Mont St-Michel & St-Malo

The first day of June in Brittany dawned rainy and quite cold for the season. The clouds and misty rain were welcome, nevertheless. Rain is the regional norm and seemed to shroud the famous Mont St-Michel in mystery, which aura is well-deserved with its 14 centuries of history.

When the tide comes in, or at least before the construction of the roadway that now leads to the Mont St-Michel, it's an island, but a peninsula at low tide. The mount is a great defensive location and thus a hold in many wars, especially in the Hundred Years' War in the 14th and 15th centuries. Its original significance was, however, religious. The Bishop Aubert dreamed a dream in which the Archangel Michael instructed him to build a church atop the mount, which was finished in 709. The church grew progressively larger, and eventually became an abbey. In the Middle Ages, many pilgrims of all social classes came to visit the Mont Saint-Michel. The monks lived a quiet, secluded life at the very top of the mount, the nobility lodged in the quarters just below the monks', and the masses further towards the base of the mount, a perfect reflection of the social and political hierarchy of the times.

The mount is very unique architecturally. Building on a rock in the middle of the ocean makes for some interesting innovations. I won't delve into that here, but rather throw up some pictures for your enjoyment:




Particularly cool in the architecture department was the abbey church at the very summit of the mount. The back half of the church, that is, the nave and transept, are in the Romanesque style of the 10th to 12th centuries, but the choir is in the flamboyant Gothic style of the 15th century. The juxtaposition was very cool. Thanks again to Dr. Hurlbut. In the first photo, you can see the very Gothic choir with its vertical lines that draw the eye upward, but then in the second, along the sides, the Romanesque columns seem heavier, darker.

Also worth mention (by which I mean a photo) is the abbey's cloister, where monks circulated, cultivated, and (of course) prayed, all in earnest contemplation of divinity:

Pretty, no?

From Mont St-Michel, we drove to St-Malo, the site of some old fortresses along the Brittany coast. We mucked around in the sand and tide pools, climbed on some rocks, and up snails and shells. I felt very much the 7 year old that I am at heart.




Like I said, the fact that the day was overcast, cooler, and a bit misty just added to the mystical feel of the sites we saw. I felt a bit like the Celtic druids that lived in Brittany centuries upon centuries ago, wandering around, hood up.