St Malo & Mont St Michel
We arrived before dawn at the sea-lock entrance to the inner harbor of St Malo and were soon alongside at the Quai St Louis. In dawn light we could see the splendid ramparts of the old town - and also raindrops bouncing high off the granite flagstones of the quay. The rain was torrential.
Undeterred, after the usual hearty breakfast, we boarded our coaches for the short ride along the coast that would take us to the tenth-century Abbey of Mont St Michel. As we approached the abbey - a miracle. The dark rain clouds lifted leaving the great Bay of Mont St Michel shrouded in mist, through which the great abbey spire with its gilded St Michael fleetingly appeared. The rest of the morning was glorious sunshine.
The Abbey was built in AD 966, a full century before the Norman Conquest of Britain. The Abbey sits on the boundary between Normandy and Brittany on a granite outcrop surrounded by sand in a bay with a tidal range to rival that of the Bay of Fundi. It is said that the incoming tide does so faster than a man can run. There is quicksand too. The Bayeux Tapestry, that we had viewed a few days before, depicts a Norman and Breton army getting into difficulty on these very sands. Men and horses were lost but the valiant Harold Godwinson enhanced his reputation by rescuing a few knights.
The Abbey continues to function as a monastery with a small resident community but has had a chequered history. In the French Revolution the monks were evicted and replaced with prisoners. A whole history of western ecclesiastical architecture can be seen here from the delightful Marvel cloister at the top of the mount through the various layers of monastic buildings below it. Henry Adams, visiting at the beginning of the twentieth century was captivated:
"One looks back on it all as a picture; a symbol of unity; an assertion of God and man in a bolder, stronger, closer union than ever was expressed by any other art; and when the idea is absorbed, accepted and perhaps partially understood, one may move on."
We moved on - back to St Malo, where some took the opportunity to have lunch inside the old town. This is a proud community that has had centuries of seafaring history. Its sailors gave their name to the Iles Malouines, in Spanish Islas Malvinas (to the English, who now claim them, the Falkland Islands). From here Jacques Cartier set sail - there is an impressive monument to him in the cathedral and fine new stained glass replacing that destroyed during the last war. Our departure in westerly evening light enabled us to see the old town in all its glory, cocktails in hand.
We arrived before dawn at the sea-lock entrance to the inner harbor of St Malo and were soon alongside at the Quai St Louis. In dawn light we could see the splendid ramparts of the old town - and also raindrops bouncing high off the granite flagstones of the quay. The rain was torrential.
Undeterred, after the usual hearty breakfast, we boarded our coaches for the short ride along the coast that would take us to the tenth-century Abbey of Mont St Michel. As we approached the abbey - a miracle. The dark rain clouds lifted leaving the great Bay of Mont St Michel shrouded in mist, through which the great abbey spire with its gilded St Michael fleetingly appeared. The rest of the morning was glorious sunshine.
The Abbey was built in AD 966, a full century before the Norman Conquest of Britain. The Abbey sits on the boundary between Normandy and Brittany on a granite outcrop surrounded by sand in a bay with a tidal range to rival that of the Bay of Fundi. It is said that the incoming tide does so faster than a man can run. There is quicksand too. The Bayeux Tapestry, that we had viewed a few days before, depicts a Norman and Breton army getting into difficulty on these very sands. Men and horses were lost but the valiant Harold Godwinson enhanced his reputation by rescuing a few knights.
The Abbey continues to function as a monastery with a small resident community but has had a chequered history. In the French Revolution the monks were evicted and replaced with prisoners. A whole history of western ecclesiastical architecture can be seen here from the delightful Marvel cloister at the top of the mount through the various layers of monastic buildings below it. Henry Adams, visiting at the beginning of the twentieth century was captivated:
"One looks back on it all as a picture; a symbol of unity; an assertion of God and man in a bolder, stronger, closer union than ever was expressed by any other art; and when the idea is absorbed, accepted and perhaps partially understood, one may move on."
We moved on - back to St Malo, where some took the opportunity to have lunch inside the old town. This is a proud community that has had centuries of seafaring history. Its sailors gave their name to the Iles Malouines, in Spanish Islas Malvinas (to the English, who now claim them, the Falkland Islands). From here Jacques Cartier set sail - there is an impressive monument to him in the cathedral and fine new stained glass replacing that destroyed during the last war. Our departure in westerly evening light enabled us to see the old town in all its glory, cocktails in hand.
