Saint Malo, France May 5th

Today we arrived in France. Saint Malo is a seaside city with a walled fortress around it and filled with coblestone streets, shops. As usual, all the streets were hilly and winding full of cafe's and shops. After our excursion we visited the city and all of it's European charm. We walked around the wall surrounding the city taking in the wonderful views of the ocean.
We did a private excursion with a group of friends we made on the trip. The driver picked us up from the port and drove us there and then we met the guide. It was nice to have a small group and to be able to go at our own pace. In our excursion we visited Mont-Saint-Michel. It was on Scott's bucket list of places to visit. It is an abbey that started to be built in the 8th century. It was built and re-built over and over during the centuries. It has a huge history as a fortress, prison, and abbey. It is built on an island that is surrounded by the tide from the Atlantic Ocean that rises so that it becomes an island each day. Today, they have built a dam and a road so that the castle is still accessible. In the ancient times, this was a great way to protect the island. Even to go out on the sand you have to pay a guide since the tides come in and you could quickly be surrounded by water. And they have the equivalent of quick sand. We did not do this...
The inside was many, many rooms, hallways, stairs all made of ancient granite stone. It is just amazing how this was all built over the centuries with something that is many stories high on top of a pillar of rock rising out of the ocean. We could just imagine all the people that walked through the rooms, hallways and stairways over the centuries.
We started the tour looking up at the castle / abbey from below and it seemed so huge. Then after many, many stairs we were at the top, taking in the views along the wall and corners until we were at the top. After we made our tour back down to the seashore, we looked back up and realized that we were here at the sea and had walked through the castle all the way to the top . It was just a great feeling.
Then back to the ship for our next day in France.Read more