Mont Saint Michel

Sunday, November 28th- We were up and out of our house in Nantes by 9 to go find breakfast. We realized early on that it was Sunday and had twenty minutes of stress as we looked for gas and food, but eventually all was resolved and we headed north towards Mont Saint Michelle. As we drove on the boring highway we decided that since we had a short-ish drive (2 hours) we should take the backroads and look for monkey puzzles and admire the little French towns that have been spared a freeway cutting through their centers. The first turn that Sven took lead us through some amazing rural little towns (always with jaw-dropping churches at their centers) where we saw a few monkey puzzle trees and were able to walk around a bit. As we drove into the area where Mont Saint Michelle was (we stayed in the neighboring town of Avranches) Sven found our 20th monkey puzzle of the entire trip, winning our bet with my mom finally! Woo-hoo!

We got ourselves checked into our strange hotel in Avranches with a weird semi-circular bathroom that the kids called the spaceship (“I’m going to Mars… see you soon!”) and we immediately headed out towards Mont Saint Michel which is probably the 2nd most recognizable silhouette in France after the Eiffel Tower.

Mont Saint Michel initially was just a little 1km island a low-tides walk from the coast when the bishop of Avranches was reportedly commanded by the warrior Archangel Michel to build a church in that spot. The bishop ignored the order and was later to build a church there only when Michel burned a hole in his skull with his finger. This was 708 AD. An Italian architect, William de Volpiano, designed the Romanesque church of the abbey in the 11th century, daringly placing the transept crossing at the top of the mount. Many underground crypts and chapels had to be built to compensate for this weight. These formed the basis for the supportive (insanely huge and maze-like) upward structure that can be seen today.

Monks inhabited this island for more than 1000 years but the benedictine order left in 2001 as they learned that the island did not exactly lend itself to a life of quiet conemplation. This place is a tourist madhouse.

Gradually over time the church became a major pilgrimage site and quite a few pilgrims were killed crossing the sandy spit. Eventually a causeway was built connecting the island to the mainland and streets were built adding infrastructure to the little island. We were awestruck by the looming silhouette of the church, by the winding (incredible touristy) streets. As we were surrounded by two busloads of Japanese tourists we commented about how happy we were to be here in the off-season (even it was 30 degrees) as the streets must be just packed in the summer months.

We were struck by quite a few things with this little island: Eilidh counted 808 steps! The stained glass windows filling the church and all of its massive buildings were complex, restrained and tastefully done. In the midst of the tourist, monks and nuns bustled about from building to building, smiling and busy. The view from the various structures was stunning- nothing but sea and the distant fields. We looked at a model of how the crowning steeple sculpture of St Michael sculpture was installed with the aide of an MI8 helicopter.

We enjoyed immensely our afternoon on the mount (and our celebratory return nutella crepe) and only wished we had more time and maybe another 10 degrees....

Best view from a monastery cloister ever...

Cloister windows

Giant winch to haul supplies up to monastery.

Never let 800 steps win.

Yeah! 25 monkeypuzzles that we've seen!
And Eilidh found most of them....

Nantes, France

November 27th- After a long, luxurious petit dejeuner we sadly packed up our car and head north towards our next stop, Nantes (or tried to- the satellites weren’t responding for some reason so we ended up driving around for a while). We decided on Nantes so we wouldn’t have too long of a drive to our true destination, Mont St. Michel, and the drive was lovely- rural and quiet, except for a stop at the Buffalo Grill restaurant to laugh at the teepee and Indian decorations. On our way to Nantes we spotted two monkey puzzles and now we only need 4 more to meet our goal of ten before we head home! We are a little more hopeful now that we can do it…

We got into Nantes in the late afternoon, checked into our house and headed straight into town to see a robotic life-size walking elephant (which we could ride on!). After getting stuck in traffic for at least 30 minutes we finally gave up and decided to just go to the town center. Easier said that done. It ended up being the first night of a Christmas fair and streets were blocked off so we spent another 20 minutes looking for parking. In the brisk Saturday evening chill we stepped out (with sore butts from the long ride) to look around. Nantes is a sprawling, sort of in-between town in the northwestern corner of France. At one point it was the capital of France and it has moments of greatness but does not hold a tourist draw currently. However, it had areas of beauty that surprised us as we did not expect much from this town we’d never heard of. The cathedral loomed out of the center of the urban center, spotlighted and gleaming. The town center was cobblestoned and bustling with holiday shoppers and the Christmas fair surprised us with a carousel and a couple dozen booths selling local specialties (sausages, candies, hats, etc), all clustered around a fountain in a church square. We enjoyed crepes (first savory, then sweet) and headed home to get some sleep for the next day’s journey.

Your average truck stop- wine on tap.

Wow!

Yeah! A monkey puzzle!

A surreal lunch at the Buffalo Grill.

You made me go in here?!

Bella loves those pigs!

Bordeaux

November 25th- Bella’s 5th birthday in France!- Bee was woken up to singing and a hello kitty purse before heading downstairs to a wonderful petit dejeuner of croissants, French bread with fresh preserves, hot chocolate, coffee and thick tart yogurt. After filling ourselves up we headed out for a day of exploring the city. We enjoyed the large gothic cathedral of Saint Andre (just a touch smaller than Paris' Notre Dame) and when it was raining we ran into a little brasserie for coffee before going to an exhibit on the male nude as seen through the eyes of the French ‘official’ academy painters (the only thing we found open). After a quick shopping trip for Eilidh (whose legs are growing too long for her pants) and lunch we went to the Centre National Jean Moulin ( French resistance museum) which was very moving. A lot of what we saw we didn’t understand (copies of orders and strange metal parts that did mysterious things) but the diorama of Normandy was interesting, along with photos of some of the heroes of the Frence resistance (Charles de Gaul was one of the leaders!). We had a wonderful talk about what it must feel like to have your country taken over by an evil force and the heroes who secretly fought against Hitler’s forces. We all got a little teary-eyed as we looked at the badges that people in the camps had to wear which indicated what brand of evil they were: the gold star for Jews, red triangle for French political prisoners, pink triangle for homesexuals, etc. It helped to explain to the girls a little bit why there are so many monuments to the martyrs of World War II here- the people of France were literally caught in the middle.

For dinner we went out for a fancy dinner near the cathedral (the same place where we’d ducked out the rain earlier and had ackwardly attempted to order drinks with our terrible accents). The highlight was the potato tarts and sweet potato puree with our beef bourguignon which reminded us that it was also thanksgiving and that we didn’t need to cook a turkey this year!

key to badges that prisoners would have to wear in work camps during WWII.

Riding the tram to the end of the line and back.

"I don't want to learn fractions at dinner!"

Massive sculpture to advertise French-grown produce.

November 26th- For our last day we went to Bordeaux’s Beaux Arts museum and spent a long time looking at their collection (along with some great hide and seek cards for the kids). They had a very small but high-quality collection and it was nice to not be overwhelmed by masses of art for a change. We enjoyed the Dutch collection and the Italian Caravaggio-esque collection, then were wowed by the French collection, including one large portrait of the port of Bordeaux with fascinating details.

After lunch we walked to Bordeaux’s famous reflecting pool near the river (sadly, our inexpensive lunch warmed up in a microwave was far tastier than our gourmet meal we had paid 3 times as much for the night before) and took some silly pictures along with a few other tourists before wandering into a huge antique market lined with everything we could imagine. After buying the kids winter coats we headed home for some relaxation before going out for some dinner. We were all sad to head home as we truly enjoyed our time in Bordeaux, even with the constant fall drizzle. We decided that its actually been quite a treat to see France without the crush of fellow tourists. Its just life as usual- people doing their Christmas shopping and picking up their kids from school…

Our hotel.