Day 8 - Mt Saint Michel & Normandy

Sunday morning we eagerly opened the blinds to peek out the window, hoping the weather gods had listen to our prayers through the night for good weather anticipating they had proved the weather predictions wrong and we weren’t disappointed as it looked pretty good with clouds but no rain. After a very quick breakfast and lugging all our growing luggage to the car we set off the 10 km to Mt- St- Michel, passing buses after buses lined up along the road waiting to pick up passengers still enjoying their breakfasts at their leisure.

Mt-St-Michel is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Normandy a monastery build on a rock island with the first building being started in 708 by Aubert, Bishop of Avranches and being such a popular destination our Lonely Planet books said to try and avoid Mt-St-Michel on a Sunday (a no go) and also to try and get there before 9 am and after 5pm.

At least we got our arrival well before 9 o’clock right and breezed through to a very close and good parking space. After waiting for our male passenger who was dropped off half way to the entrance to take some photos we set off into the closed in buildings taking the narrow streets up, up and up and steps upward that never seemed to end with

Salme saying her mantra of “I am going to make it” over and over again. We took it slow and we managed to overtake numerous unfit much younger tourists making us and our 81 year old travel partner feeling pretty good.

Up on the top of the Monastery the wind was quite chilly but all the clouds had blown away giving us a spectacular view ready for our guided tour by a very knowledgeable young lady taking us

through the history and after taking us on a spiral walk under the Abby. When the tour ended we were halfway down not far from the plentiful restaurants and tourist’s shops and our guide books had been right,

by lunchtime it was absolutely packed with people and quite unbearable.

Lunch looked pretty good and with a view to die for, with water and 3 unusual dishes were enjoyed especially Peters omelette looking more like a soufflé’ than an omelette and some souvenirs were bought before making it back to the car for the next leg of the trip.

The driver (Yvonne) set off towards Arromanches with TomTom and Peter guiding her through horribly narrowed street villages, maybe it was another shortcut or just a test, but after 1.5 hrs. we arrived at our destination breathing in the sea air and Peter and Salme taking off towards the Museum to absorb all about D-Day,

leaving Yvonne to look for some pills to relieve her headache with little success being a Sunday. Some retail therapy in one of the plentiful shops seemed to do the trick of getting over the little stressed head and by the time we met up again all were feeling good and were ready for the next leg toward our hotel in the little town by the sea at Sword Beach called Lion-Sur-Mere.

It was another clean and charming hotel with staff to match and this one even had a mascot in a basket by the reception, a very old Shih Tzu that came and slept under guests table as they were eating breakfast.