Just a few hours outside from Paris is the beautiful Mont-St-Michel making it the perfect day trip from the city!
A brief history:
This monastery was built upon a rock by the 10th century and became a destination for many seeking on religious pilgrimages. Before the bridge was built to connect the monastery to the mainland, it really was quite a dangerous trek to get there. A village began to grow around the monastery and by the 14th century, it extended around the entire rock.
This monastery was built upon a rock by the 10th century and became a destination for many seeking on religious pilgrimages. Before the bridge was built to connect the monastery to the mainland, it really was quite a dangerous trek to get there. A village began to grow around the monastery and by the 14th century, it extended around the entire rock.
Mont-St-Michel was fortified to prevent military assaults during the Hundred Years War and still stands strong today, over 1000 years from when the original sanctuary was first created.
Mont-St-Michel is one the second most visited places in France (second to the Louvre in Paris) so unless you go on a rainy day, in the middle of winter (which I don't recommend), the small streets leading up to monastery are going to be crowded. The main part of the village is full of souvenir shops and restaurants for tourists, but that's the way it's always been! Because people have been going on pilgrimages to here for years, the "tourist" element of this village is just a part of its history.
Only a handful of people still live in Mont-St-Michel and even fewer that live there year round.
from here you can see the road connecting mont-st-michel to the mainland! during high tide, the water rises all the way up so you can't get there any other way.
see where those people are walking? come high tide it becomes all water.
now the big mirrored ball isn't from the 10th century...
these steps & that small door were once a way for people to reach the sisters that were living in the monastery!
the cloister - this small garden area was a place for prayer and meditation.
oh how i loved mont-st-michel!
me in 2001 at mont-st-michel!
me in 2015 at mont-st-michel!
almost the exact same spot!
It was great returning to a place I hardly remembered! Mont-St-Michel has such an interesting history, so make sure to add a pilgrimage to this World Heritage Site (1979) to your bucket list!
We headed to Dinan next... read all about it here!
Madeleine
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Awesome! So great that you got a pic of yourself 15 years later!!
ReplyDeleteLove,
Momma