August 11 – St. Malo, France

Normandy flag

18 degrees, overcast, a bit of misty rain in the morning, sunny by the afternoon

Today’s port of St. Malo is relatively small, but popular. Our ship is too large to dock here, so like yesterday we tendered in. Usually when we are unable to dock in a port the ship anchors, but today we are tethered to two giant buoys that we had to basically parallel park between…this is a first for us. We’ve anchored plenty, but never have we been tethered to buoys. 

Today we visited Mont St Michel – a Benedictine Monastery dating from the . Visiting this spot has long been on my to-visit list, so it has been something I’ve looked forward to during this trip – I’m not disappointed. Mont St. Michel is a monastery on the northern coast of France. From the port, we had to drive about an hour through the French countryside filled with fields of corn (only for animal feed) and wheat.

cloister

Apparently, Mont St. Michel is the second most visited tourist spot in France next to Paris – I have no doubt if today’s crowds are any indication. We arrived in the morning, but by the time we left around 2:30 the crowds were THICK – wall-to-wall people, (and dogs.) There were so many people at certain points where the passage-ways were narrow, that everyone was stopped – can’t have claustrophobia here.

the Abbey church

The parking area is quite a ways from the actual site of Mont St Michel, so there are small bus shuttles that take you closer to the site. Our guide walks us up and through the narrow streets of Mont St. Michel to the top where the Abbey is, stopping along the way for explanations. Here is where I’m very glad to be with a group. We whisk past some lines - not all, as there are some places where lines were unavoidable due to the narrow spaces. I expected the place to be a bit more religious focused – it wasn’t. Not bad, just not what I expected.

For the first time on this vacation we noticed a significant military presence here. Soldiers at the entrance to the site and also groups of 4 soldiers walking throughout.

veal carpaccio

Lunch was on our own, which I liked. There are tons of restaurants all over the site. I have a ham and mushroom gallette (a buckwheat crepe) and Chris has a ham, cheese and noodle omelet, all washed down with a couple of glasses of rosé – very good. I was very impressed with us as we did all of the restaurant business en Français! Not exactly complicated communication, but still.

After lunch we do a bit of souvenir shopping and head back to the ship.

drinking cider

inside the abbey

I added an image of the Normandy flag. Apparently there is occasional debate as to whether Mont St. Michel is in Normandy or Brittany, but we are told most people agree that it is in Normandy.

We decide to walk around the small fortified town of St. Malo before heading back to the ship. The whole town inside the fortification is tourist-central…we really like this...shops, cafés, buskers, artists, and action everywhere. We sit for a drink and I choose a cider which comes in a small tea cup like mug…I LOVE THIS! The place we choose to sit at is right by a band playing which is also awesome!

I finally find some interesting potato chips in the grocery store – comet cheese, we found these last year and was hoping to find them again this year…mission accomplished.

Food on the ship has been very good. Last night I had veal carpaccio which came in a very interesting arrangement.