Le Mont Saint Michel, France by Kev

21.6.2025. Up early, finish the last bit of packing and wait for the person to turn up and get the apartment key. After that we walked to a boulangerie for breakfast stuff, then onto a cafe for coffee. They didn't mind we brought our own nibblies. An uber was ordered and we were off to Gare du Lyon, to pick up our hire car. The bags just fitted, yay. Mel wasn't all that crazy about driving in Paris again, but they did great. We took the back roads instead of the motorway, trying to save some money by not paying tolls. Hoping to see some more of the countryside too. We arrived at our new apartment in Beauvoir around 5, and are happy with the place. A nice, neat and clean place that has everything we could need for a few days. There's even some toys here, the kids haven't had toys for a while and we're happy to play. Today is also la feté de la musique, I'm sure I spelt that wrong. We headed into town and found where they were celebrating. We watched some dancing, then listened to some live rock music. Three English blokes rocking out. They were pretty good. We stopped and listened to a group of young people, school age I reckon, playing. They were also pretty good. By now it was around 10pm, so we headed back to the apartment and put the kids to bed.
22.6.2025. Today we're heading to Mont St.Michel, which started as a small Abbey in 708. The bishop of a nearby town, had a dream, where the Archangel Michel, came to him and instructed him to build an Abbey on a nearby island. The Abbey grew bigger throughout the years, as did the small township around it. Now it takes up the whole of the small island. We walked all the way to the island from our apartment. It took around an hour. Everyone is so much better at walking without whinging, for that I am eternally grateful. The kids start talking to each other and playing games as we walk. I don't think they even realise sometimes how far we've gone. We saw Mont St Michel start to grow in the distance. When we got close enough, you could see the angel on top shining. It's a copper statue gilded with gold. We walked across the bridge leading to the island. For most of the time there hasn't been a bridge, and pilgrims, who had already travelled for days or weeks, would have to wait on the mainland for the tide to go out, before making the crossing. We have it easy, walking across a nice flat bridge, not even getting our shoes dirty. The tide was out during our visit and we saw lots of people walking around the island and further out while the water was gone. We entered the township through an old drawbridge, looks like it hadn't been raised in a long time. We know from our time here that the Abbey started small, growing over time. Then was a fortified stronghold during war that was never breached. We visited the Abbey, and heard some singing and the pipe organ as Sunday mass started. We explored everything we could, seeing in places where the architecture had changed from Roman to gothic. We saw where it was starting to fall down in places and they were keeping a very close eye on it. We had some overpriced baguette sandwiches for lunch, then visited the museums. Four museums to be exact. One focusing on ships and maritime, another one had a miniature of Mont St Michel that rose up through water and talked about its history. There was another that showed us the rooms of a knight and lady astrologer. Finally we had a tour through a small dungeon. At one point in Mont St Michel’s history it housed up to 600 prisoners. We finished our day with a walk around the town area, then racing back up a bit to watch the tide roll back in. It moves fast as it's very flat for miles around. The tide has claimed many lives over the centuries of the Abbey being here, and people still get caught out from time to time. There is a rescue vehicle with huge wheels stationed at the entrance, just in case. While it would have been cool to see it cruising around, kinda glad it wasn't needed today. We had planned on hopping on the shuttle bus to cut the walk back in half, but after seeing the waiting line we decided we could make the walk again. We went back a different way than this morning, and made a stop at a biscuit et gateau place. We grabbed some Madeleine for breakfast, a bottle of local cider and some local beers. We found a boulangerie and grabbed a baguette to go with dinner. We made it back to the apartment, I made a coffee then got started on dinner. After everyone was fed and showered, we watched a little tv and went to bed.
23.6.2025. Blogging/schoolwork day. We went shopping later in the day, just a quick shop, pasta, meat and cheese basically. Oh and a couple different local beers. We went back to the boulangerie where we got our baguette yesterday and ordered some baguette sandwiches. Freshly made and bloody delicious. Grabbed another baguette for dinner tonight, and some sweet stuff. Can't go to a boulangerie and not get something sweet. Now we're back at the apartment, stuff has been put away, coffee has been made and kids are blogging again. Drank some local beers, cooked some pasta and local sausages for dinner, everything was really nice.
24.6.2025. Today we're going for a drive to Avranches, a small city near us. There's a lot of history here, Avranches dates back to the 9th century b.c, and we're going to see some of it today. They have a map, in English, that the kids are going to use to lead us around the city. We walked and the kids navigated. We found historical landmarks around the city, some from both world wars. Some from well before that. We read and we learnt as we walked. We climbed stairs, past an old well, that led to a tower and the old wall of the city. I like viewing cities from the tops of towers. We stopped at this point for baguette sandwiches and a coffee, before continuing our historical visit. The next stop was a museum with manuscripts from the Mont Saint Michel, written by the monks and centuries old. We visited some big churches and finished with a nice walk through a park. We made our way back to the car and drove back to the apartment. Rest, lots of walking today, dinner and bed.
25.6.2025. Packed up this morning and loaded the car. We're off to Renne, a city not too far and home to our niece Manon. I'm sick as a dog, sneezing and snot everywhere. We got there and checked into our next apartment. Manon and her partner Nathan came for a quick visit. We went and found a baguette sandwich for lunch, then I went to bed. We had a lazy afternoon/evening, played some games, had some dinner and back to bed.
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