Le Mont St Michel

It’s been a while since we have update our travel log so this morning will be a bit of a marathon effort.
We have spent the night in a semi-free (read you have to pay €8 and get some facilities, but nice place) spot a couple of k’s from MSM. We tried all our bikes out this morning after some quick inner tube changes the day before and headed for le mont.
We all decided that cycling to MSM was a fantastic approach. Riding slowly you really get to appreciate it, the surrounding town growing out of the sea, then rising to the monastery, seemingly perched on the buildings below and finally the abbey, like the final strata in a super-natural rock formation, nestled at the top. I had been here 24 years ago with Mum, Steve (Stehlin) and two friends of Steve’s from Paris, Michel and Christine. I still have very strong memories, Mont St Michele is truly a place that leaves a powerful mental image.
Parking our bikes at the bottom we began to wonder up through the village that make up the first layer. Despite the shoulder to shoulder tourists, the cobbled streets and well maintained shops still allow you to get a fell for what life would have been like in the medieval period when the town was developed. From here we you get to the base of the monastery and still further on reach the abbey. A remarkable engineering feat to build some magnificent buildings on top of what really just amounts to a fairly unremarkable rock. The cloisters are fantastic, nestled right on the edge, from one wall of them you get the amazing views across the bay, as you do from the various terraces. It would be easy to feel inspired as the monks must surrounded by such vistas.
We headed back down and stopped for moule frite at one of the restaurants, very nice and very filling.
Eventually we rode away, packed up the ‘joint’ and with one final glance headed north.