Le Mont Saint Michel - Closer to God

Two years ago, Carol and I made a brief visit - only a few hours - to Mont Saint Michel, the imposing abbey inhabited for centuries by Benedictine monks, that lies on its own island off the Normandy coast. Ever since that visit, I had said that if I ever had the chance, I wanted to return and spend at least twenty-four hours, so that I could take photos in all different lights.

This year, the opportunity presented itself, and I grabbed it. After an uneventful flight to Paris and a series of smooth connections from Charles de Gaulle Airport through Paris and onto the coast, I found myself on the island of Mont Saint Michel a few hours earlier than I had planned.

And a good thing I was early, too. From the moment I had discovered l’Hotel St. Aubert on the internet, I thought it was too good to be true. A hotel right on the island at the base of the abbey for only $75! Never mind the photo of the hotel entrance that looked suspiciously wide open (with parking, no less) for such a tiny, medieval island. The map on the website showed it to be right there. I returned to the website more than once in the weeks before departure to make sure. A map (with photo, no less) trumped a photo of an area whose details I may have forgotten. So I skipped the Tourist Information and humped by bags up the main street in search of the St. Aubert. Ten minutes later, I returned to the TI and was informed that the St. Aubert is indeed on the mainland in the small village bearing the name of Mont St. Michel.
So I took a local bus back to the mainland, spending the two euros I had saved as a person over sixty years on the bus from Rennes. At the St. Aubert, a two-star hotel with poor recommendations (but, heck, on the island for only $75), they told me they were full, but that I had a room waiting at the Hotel la Digue at the end of the causeway (a three-star hotel that was my first choice two months ago, but full when I tried to get a room).

L’Hotel la Digue was very nice; the staff, quite friendly and helpful. And I quickly learned that the 1.8 km walk across the causeway was a plus instead of a minus. I had lots of exercise and lots of photo ops. The best views of Mont St. Michel, I concluded over the next day and a half, are of the entire island and abbey.

So I unpacked, regrouped and set out for le Mont. The day was cloudy, not great for photography. I explored and took photos for a couple hours, and then I hit the wall that one finds after a day of trans-Atlantic travel and a seven-hour time change. I gave up on the idea of dinner on the island, trudged back to the hotel, where I took one of the best showers I ever had and plopped into bed. I roused myself for a mediocre dinner in the hotel dining room and was in bed by nine p.m. All in all, a good start to my travels.

I set my alarm for early the next morning, not wanting to miss the opportunity to be out and ready with my camera at first light. I needn’t have worried. Sunrise comes late in Normandy, and when the sun did rise it was masked by a dense fog for quite a while. On the causeway, I tried to take some photos of the fog-shrouded abbey, but my camera refused to respond when I pressed the shutter button. Fortunately, I had brought my camera manual.) After searching a bit, I learned that the camera does not respond when the subject is not clearly distinguishable. Fog! The solution was simple: I bypassed autofocus in favor of manual focus. Tah-dah! (That night, processing photos in my room, I discovered that my fog photos for the most part didn’t work. I’m not sure why, but I did manage to salvage one or two, but none of the best ones of the abbey.

Early morning.

For the greater glory of God.

View from the ramparts.

In the midst of grand glory, small treasures.

Early morning.

With the sun up and the fog finally dispersed, I began my explorations. After exhausting the best of the morning light taking lots of photos, I found an agreeable café, La Croix Blanche, and sipped a cup of espresso as I watched the hordes of visitors stream past. Then, I paid my 8.5 euros for a ticket to the abbey and splurged by spending another 4.5 euros for an English audioguide (well worth it!). I took my time wandering through the spectacular monument, absorbing its history and photographing a lot of it. I can’t imagine how crowded it must be in August; Hordes of schoolchildren, babbling, laughing, exhuberant, were everywhere. And Japanese! I saw so many Japanese tourists during my stay that I thought surely they must outnumber the French.

Interior Splendor

Cloisters

A Monk's View

The tour was as satisfying as the first tour with Carol in 2007, although I have to admit that I think my best abbey interior photos were from that visit two years ago. This wasn't the case with my exterior photos. With much more time to roam near to and far from the abbey, I accumulated many different views. (All in all, I have thirty photos just of the full abbey!)

A Rare Moment of Solitude on the Ramparts

View from the Ramparts

Closer to God

After the tour, I returned to La Croix Blanche for a bowl of local cider and a rest. I wrote a few postcards and watched a few hundred more visitors trudge past. I liked La Croix Blanche; it did not have the touristy feel of so many of the places. And the staff was friendly. I’d noted grumpy vendors two years ago, and pondered the human psychology that prompted people to be hostile to the visitors who, although vastly annoying, are the lifeblood of the local population.

Le Croix Blanche

It was mid-afternoon by now. I had planned to return to the hotel at this point, rest a bit, and then return as the sun sank in the west for more photographs and then dinner on the island. I stuck to my plan, and that worked out just fine. I walked back to the mainland and my hotel, stopping every few minutes for for a fresh photo or two or three of the abbey.

Between 5:30 and 6:00, I walked back to the island, taking even more photos. I discovered an out-of-the-way passage at the west end of the island that lead past posted warnings of tides and quicksand down to a deserted stretch of beach, where I found a tiny stone chapel perched on a thirty-foot boulder at the water’s edge.

Humble Chapel at the base of Mont Saint Michel

Chapel Detail

At the base of Mont Saint Michel

Then I scouted all the restaurants as I took a leisurely stroll along the ramparts up to the abbey entrance. I compared prices and menus before settling on - big surprise! - La Croix Blanche. I was the only person on le premier étage (2nd floor in France). It was early by European standards. I noted, after settling in at a window table with a view of the tidal flats and the mainland, that there is a third floor that a few customers ascended to and descended from.
I learned here not to be snooty by overlooking the “menu express," which sounds like a quick feed for tourists. For fourteen euros, I received three delicious courses. The entrée consisted of tasty vegetable crudités and plenty baguette slices. I even ate (and enjoyed) the diced beets. For my main plat I had les moules au creme - a regional specialty Oh! So delicious! I washed it all down with a very nice white Muscadet at 3.70 euros a glass. A mistake - I should have gotten a half bottle. The dessert was a tasty apple tart, followed by espresso.

At one point during my meal, I glanced out the window to see a cluster of bread scraps sailing from the side of the restaurant over the rampart wall. A moment later, my waiter walked in the side door. From time to time over the next hour, he exited the restaurant with a bread basket and repeated the routine, fulfilling, it seemed, his own private mission to the gulls.

From time to time, I picked up my Inspector Maigret paperback mystery, but I could never get involved with it. I was happier watching people strolling by the window, trying to discreetly peek at what I had chosen to eat, at the salt flats spreading the the mainland, and the waiter’s ministering to the local wildlife.

A few more people entered the dining room as the sky grew dark over the bay and I worked my way happily through my saucy mussels. Everyone spoke in hushed tones, except for two Japanese girls, whose giggles punctuated the cloister-like calm of the dining room.

It was so quiet in the dining room that when I returned to the street I received a shock. The daytime crowds had vanished. All the shops and tourist cafés had closed. Only the restaurants remained open, and only a few visitors strolled the streets in slow motion. Still, it felt like Times Square when I stepped out of the restaurant onto the street. (It was like returning to the car after a week of canoing in the wilderness.)

I looked forward to the stroll across the causeway in the dark. I had expected to be alone, but found many tourists along the path, most heading in the opposite direction from me.
I stopped often to look back at Mont Saint Michel. Once, I looked up and saw low in the sky the Big Dipper, hanging not too far from where I would expect to see it on a dark night in the Boundary Waters. I smiled in recognition.

Mont Saint Michel is lit up at night like Disneyland. The floodlights painting the abbey made it look cheap, like a Pigalle prostitute, unconfident, needing enhancement to catch the eye and the interest of tourists.

I think that le Mont’s real beauty is on display in the light of day as it rises from the sea. Blue sky and grand swirls of clouds bring out its glory in a way that man-made lights could never achieve. Even overcast skies seem to embellish the abbey's tall spire. The monks thought that to build such a place of worship and contemplation on high land was to be all the closer to God. To look at it from the distant mainland, you almost believe that the abbey is indeed not quite of this earth, that it is somehow a destination to be achieved, a wayside rest on the road to heaven. To enter the abbey, after the long climb through the narrow streets is to enter a different world, one that perhaps is closer to God, if one’s belief is strong enough.

Rising to the Heavens

What would Mother Theresa, or Louis de Montfort or St. Clare, who spent their lives living among the poorest of the poor and ministering to them, have thought of such a majestic temple? Perhaps they would welcome the opportunity to spend time in silent retreat, praying, meditating and fortifying their spirits. But I think they truly found God in the squalid streets where they ministered to people weighed down by poverty, filfth, hunger, disease and violence. They labored, as did the Benedictine monks of the abbey of Mont Saint Michel, to bring themselves closer to God.