Well, we did it! We hiked up a gazillion steps and saw a soaring cathedral as well as the rest of the weighty monastery. It was absolutely worth every stair we climbed! I can't really even explain the experience. This place wasn't like anything we've ever seen before. But I will do my best!
First of all, we got up early this morning so we could tour the ramparts and see the views without a bunch of other tourists! It was quiet and foggy and perfectly peaceful. There were maybe five of us total up there for about 30 minutes. Then slowly but surely a few more people started arriving. At that point we headed for the stairs that lead up to the main door. The place was supposed to open at 9:00 AM and we arrived at the stairs around 8:30 only to find a sign that said it would maybe open around 9:30. It seems all the employees are on some sort of strike because of the drastic changes they're making on the mainland side (building a new bridge), and it's impacting their daily arrivals/departures in a negative way. So we grabbed a step, along with all the other early arrivand had a seat to wait. Sure enough, at about 9:30 AM several ladies arrived to unlock the door, and to our great delight, they just waved us right past the ticket counter and didn't make us pay. I guess if they're on strike then they won't be very worried about getting fired over it! :-) So we saved 20 Euros!
So this is where it gets tricky to describe how many levels, rooms, halls, stairwells, etc. there are in this place. It is gigantic! We first walked up about 80 stairs to get to the wide open courtyard (terrace) that looks out over the Bay of St. Michel. You can see the lowland pastures across the bay on the mainland. It's absolutely beautiful, especially with the fog floating about making everything look a bit mysterious and enchanted.
The abbey itself is made of grey stone instead of the creamy limestone we've seen everywhere else. All the buildings of the monastery are made of granite stones quarried from a nearby island. This gray color of the granite makes everything seem a little darker and heavier. But the abbey is still beautiful, and it's actually quite open and light for being made of such dark stone. The monks built the abbey on the summit of this rock mountain to be as close to God as possible, and you really do feel like you are a million miles away from the world as you look out over the bay.
Next, we traveled down a few stairs and out to the cloister. I absolutely love cloisters because of the hard stone columns juxtaposed against the lush green of the gardens. It always seems so perfectly peaceful in a cloister.
After this we kept going either up or down flight after flight of stairs to see all the other rooms that the monks would've used. A lot of the rooms look very similar (huge with big, beautiful columns) so I won't comment on each of them. I will mention that one of the rooms was the crypt, and it was amazing! It had stone pillars in it that were probably six to eight feet in diameter. They were fantastic! The whole place was just awe-inspiring. It was so interesting to be traveling through this huge warren of stairs, halls, open rooms, enclosed spaces, etc. It seemed like there was no end to it, so it was great fun to explore! And even though there were probably 120 people waiting with us for the doors to open at 9:30, the place is so huge that once we got past the church and cloisters and spread out, we didn't hardly see anyone else.
By the time we finished exploring it was about 10:45 AM and HORDES of tourists and children on field trips were arriving to the island. We'd read about this in the guidebook, and it warned us to be heading off the island by 11:00 AM because that's when it's overrun with tourists. As we were heading down the single road, it was like trying to swim against the tide because there were so many people on their way up! We were glad to have already "been there and done that"!
Oh, a couple of other things about our stay on the mont....our hotel was about halfway up the road between the seawall and the monastery. It was teeny, tiny, like all the other hotels on the island, and they're all built straight up because there's not much room. Our room was a tiny little thing with half timbered walls and old cross-hatched windows. The picture really doesn't do it justice. It was really very cool!
Another plus was that our dinner on the mont was really quite good. We'd read about how all the restaurants on the road are just big tourist traps with generic food and high prices. They were right about the prices, but luckily we picked a restaurant where the food was actually a treat! I had roasted sea bass (a whole fish) that was beautifully presented next to potatoes au gratin and a green salad. It was absolutely delicious and had been cooked with thyme and lemon! Yum! Tammy had the rack of lamb which was served with some sort of cannelini-like beans (but they were a light green color) and frites. Hers was also delicious! The lamb was perfectly cooked and flavored with rosemary! A perfect ending to a long day of driving.
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