Destination Mont St. Michel: Day-3 in France

My third day in France, I leave Paris, the city I could not yet explore to my heart’s content, and head off to rural France. My destination is Mont St. Michel, a church which has a history dating back to the 8th century A.D. The church is dedicated to St. Michael, the arch-angel. The unique thing about this church is that it’s built on a finger of land jutting out into the Atlantic ocean. But before I leave, I have some time so a visit to the Sacre Coeur Basilica, which was a short walk from the hotel. As we walked, we crossed a very charming part of Paris. Nice little restaurants like the one below, markets selling oysters, clams, mushrooms and different kinds of hams and cheese. 

Le Basilic restaurant.

Montmartre, on the way to Sacre Cour

 
Sacre Coeur
The Sacre Coeur Basilica is a slightly steep climb up the Montmartre hill. Once up, there is a beautiful view of Paris, and you can even see the Eiffel Tower from here. The Basilica itself is quite awe-inspiring. It’s a towering structure.

Sacre Cour

 
It is said that during a siege of Paris, the Montmartre hill was used to bombard
the city using cannons. There is a plaque on the wall, but since it’s in French,
I could not understand it completely, except for the fact that during a siege,
this particular point was used for cannon artillery.

View from the hill.

 
Mont Saint Michel
It’s not easy travelling from Paris to Mont St. Michel, as there is no direct train. Our plan was to take the TGV (long distance trains) from Paris Montparnasse station to Rennes. From Rennes, there is a bus service to Mont St. Michel. We checked out of our Paris hotel and headed off to Gare Montparnasse using the Metro, as usual. It was a bit crowded, but we found a place to sit, with our luggage near our feet. Soon a group of little kids boarded the Metro car near us, and it was amusing to watch them play. Their school teacher or supervisor was accompanying them and the poor guy had a hard time explaining to them why they should stand in one place, and hold on to something when the train is moving! At Gare Montparnasse, we disembarked, and I walked up to a big lady wearing a uniform and asked her where I could board a train to Rennes. As luck would have it, Paris has a metro station also named Rennes, and the helpful lady directed me to the metro, and told me which line to take! Luckily, I had spotted the station Rennes on the Paris metro map, and told this lady that I want to go to the Rennes, that’s NOT in Paris. Funny incident, and we both had a good laugh, and she directed me to the second floor of the station for TGV tickets.
Tickets to Rennes are expensive, at 77 euros, one way. Back home, I could have taken a flight from Bangalore to Delhi for the same price. But I realize, as the crisp notes in my wallet undergo metamorphosis to loose change, that Europe is quite expensive. The TGV to Rennes took about 3 hours, and we reached Rennes at around 3:40PM. To the right of the station is the bus company’s ticket office. I thought that this far from Paris, I would have trouble communicating with my miniscule knowledge of French. I was surprised, as the guy at the bus ticket office not only spoke English, but was also extremely helpful. He told us that the bus was due to leave at 4:40PM, and also showed us where the bus bay was. Now we had time to kill, so walked into one of the cafes near the station, and had a few drinks. There was some sort of red beer available there, which intrigued me. I have never seen or heard of beer of this colour!

Red beer. Tasted a bit like Dr. Pepper.

 
With the drinks paid for, we made our way back to the bus bay, and boarded the bus to Mont St. Michel. The bus driver was also very helpful. He asked us which hotel we had booked, and told us that he would stop there. He also explained the bus and train time table to make the return journey easier for us. People are indeed extremely helpful in this region of France.
The bus journey lasted about an hour. It was a beautiful ride through rural France, with fields of sunflower (all wilted though, as this is winter), farms of cattle and sheep, and geese (for foie gras). The bus stopped just across the road from the hotel, and we checked in. It was already 6:30PM. The Abbey was closed by now, but we still decided to walk to it just for a look-see. There is only a straight road, for about 2.5kms, leading to the Abbey, which is lit up well at night and can be seen form a distance.

The Abbey of Mont Saint Michel at night.

 
Inside the gates, it is a midieval town.

Inside the entrance to the Abbey

 
The Abbey is dedicated to Saint Michael, and in one of the recesses in a wall, there’s a small sculpture depicting the Saint’s victory over the dragon (the dragon lies vanquished at his feet).

Saint Michael and the dragon.