Mont St-Michel
(click here to see the photos in a new window)

The next day - Friday - we drove to Mont St. Michel, taking our time, stopping at a cemetery for German war dead which was quite impressive; bones had been moved there (in the 60s?) from all over France.

We got to MSM by 11 or so, deposited our bags in a tiny room (we shared a bed, but there was a tiny toilet) and went to our one true splurge for lunch, La Mere Poulard, whose walls are covered with autographed pictures from everyone from Princess Grace to the King of Prussia! We had the omlets, of course.

Visiting Mont St-Michel had been a goal of mine since college days, when I read Henry Adams' Mont St-Michel and Chartres. I downloaded the book from Project Gutenberg and re-read it before walking around the Mont.

A guided tour of the Abbey in English at 3 was very instructive and the guide was dear. Afterwards we walked and walked. We had dinner at a terrace overlooking the causeway to the island - we'd parked on the high part so we didn't have to worry about the tides - but we also were able to see where the high tide had covered areas that busses park in at other times. We were in no hurry to return to our room! We walked the ramparts, walked out the causeway and saw the tide come busily in, looked at the stars (the clouds had finally lifted) and were thoroughly entranced with the whole place.

This was as far west as we went (or could go). In the morning we drove to Dinan, where we were treated to a lovely lunch with the Boursin family: father Pascal had been an exchange visitor with my family in 1975 and this was the first time I'd met his lovely family (click on the image to see it larger).

Then it was on to Ligre, in the Loire Valley.