An abbey, a lost toll ticket and a chateau

I woke up this morning to the sound of a helicopter hovering over the rampart near our hotel window.  I leaned out the window but couldn’t fully see what was happening.  Then I heard another helicopter and another helicopter.  Helicopters buzzed around the island for over an hour.  It couldn’t be helicopters giving an aerial view of the island because they were dangling cables with what I thought were red stretchers.  How many people could they be medi-vacing off the island at one time? 

Brett and I had tickets to visit the Mont St-Michel Abbey this morning at 9 a.m.  I told him I wanted to climb up the bajillion stairs to the abbey entrance ahead of everyone else so I could be the first inside.  Bryan and I did that 10 years ago and we had the abbey to ourselves for a good 10 minutes before anyone else entered.  I remembered how good it felt to have that sacred space to ourselves for a while. Brett and I had agreed that we would meet at 7:30 a.m. for breakfast.  I texted him at 7:20 with no response.  So I went to his room and knocked on the door.  I succeeded in waking him up….as well as the guest in the room next door.

We got to the area where the lines formed and only one couple had beat us.  We sat down on the bench to wait.  I read to Brett about the history of the abbey as we waited and the line behind us got longer and longer.  When a couple went past the line and stood in front of us the couple who had gone up before us, as well as Brett and I, moved in front of them.  I had waited for 45 minutes by then and I wasn’t to be thwarted!

When we were allowed in we darted up the first flight of stairs.  I was huffing and puffing when we came to the landing.  We turned the corner and started up another huge flight of stairs.  I could hardly get my breath when I turned the corner to see a third set of endless stairs.  The older couple ahead of me were still making progress. I was struggling by then but determined to have my sacred moment in the abbey, dammit!!  I told Brett to go ahead and I would catch up with him.  He turned around and said, “Mom, you’ve left the line that was behind us in the dust.”  What a proud moment that was!

Brett sprinted the rest of the way to the top just as a helicopter was hovering next to the island.  He snapped a photo.  The mystery was solved.  The helicopters were bringing supplies to the island and removing red bags filled with trash.  

We entered the Benedictine abbey.  In the 8th century bishop Aubert had the same dream three times.  In these dreams the Archangel Michael told the bishop to build a sanctuary in his honor on the island.  This abbey church was constructed on top of the rock of Mont St-Michel in the year1000.

There was no one else in the space besides the woman who worked there.  The acoustics are amazing.

The circle on the floor allows light to filter down to the room below the sanctuary.  The architecture of the island symbolizes the feudal hierarchy present at the time the abbey was built.  God at the top, next the abbey and the monastery.  Below them are the great halls.  The stores and the housing are that the bottom.  Outside the walls are the fisherman and farmers.  

Outside the sanctuary, on the side away from the mainland, is the cloister.  It is where monks exercised and prayed.

This the refectory.  In this space the monks ate three meals a day in silence while scripture was read to them.

I assume this piece depicts the bishop having one of three dreams to build the abbey on this island.

The abbey is built of granite and limestone.  You can see how thick the walls are.  At one point in its history the king used the abbey as a prison because it was so fortified.

Getting materials and goods into the abbey was difficult.  So in 1820 this wheel was installed to hoist provisions to the prisoners being held in the abbey.  A man would get inside the wheel and walk on it like a hamster.

I have drawn a red circle on the track which brought goods up to the abbey while a man walked the hamster wheel.

More stairs to climb.

The room at the top of the stairs has this one simple work of art — L’Elektron.  It was created for the 75th anniversary of D-Day.  

At its base are the names of the five beaches with their coordinates.  

The base has 75 slices of metal above the beach coordinates.  The hourglass represents time — 75 years of peace.  There are 25 branches holding 75 lamps representing the Normandy’s symbolic fruit, the apple.  Each lamp holds a message of freedom.

Back down the stairs to another art display.  It is a tree surrounded by origami peace cranes.  The pillars behind the trees contain banners with figures trapped, falling, sleeping, doing handstands.  The art in this room is the result of family art night called “Wednesdays at the Abbey”.  I am curious who comes to these evenings.  The population of Mont St-Michel is 29.

Once you have toured the abbey you go through the gift shop (of course) and then out the back door.  Signs are posted making you aware that you are about to enter an area of nesting seagulls with baby chicks to protect.

I was struck by the reflection of the clouds onto the sea below.

We bid farewell to our tour of the abbey. I knew my knees would never be the same.  At the end of the day my iPhone health app said I had climbed 23 flights of stairs.  I felt every one of the those flights.  We went back to our rooms via the rampart that made this an impregnable stronghold during the Hundred Years War.  Gayle was glad she didn’t try to navigate the abbey.  My Sherpa grabbed my backpack as we headed off the island, which has been a UNESCO World Heritage sight for 50 years now.  We continued to look backwards at its mesmerizing beauty.  

We planned to have lunch with Brett in Dinan.  Rick Steves’ guide book on France says it is worth a stop.  We parked near Dinan port and went in search of lunch.  

It is a lovely little port town and well worth the stop.

We ate crepes and galettes near the water.

Brett found a place to buy some delicious pastries and I sampled what he purchased as we returned to our cars.  We bid farewell to Brett.  It was such a treat to spend time with him in France.

Gayle and I headed towards Amboise in the Loire Valley.  We  had a 3 hour drive ahead of us.  Enterprise has still not responded to Gayle’s calls to add me as a driver.  We have come to the conclusion that it works fine for her to drive and me to give directions.  The directions for this part of the trip were not difficult so I spent the time looking up the audio pronunciations for the towns and places we will visit and taking photos of clouds.  When I moved to California I dearly missed the abundance of clouds I had enjoyed when living in the Midwest.  My sister from Kansas finds my obsession with clouds mildly amusing.

We stopped at a rest stop along the way and decided to get rid of the trash and recycling in our car.  Several miles down the road we realized we had thrown away our ticket for the toll road.  I started doing research on what we should do.  A phone number was listed and I finally got to speak to a real person.  She gave me another phone number to call.  The toll roads in France are owned by the state but their administration is owned by semi-private companies.  Who you call depends on which company administrates that particular autoroute.  I called the second number but no one answered.  Eventually I called the hotel we are staying at for the night and asked for guidance.  The woman who answered was lovely.  She said that when we got to the toll booth there would be a button for assistance.  “This is not a big deal.  Push that button and they will help you.  You will end up paying the full distance of the toll road.”  I asked, “How expensive will that be?”  “No idea.  A million franks, maybe.”  She laughed and told us she couldn’t wait to meet us and hear what it cost.  We loved her instantly.  My anxiety went down.  When we got to the toll booth we picked the farthest booth on the right hoping those in a hurry wouldn’t get behind us.  We were behind a small RV and the driver ran back immediately.  He spoke English and seemed harried.  He said that the machine wouldn’t take his toll ticket and the person on the other side of the assistance button only spoke French.  This his wife started yelling for him to come and they drove off.  Somehow their predicament was solved.  When we got to the booth Gayle inserted her credit card.  The gate opened and we drove through, not sure if she had just used up her credit card limit or not.  But we were immensely relieved.  

When we walked into our hotel for the night, Chateau de Pray, the woman at the reception desk smiled and said, “Let me guess who you are!  How much did you spend on tolls today?”  We admitted that we were too afraid to look.  Chateau de Pray is lovely.

The woman at reception hoisted our bags up the stairs to our room.  We passed a suit of armor on the way.

The four poster bed requires a footstool just to climb onto it.  Boy, is it comfortable!

The Chateau de Pray has lovely gardens and a pool.  So relieved that we weren’t stuck at a toll road booth we headed down to the bar to decompress by the pool.  It is amazing what a mojito and some sunshine can do for the body and the soul.

I stayed up until the sunset….

…and then I curled up under the duvet in a deliciously comfortable bed leaving the floor to ceiling windows open and slept like someone who has climbed 23 flights of stairs in one day.

Bayeux Tapestry and Mont St-Michel

We had a bit of a “mishap” as we were checking out of our AirBnB this morning. I had purchased laundry detergent for the three times we are staying in AirBnBs with washing machines.  We put our detergent in the sack that held our other groceries and carried it the two and a half blocks to the underground garage where our rental car was parked.  Then we drove back to the AirBnB so that I could hurry back in and retrieve our remaining luggage and leave the apartment and garage keys in the host’s mailbox.  When I got into the elevator I noticed that floor was covered with laundry detergent.  My inner Karen shook my head and thought, “Who would leave such a mess and walk away?  Now I have to clean it up or our luggage will be covered with detergent.”  That is when the light dawned on me.  I texted Gayle:  “Will you check our grocery bag?  I think the laundry detergent leaked all over the elevator floor.”  Then I went into the apartment and saw the trail we had left there.   I cleaned it up and when I got out to the street Gayle showed me our bag of groceries covered in liquid detergent.  We threw the whole sack away.  Laundry detergent is back on our grocery list…as well as the other groceries we lost.

We headed for Bayeux.  This time we only crossed the Seine once as we drove out of town.  We arrived in Bayeux with lots and lots of other people.  It is June 4th and there were tributes, signs and flags everywhere in anticipation of the 80th anniversary for D-Day on June 6th.  We read later that there are events every day for the week leading to June 6th.  

Motorcycle groups in military uniforms drove by us on the streets.

Current service personnel are present everywhere, eating in restaurants and doing some sightseeing.  President Biden will attend the events on June 6th.  You can feel the anticipation of this 80th anniversary.

We were in search of parking close to the Bayeux Museum.  There were so many people in town that we had almost given up hope of being able to park when Gayle spotted someone pulling out.  We have been navigating fairly well in a country in which we don’t speak the language, but trying to figure out the ticket machine to pay for our parking stumped me.  We stepped out of the way to let others use it.  I hovered near by to watch what they were doing.  I was a bit relieved to see that even the French speakers found the process confusing.  I felt weirdly proud of myself for accomplishing such a mundane task. 

As we headed to the Bayeux Museum I was struck by the display of the flags of the allied countries who landed in Normandy.  They were everywhere.

There were so many military jeeps and motorcycles I wondered if people could rent one for the weekend.

Our goal was  to see the Bayeux Tapestry, which is an embroidered cloth that is 230 feet long and depicts events leading up to the Norman Conquest of England.  We entered a long, dark room with audio guides provided to use in English.  We took our place in the solid line of people slowly moving along beside the tapestry.  It tells the story from the perspective of the conquering Normans and some of it feels comical. There are laughing horses; men wading into the water to board boats without their pants on; and spies lurking behind pillars.  I was delighted to be able to see it.  This is a replica version of one small piece of the tapestry that you can buy from the gift shop.

We had hoped to head to the American Cemetery and Omaha Beach but seeing the crowds of people in Bayeux we decided not to go.  We ate lunch in Bayeux in  the pretty little courtyard of a restaurant called Selma Alabama. 

I know it seems weird to choose a restaurant in Normandy named Selma Alabama but it was highly rated and promised brunch food.  I love to go out for breakfast.  The restaurant owner’s name is Selma.  She always thought it was a strange name until she learned about the significant events of the Civil Rights Movement in the US that happened in Selma Alabama.  She has never been to Selma, Alabama.  She doesn’t know anyone from Selma, Alabama.  But she named her restaurant in Bayeux after a Southern town in the US.  On the wall she has a depiction of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the site of “Bloody Sunday.”  The reason for the naming of her restaurant was written out in a sign on the wall, written in English.  Oh, and the food was delicious.

Bayeux is a beautiful town…

…with another incredible cathedral.  But we were anxious to get to Mont St-Michel.  The gravitational pull was not strong enough to make a detour into the church.

The drive to Mont St-Michel was beautiful and uneventful.  We knew we were close when we could spot the island across the fields.

We pulled into the parking lot for hotel guests staying on Mont St-Michel just two minutes before Brett pulled into the same parking lot.  Brett is spending two weeks driving around Normandy and Brittany, tasting food and visiting creameries.  We had planned to spend one day together on Mont St. Michel. Brett has been keeping tabs on my movements through location sharing on iPhone.  He wanted to help his mother and aunt get to the island with their luggage.  We had made sure that we only had to take on a backpack and purse for each of us.  He put my backpack on his back and ushered Gayle and I to the shuttle that would take us onto the bridge and most of the way to the island.  It is still a bit of walk but the walk gives you an opportunity to see the full scale of the island.

There is a doorway to the island…

…then a drawbridge…

….then a significant climb to the lobby of our hotel, which happened to be the first hotel off the Main Street when you enter the island  The “street” was filled with tourists.

Brett had gone ahead of the aging women in his family and had us all checked in by the time we got to the lobby.  The women at the desk jumped up to show us to our room.  We climbed a set of stairs and then out through a door that led outside to the ramparts.  We walked along the rampart for a while, down a set of stairs, into the building and up two flights of stairs to our rooms.  I was so glad that Brett was my Sherpa.  This is the view from our room.

This is the view from Brett’s room.

I just moved from room to room depending on the view I wanted.  Mont St-Michel is a tidal island that used to be accessible only during low tide.  It was low tide when we arrived.  While Gayle rested, Brett and I headed out to explore.  We wanted to walk out onto the silt.  I had heard that it can be a bit dangerous and that you shouldn’t go out without a guide.  We didn’t venture too far, just enough to see all the seashells on the ground, evidence that the sea had been here and would return.

We got back onto the island and decided to head up the “street” and come back by the ramparts.  On the way up there is a little church called Eglise Saint-Pierre.  When Bryan and I visited Mont St-Michel 10 years ago this little church was right below our hotel room.  We had gone to the American Cemetery on our way to Mont St-Michel because Bryan’s father was drafted at the age of 29 and had arrived in Normandy via Omaha Beach.  Bryan was in a deeply contemplative mood when we arrived on the island.  I remember going down with him to the little church after sunset.  Bryan lit a candle in his father’s memory and we sat quietly in the sanctuary for quite some time.  Brett and I entered the church.  The priest was behind glass in a confessional room, working on his laptop.  It felt like a photo of our modern times.

We bought a candle, which you can select on a screen and pay for with a credit card — another photo of modern times. We bought one the old fashioned way…with cash.

We lit a candle in Bryan’s memory and I thought of him with deep love and gratitude.  I miss him every day.

We returned to our rooms via the rampart.

On his way to Mont St-Michel, Brett had purchased three banh mi sandwiches.  We sat in our hotel room to munch on sandwiches.  Then we decided to find a restaurant and order frites and dessert.  The restaurants on Mont St. Michel are not top rated so we opted for a place with a view, not too far from our hotel.  The tide had returned and it was astounding to see the area Brett and I had walked on earlier covered in water in such a short time.

Once again we used the rampart to return to our room.

The sun did not set until 10 p.m. but I was determined to see the lights of the abbey come on.  Gayle headed for bed and I went to Brett’s room where I could get the view without doing more stairs.  It is a truly magical sight.

I returned to my room and nestled underneath the duvet with the windows open.  I fell asleep to the sounds of the tide and the seagulls.