In which we see an archangel

In addition to our monthly conversation/dinner nights with Anne Marie and André, they also take us on three excursions around Pays de la Loire, with St. Malo/Mont St. Michel being first on the list. This excursion happened in September, verrry early on the 26th. We were supposed to meet up in the lobby of our dorm at 7:15, which was a good idea since the objective I guess was to leave at 7:30, and some people who had stayed out all night came down a bit late. It was still early enough, though, that it was still completely dark outside. Anne Marie met us in the lobby, and then we went out to where our tour bus was awaiting us and got on, fully intending to fall straight back asleep. That worked until the sun started to come up, when we occupied ourselves with taking as many photos of it and the passing misty fields as possible. We stopped for breakfast at a restaurant kind of in the middle of nowhere, but that happened to have real drip coffee, the first any of us had had since we got here. A bit of bussing later, we arrived at St. Malo, a medieval walled city left pretty much intact. We headed through the gates, and then up onto the ramparts where we got a wonderful view of the city, and also the stretch of bay/ocean/whatever it was that St. Malo looks out on. We walked all around the city on the ramparts, which, with all the stops we made for photos and/or quiet contemplation, took around an hour and a half I believe. It was very pretty, leading me to take several nearly identical pictures of each new view. Here are some of my favorites; as you can see, we got very lucky with the weather:


By the time we managed to circumnavigate the city it was time for lunch, which we ate at a cute little restaurant in the city called Le Biniou (the Breton word for bagpipe). We had galettes (a specialty of Brittany, basically a crêpe but made with buckwheat), moules frites (mussels and fries), and dessert crêpes (mine with caramel on it). Mmm, it was all quite delicious, and I discovered that although I may not like shellfish in general, I do like mussels.


We had some time after lunch to wander around the city a little, so we strolled along the main street and looked in some souvenir shops, and then ducked into Cache Cache, where I found a coat and bought it very spur-of-the-momently. We then all met up again at the bus to go to Mont St. Michel. The bus ride was pretty quiet, I think most everyone fell asleep at some point. We perked up, though, when we were approaching the monastery (Mont St. Michel is a monastery) because there was some sort of huge protest going on along the road leading to it. I think they were protesting those electricity windmill things being installed near Mont St. Michel, but I can't be sure. What I do know is that we were all very astonished and confused to notice that Washington State was represented in the crowd:

We finally reached the parking lot after much waiting for lines of marchers to file by, and entered the city. It was very narrow and very crowded in the street we had to walk up to get to the church and monastery, but it thinned out as we went up higher.

Anne Marie had to stay behind with Poupou, as dogs were not allowed in the church, but André took us up and in, and led us through to the courtyard in front of the sanctuary where we got an amazing view of the surrounding country and tide flats. Apparently it's so flat that the tide comes in so fast that it can only be outrun on a horse. Woe to you if you find yourself stranded out there when the tide turns.

André had gotten a guide for us while we took pictures, a girl actually about our age whose English was pretty good, but she still asked us repeatedly if everything was clear, and told us "don't 'esitate to hask any questions". We went first into the sanctuary, which was filled with fog because they were preparing to film a mass there the next day. From there, we entered the cloister, which was my personal favorite area. All the columns were decorated with carved flowers and vines, and every single one was different.

We then went through the rest of the rooms and areas of the church, including the refectories and the reliquary room, but unfortunately my camera had run out of batteries by this time, and I didn't get any pictures of them. The architecture of the whole place is quite amazing, though, seeing as the entire church is built on a very not-flat hill of rock. The roof of the sanctuary even had to be built of wood to prevent its putting too much pressure on the walls and making them collapse. Once the tour was done (it was maybe a little unnecessarily long), ending at the statue of St. Michael that is a replica of the golden one on top of the steeple, we browsed the gift shop briefly before heading back to meet everyone at the bus. Sophie long hair, Afton, and I created a bit of a problem when we decided it would be fun to dip our toes in the water before we left, realizing too late that the beach was clay and not sand, and therefore getting our feet very dirty and needing the driver to get us a bucket of water to clean them off before we could get in the bus and go. I felt a bit stupid, but I don't think he or anyone else really minded too much. They were probably just thinking "silly immature American girls..." That was pretty much the end of the excursion, minus the bus ride back which was uneventful in the extreme, especially compared to the one we experienced yesterday during our excursion to the Château de Chenonceau. A description of that will be forthcoming, hopefully soon. Anyhow, it was a very fun excursion, and really nice to see a place that I'd been wanting to see for so long (Mont St. Michel, that is). I would definitely recommend it if you ever get the chance!