the view of Mont-Saint-Michel surrounded by water, which is really a marvel, and watched the sun set in the distance.

Here’s a video recap of our day:

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