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.