Normandy & Mont St. Michel

Wed. Apr. 13: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SALLIE!! Like the seasoned travelers we are now, we walked with our suitcases down to catch Bus #21 to Gare St. Lazare and boarded our train to Le Havre in Normandy. The gentle farm lands flowed past the windows and the slightly foggy landscapes had a distinctly Monet feel to them with budding trees, lilacs, and spring flowers lending color in every scene. Two hours later we arrived and, with the GPS to guide us, we walked 1.7 kilometers to pick up our rental car. We got on the road with Marv at the wheel and again followed GPS directions but we missed one exit which took us a ways down the road before we could retrace our steps. After checking in at Le Cheval Blanc Hotel in nearby Honfleur we immediately drove 2½ hours to Mont Saint Michel. We drove mostly on freeway with a bypass around Caen. The countryside was rolling and checkerboard-ed with bright yellow fields of what looked to be thigh high mustard in full bloom. It was thrilling to see Mont Saint Michel in the distance from about 20 kilometers away! There was some light rain as we approached the causeway and we kicked ourselves for not bringing our rain jackets from the hotel. But as we walked across the causeway after parking, the rain stopped and didn’t appear again until we drove away a few hours later! Once again we were grateful to take Rick Steves’ advice on how to avoid the crowds (which were not too bad since it was 4:00 by then) and get right to the Abbey. It seems to float impossibly high above the mudflats and it is hard to imagine one can really make it up there by foot. But pilgrims have been doing it for over a thousand years so we could, too! The one street village of 30 residents at the bottom of the hill is completely devoted to tourism and since we had already seen several very old villages with narrow streets we chose to go straight to climbing the ramparts and then the many, many stairs that seem endless up to the Abbey. Rick Steves described each part of the Abbey and it was very enjoyable to walk around and marvel at this engineering feat put up by the bishop of Avranches who heard the voice of Archangel Michael saying, “Build here and build high.” Today’s abbey is built on the remains of a Romanesque church, which stands on the remains of a Carolingian church. We were pretty exhausted by the climbing and walking, particularly because we hadn’t had anything but some cookies to eat since our yogurt and croissants at 7:30. But it was all worth it to have seen such a beautiful place. It began to rain again as we drove out of the area but by then it didn’t matter. At Caen we stopped at a McDonald’s for coffee and made it back to Honfleur and bought gas. After parking in the free lot several blocks away, we dropped things in our room and went to find some dinner on foot. Off the waterfront we came upon “les Fontaines” where a good-natured waitress spoke only French to us and insisted that Marv try to do the same. It was very jolly and our dinner of Normandy specialties like the local “cidre” to drink and the delicious cream and cidre sauce on our chicken made it one of the most enjoyable dinners of our time in France. It was quite reasonably priced, as well! We got back to the hotel about 10:30 and were disappointed to find that we couldn’t get on the internet for some reason that the man at the reception desk couldn’t figure out for us. But it is a charming hotel. The building was erected in the 1500s on the water front and it has always been a hotel. It was also a postal stop for the sailors to come to and pick-up their mail when they were in port. It has been beautifully decorated in period Normandy style and our room overlooks the small harbor from which Champlain left with an Honfleur crew to explore and settle Quebec, Canada. I sat at the desk in the window with lights shining on the water and the sound of infrequent cars rumbling over the old cobblestones to write this entry and we went to bed.