Mont-St.-Michel

It has been said that Mont-Saint Michel Abbey is the most visited place in all of France. I can’t for a second believe that more people choose this site over the Eiffel Tower, so who knows. The cool thing about the abbey is that it sits perched on top of a hill of granite rock, and it is surrounded by beach. It is technically in Normandy, but there are disputes with Brittany over who owns it. When night falls, the tide rises and isolates the abbey so that no one can get on or off the island. Then the morning comes and the tide retreats, allowing visitors again. I visited it on a warm, breezy June day with my sister.

We had to take a train and then a bus to reach it, and met some guys from San Francisco who were backpacking through Europe. The abbey was a stronghold at one time; a fortress during the Hundred Years War. Later it became a prison and now it stands as an abbey. There was a chapel and a small cemetery with graves dedicated to French soldiers who fought in the first World War. There were also some gardens scattered around, but my favorite part was the beach. We took off our shoes and waded through the mud and clay that served as sand, and I wandered up some chipped stone stairs to a tiny forgotten chapel at the back of the abbey. The door was locked and all that was visible through the barred window was a broken altar. My sister and I ate ice cream (glace) and sat on the stone wall looking out over the ocean, with the impressive abbey at our backs.