Restaurants and hotels

Contents

How to get there

Introduction and history

Dangers

Visit, arrival, schedules

Visit of the abbey

Ramparts, museums and city

Mont Saint Michel-Ramparts, museums and city 

Normandy main page

Landing sites memorials 1

Landing sites memorials 2

Rouen

Bayeux

Honfleur

Cote Fleurie

Cabourg

Houlgate

Trouville

Deauville

Dieppe

Le Havre

Etretat

Fecamp

Pays d'Auge, Calvados, Camembert and Cider

Inside, the abbey may be very beautiful, but looking closely from the outside, the carcass of the abbey now seems more like a horror film movie film set than a place of devotion. Maybe because it is partly denuded from the stained glass, religious statuaries and more hangingsthat once adorned its walls.

Ramparts stairs

And let's not forget it was one a prison where the delicate columns and arches of the cloister were made into cell walls, and this left a grim stain to the premises. 
You can eventually make a "ramparts tour" with a stunning view on the bay and the rocher de Tombelaine, which was occupied by the English during the 100-years War. This ramparts tour curls round the island to a series of terraces and paths that descend to the tour Gabriel (1524), crowned with a windmill. 

Tour Gabriel

After leaving the abbey, explore the higher reaches of the town by walking south past the Musée Grevin, part of three museums, which are all private. You can buy one and unique ticket for the three (75 FF). They offer all "inessential experiences"' about the abbey and its past. Grevin, of course, favours waxworks, while the Musée Historial and Historique as well as the Archeoscope, prefer dusty model ships and fatuous audiovisuals. Typical for La Grande Rue: tourist traps!
To finish your visit in great style, you have to take a walk in the evening, when the ramparts are deserted and the merchants of the Temple closed lowered their iron curtains on their ironmongery. The walls of the abbey church, illuminated, surge out of darkness like a iron harness and the gold winged Archangel appears, surrounded by millions of stars. It's magic......


Bibliography


Le Mont-Saint-Michel pierre à pierre by Marc Deceneux (Éditions Ouest France 1996), Millénaire monastique du Mont-Saint-Michel, by Michel Nortier( ed. Lethellieux Paris 1993),Le Mont-Saint-Michel,Histoire (Éditions du patrimoine).