It is located on the border of two regions, Brittany and Normandy. These areas are the most visited by European tourists, especially English tourists. For our compatriots they are still “terra incognita”. Meanwhile, there is something to see here: before us, in fact, not two areas, but two distinctive countries, each of which is a fairy tale.
Mont Saint-Michel is a monastery island, where earth and stone grow out of the sea and are crowned by the gold of a spire in the sky. In medieval times, the abbey was a fortress that no one has ever conquered in almost 10 centuries of its existence. It is one of the holiest, most important places of pilgrimage in France, where famous knights, French kings, dukes, ministers came. Here was one of the most powerful French workshops for writing and decorating books.
Behind the strong walls that run along the perimeter of the island, narrow steep streets rise up to the monastery. Along them closely stand ancient, built according to local rules, tall and narrow houses XIV-XVIII centuries.
Now tourists, not pilgrims, enter the shops, restaurants, museums, walk along the fortress walls, marvel at the power and history of the monastery, where the most intimate and important parts of the monastery have been preserved, admire the scenery….
At the time of the revolution it was a huge prison, and now it is a newly revived monastery.
For lunch, you can sample local specialties such as buckwheat flour pancakes, Breton beer and much more.
The tide here is up to 14 meters, and the landscape changes completely in the course of a day. From a deserted coastline to a mysterious castle rising in the middle of the ocean.
