Mont Sainte-Michel and a change in plans (Tuesday)

On Tuesday morning I woke up just before 5:00 in the morning in order to begin my journey from Bordeaux to Mont Saint Michel.  Over the course of the train ride from Bordeaux to Rennes, I managed to start and finish Robert Louis Stephenson’s Treasure Island on my Kindle even while taking time to admire the French countryside.  I arrived in Rennes about noon, where I transferred to a bus and arrived at Mont Saint Michel just after 1:00 in the afternoon.  I asked the bus driver where I needed to be in order to make the next leg of my journey to Bayeux, and she told me at the same spot where she dropped me off, another bus would be there.

Mont Saint Michel itself is probably the most impressive military castle I have ever seen.  You have to approach it across the tidal flats, which are completely submerged at high tide.  The castle is built on top of a large rock that rests in the tidal bay, and it is a series of walls and winding streets up to the massive cathedral at the pinnacle, whose steeple is topped by a shining statue of the archangel Michael.  The original structure was an old church, which later was expanded, and then had another church and monastery built around it and on top of it, and then the entire structure was encased in an even larger cathedral.  In essence, it is a Russian nesting doll of places of worship.  It was fortified by the French kings and was a major bastion of French resistance to English regional domination during the Hundred Years War.  After that, the fortifications and village on the island/hill were expanded even more until it was appropriated by the French State during the Revolution.  It was declared a National Monument in the 1800s and today is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the north of France.

I can hardly put to words the feelings that I felt as I walked through the ancient medieval streets, surrounded by an actual, mostly intact, medieval castle.  I have always loved the Middle Ages and visited thousands of different fortresses in my imaginations, but to actually be there and touch the millennia-old stones filled me with an amazing sense of wonder.  I am very excited to see the châteaux of the Loire, even if they are less the medieval fortifications and along the lines of rich gentry wanting to show off their wealth by living in grandiose dwellings.

I went to a café in Mont Saint Michel in order to have a coffee in the afternoon and at the table next to me, two older American couples were having a little bit of difficulty asking the water for a pitcher of water to go with the drinks they had ordered, so I leaned over and provided a little assistance.  This impressed them and we got talking.  The two men were retired Army and they were sightseeing along the coast with their wives.  They had just come from Bayeux, and having visited there many times, they gave me some helpful tips to help me during my visit there.

I went to go find my connection to Bayeux and discovered that my bus driver had not been exceptionally precise with me.  Yes, in order to get to Bayeux, I needed to leave from the spot she dropped me off at, but that was only to take a different bus to the train station, which is where I needed to be at the time of departure on my ticket.  And the next bus came a half an hour after the departure of my train.  Needless to say, I missed my train.  I called my hotel in Bayeux and explained what had happened and that I would see if I could find another way to town that night.  I eventually got to Pontorson, the town near Mont Saint Michel with the train station, only to discover that the SNCF office (the train station) was closed for the evening.  So I went to search for a café that might have wifi.  The first place I went into said that they did not have any, but to try the hotel across the street.  I went in there, told the man at the counter that I was in a bit of a crisis and asked if I could use his wifi.  He said that he had no problems with it as long as I ordered something simple from the bar like a beer.  At this point, a beer sounded great, so I had a Kronenberg while I searched the SNCF timetables to find the next available transportation to Bayeux.  Unfortunately, it turned out to be the next morning.  There were two times, 6:00 and at 10:00, I opted to go for the latter, because by then the SNCF office would be open and I could print off my ticket in the office and not hassle about that.  So I booked a room at the hotel for a night, thanked the kind man, phoned the hotel in Bayeux, explained my situation to the man there who kindly kept my reservation intact for the other two nights that I would be there, explained the situation to my fretting mother, and had a very nice dinner for a rather inexpensive price at a neat little French restaurant nearby.  Big sigh of relief.  After that, I returned to my hotel room and watched Iron Man dubbed in French on the television.  It wasn’t that bad.

Now, having had breakfast, I am at the train station awaiting my train to Bayeux.  To my credit, I never panicked.  I took to heart the advice of my wonderful girlfriend Grace and decided to treat it as being spontaneous.