Saturday August 9, 2014

We woke up this morning to a piercing sound.  Ralf’s new bicycle “bell” the hornet had shorted out because of the rain and was sounding like a car alarm.  It is a really good “bell” – cars can hear it and dogs stay away when he sounds it.  But, at 6:50 am the campsite did not need to be woken up by Ralf’s bicycle bell.  When we realized that it was the “bell” and not a car alarm, Ralf scrambled out of bed to pull the plug on it.

We couldn’t go back to sleep after that and as it wasn’t raining we got up and had a leisurely breakfast before heading out to the Island and Mont St Michel Abbey.

We caught the free bus from the campsite/hotel and spent about 2.5 hours wandering around the village and the Abbey.

What a difference a day makes.

As we entered the village we spotted this little kitten hiding.

2.5 million visitors visit Mont St Michel every year.  It is best to get there early before all the tour buses arrive.

The Abbey cost E9.00 each but it was well worth it.  It was originally built in 708 when the Bishop of Avaranches had a sanctuary built on Mont Tombe.

In the 10^th century the Benedictines settled in the abbey while a village grew below its walls.

The pillars of the cloister were off-set to provide ever changing views.

The walk through the abbey was well signed and directed you through in one direction, eventually leading you to a very large gift shop!  There are a myriad of stairs and corridors throughout the abbey, most of them with access denied, because it is still a \’working\’ Abbey.

In 1874 Mont St Michel was classified as an historic monument and underwent major restoration.  The restoration is ongoing.  Mont Saint Michel has been listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO since 1979.

We arrived back at the campsite at about 12:30 and had some lunch.  We quickly did some checking on campsites within about 20 kms of Mont St Michel.  All of the campsites were 2 to 3 times more expensive than the one we were at.  We decided to stay here another night and then do the longer ride to Rennes tomorrow morning.

We made a quick pasta dinner and ran out of gas just as we were heating the sauce through.  We have not seen any of the screw-on butane gas containers in France and have heard it can be a struggle finding them.  Fortunately we do have a multi-burning fuel stove, so we may have to switch to white gas.  The JetBoil we won’t be able to use until we get the screw-on canisters, but we still have enough gas to make coffee in the morning.

An early night and hopefully good weather tomorrow.

This is the end of the La Manche Route.  It was a really good veloroute.  If you were new to cycle touring this route would be a great route to start with.  It was really well signed all the way from Cherbourg to Mont Ste Michel with lots of interesting things to see and visit.