Well here we are in Mont St. Michel.  I feel like I’ve known about this place forever – afterall, I did have the jigsaw puzzle as a child!  Before we get started, here’s a little history that I hope you’ll find interesting.

Le Mont Saint Michel is an island community in Normandy, located about .6 miles off France’s northwestern coast, at the mouth of the Couesnon River. At 247 acres in size, the island today has a population of 44, compared to a high of just over 1,000 in the mid 1800’s. One of France’s most recognizable landmarks, Mont Saint-Michel and its bay are part of the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites and more than 3 million people visit each year.

The island has held strategic fortifications since ancient times and since the 8th century AD has been the seat of the monastery from which it draws its name. The structural composition of the town exemplifies the feudal society that constructed it: on top, God, the abbey and monastery; below, the great halls; then stores and housing; and at the bottom, outside the walls, houses for fishermen and farmers.

Historically, its unique position on an island made it accessible at low tide to the many pilgrims to its abbey, but defensible as an incoming tide stranded, drove off, or drowned would-be assailants. Eventually, awareness of the reverse benefits of its natural defense resulted in turning the Mont into a prison. Thereafter the abbey began to be used more regularly as a jail.

The tides can vary greatly, at roughly 46 ft between high and low water marks. Popularly nicknamed “St. Michael in peril of the sea” by medieval pilgrims making their way across the flats, the mount can still pose dangers for visitors who avoid the causeway and attempt the hazardous walk across the sands from the neighboring coast.

Polderization and occasional flooding have created salt marsh meadows that were found to be ideally suited to grazing sheep. The well-flavored meat that results from the diet of the sheep in the salt meadow makes salt meadow lamb a local specialty that may be found on local restaurant menus.

The connection between Mont Saint-Michel and the mainland has changed over the centuries. Previously connected by a tidal causeway, a path uncovered only at low tide, this was converted into a raised, permanently dry, causeway in 1879. In 2006, authorities announced a €164 million project to build a hydraulic dam to make Mont Saint-Michel an island again. The dam project which began in 2009 also included the removal of the causeway and its visitor car park. The new car park on the mainland is located 1.6 miles from the island and visitors can walk or use shuttles to cross the causeway.

In 2014 a new bridge was opened to the public, allowing the waters to flow freely around the island and improve the efficiency of the dam. The new bridge was completely submerged on March 21, 2015, by an extremely high ‘supertide,’ the highest sea level for at least 18 years.

Le Mont-Saint-Michel has long “belonged” to some families who shared the businesses in the town, and succeeded to the village administration. Tourism is the main and even almost unique source of income of the community. There are about 50 shops for 3 million tourists, while only 25 people sleep every night on the Mount (monks included), plus guests in the island’s 6 small hotels.

We’re here!

Getting to the island is a bit challenging.  You must find and park in the appropriate parking lot, which in and of itself is a challenge.  Then you catch one of the few horse-drawn wagons or one of several buses that go to the “island.”  Buses are easier to find but they drop you off 1/4 mile from the entrance and you have to walk the last distance – with baggage in tow.  We’re spending 2 nights in one of the little hotels right on the island and fortunately our hotel is just inside the drawbridge so we don’t have far to walk once we reach that point.  But, and stop me if you’ve heard this before, our room is on the 4th floor and there’s no elevator!  It’s deja vous (the only French words I know!) all over again, as Yogi Berra would say.  By the time we get here late in the afternoon, people are beginning to leave the island in droves.  The tide is coming in and the water is rising and we’re anxious to see if it really will become an island. (Because of the silt, it doesn’t any more.)

Early in the morning, it’s very quiet and the pedestrian streets (duh – they’re all pedestrian streets) are deserted. But once all those busloads of 5th and 6th graders arrive, it’s wall to wall people again. We went up to the Abbey and took a self-guided tour with the audio guides. It was fascinating and beautiful. The lighting is so well done in the Abbey – it makes it even more impressive.

Most of these photos have no captions – I just wanted to show a little bit of what’s here.

 

 

 

 

 

The Abbey

At the top of Mont St. Michel is The Abbey. Benedictine monks started building this abbey on the mount in the 10th century. The heroic resistance of the Mount to English attacks during the Hundred Years’ War in the 14th and 15th centuries made it a symbol of French national identity. Monks left the abbey in 1790, and it was listed as a historic monument in 1874.

 

 

 

After breakfast at our B&B this morning, we fired up our little red Fiat and made the 150-mile journey from Amboise to Mont St. Michel. We were in no hurry and it was beautiful driving through the lush green countryside. Once we got over to the coast, we drove through Dinard, an upscale community with huge old stone homes on hilly streets along the coast.  So 2 toll roads, a stop for gas, and a couple of rest stops later, we approached Mont St. Michel with our first gasp of amazement as it came into view.  (Actually that was me – Chuck has been here before.)  Tomorrow we begin our adventure in Mont St. Michel so today I’m just going to share a few photos from the drive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The speed limits vary on the roads from about 50 kilometers per hour (30 miles/hr) to 130 kilometers per hour (80 miles/hour). And they push it to the limit. Most towns have electronic speed indicators like you see in the U.S. but these have the addition of a smiley face or a sad face shown below your speed depending upon whether or not you’re speeding.

We’ve also noticed an abundance of rest areas along the highway. Usually there’s a rest area at least every 10-15 miles. Some of them are old and some are very new and they each have their own unique personality. Most of them have separate entrances for trucks and cars and most of the facilities aren’t large. And there are no vending machines. We stopped at 2 of them so of course I took some pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then there are those gorgeous yellow fields everywhere. If it is sunny in some areas and cloudy in others, you can be sure the sun will be shining on the yellow fields and they just glow! When seen close up, they’re about 3 feet tall and they are indeed the “wild mustard” we see at home in the canyons this time of year. They’re very pretty, but they’re weeds. I’m so glad somebody has finally legitimized them. I’ll probably never look at those weeds the same way again.

We’ve visited 4 chateaux so far and they’ve all been very different from each other.  Yesterday after we visited the chateau at Chenonceau in the morning, we stopped at the Chateau de Chambord in the afternoon.  I probably won’t do a post on it because we were disappointed in it and it would be hard to do a good post on it.  It’s by far the biggest one we’ve seen, but the chateau is under renovation with scaffolding everywhere, there’s major construction of other tourism-oriented buildings around it, the grounds are a work in progress, and the castle itself is sparsely  and unimaginatively furnished.  And besides that, Chuck had to pay .5 Euros (about $.60) to use an outdoor porta-potty! Now how bad is that!

But the good news is that today we visited the Chateau de Cheverny, and it’s the best one we’ve seen yet.  Besides the fun of watching the feeding of the hounds (described in another post), this chateau is an overall great place to visit.  Let’s begin with a little background on the Chateau at Cheverny:

The chateau at Cheverny was built between 1624 and 1630 by the Henri Hurault family. During the next 150 years, ownership passed through many hands and in 1768 a major interior renovation was undertaken.  The Hurault family bought it back in 1825 and in 1914 the owner opened the chateau to the public, one of the first to do so. The Hurault family still operates it, and the current resident, the marquis de Vibrayek, is a direct descendant of Henri Hurault, the chateau’s builder.  Chateau Cheverny remains a top  tourist attraction to this day, renowned for magnificent interiors and its collection of furniture, tapestries and objets d’art.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We made the 1-hour drive over to Cheverny to check out the Chateau and gardens (more about that in a separate post) and see if we could catch the daily feeding of the hounds.  Cheverny is famous for its kennels and the approximately 100 French hounds, a cross-breed of English fox hound and the French Poitou, that occupy them. The hounds are taken out for hunts twice weekly, but the chateau is probably best known for its 11:30 daily public feeding, especially popular with tourists.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We made a trip to the Chateau de Chenonceau. But first let’s start with a little background:

The Chateau de Chenonceau spans the River Cher near the small village of Chenonceaux. Although it was first mentioned in writing in the 11th century, the current chateau was built in 1514-1522 on the foundations of an old mill and was later extended to span the river, although there is no opening to the other side of the river. It’s known as “Chateau de Femmes” or “the castle of 6 ladies” for the succession of powerful French noblewomen of Chenonceau, who each made an impact on the castle forming it into the lovely chateau it’s become today. Since 1913, the chateau has been privately owned by Henri Menier, a member of the Menier family famous for their chocolates. Other than the Royal Palace of Versailles, it is the most visited chateau in France, with over 1 million visitors each year.

 

We visited the beautiful Chateau de Chenonceau and were very impressed by both the presentation of the inside of the chateau as well as the extraordinary grounds and gardens. Six women have historically put their touch on the Chateau and its grounds; it clearly does have a woman’s touch and has been beautifully maintained as such. The rooms are perfectly presented, the audio guides are well done, and the fresh flower arrangements throughout the castle are either beautiful or interesting or both. In addition to the chateau, there’s a maze, 2 formal gardens, a 16th century farm which is connected to a vegetable and flower garden and a field full of donkeys. All in all, it’s a pretty cool place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interesting and beautiful flowers are everywhere in the chateau and lend a real personal touch to the space.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We spent the afternoon at the Chateau Royal d’Amboise.  First I’ll give a little background on the chateau, followed by the photos we took both inside the castle and on the beautiful, manicured grounds.

The royal Chateau at Amboise was built on a spur above the widest stretch of the Loire river. A medieval fortress has overlooked the Loire from here since roman times. It was replaced by a royal residence during the reigns of King Charles VIII and Francoise I in the late 15th to early 16th centuries. Probably its most famous resident was Leonardo da Vinci who came here in retirement and died here in 1519.  At his request da Vinci was buried within the royal chateau where his tomb can be found in Saint Hubert’s Chapel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amboise is a small town of about 14,000 residents, built on both sides of the widest stretch of the Loire River.  In the middle of the river is an island called Golden Island (Ile d’Or).  The Chateau Royal d’Amboise stands high on a bluff in the center of the city, but more about the Chateau in another post. Amboise also serves as a second home to many celebrities who tend to have grand mansions hidden behind nondescript facades.  Mick Jagger is one of those reported to have a second home here.

Amboise’s big open-air market is held on Sundays in a large parking lot that runs along the river.  It draws huge crowds of locals and tourists alike.  We had a great time there.  Here are just a few of the things we saw.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our plane left LAX at 3:30 p.m. on Friday and we arrived at our hotel in Amboise, our first destination, at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday.  Admittedly  that includes an 8-hour time change, but nevertheless that 28 hours was a VERY long day.  And some of that day went about as smoothly as sandpaper.  But that’s a story for another day.  We flew non-stop to Paris and after a 4-hour layover (the train station is right in the airport – how cool is that!), we caught the fast train to Amboise.  With only 2 stops along the way, the 140-mile trip took just over an hour and most of the time we felt like we were flying.  But the farmland we flew by was gorgeous!  I felt like Sting could step out at any minute with a sweeping rendition of Fields of Gold!  We first noticed those beautiful yellow fields when we were about to land in Paris.

From the train, those fields of gold flew by at about 150 miles per hour! The guy at the rental car place told us the fields are not mustard as we thought, but they use it to make cooking oil and for feeding cattle.  I’ll have to check into that a little more.

 

When we finally got to Amboise, first we picked up our red Fiat 500 rental car – it’s the cutest little thing, and I do mean little!. Then we checked into our hotel, which is actually a B&B and has only 4 rooms.  Our room is really charming and has all of its original character from the 18th Century. From our 2nd floor window we get a peak of the edge of the Chateau de Amboise, one of the chateaux on our list.

After we checked in, we went out to scout out the main part of the village and find something to eat. We quickly ran across this statue right in the middle of our first little garden on our garden tour trip.

We’re only about 4 blocks from the downtown area – the whole village area is so walkable.

After dinner, we walked over to see if the Chateau is lighted and unfortunately it’s not. But there were lights on the bridge over the Loire River which runs through town right next to the Chateau.

On the way back to our hotel, we ran across this little pedestrian street. I just love these old streets with the glow of their old-fashioned street lights.

Tomorrow is the weekly street market in Amboise, the biggest and one of the oldest in the area. So we’ll Check that out after breakfast. Then we want to spend at least part of the day in the Chateau de Amboise. And then we’ll see what else comes up. Of course they’ve promised a little rain for us tomorrow – afterall it IS spring.  Oh yes, and Chuck wants to spend a bit more time tomorrow brushing up on his stick shift skills!