Day 66: Saint Coulomb to Mont St. Michel

May 31, 2018

Brigitte and her husband, like each of the other chambre d'hote hosts, came out to the street to wish us well on our way. Our stay at La Fee Morgane had been a long one - about 17 hours in the quite little room. That was because we had arrived so early yesterday. Surprisingly the long rest did not give me more energy. You actually need a good balance of rest and activity to feel the best.

P.S. "La Fee Morgane" refers to King Arthur's half sister, Morgana. Brigitte chose this name for her daughter, and named the B&B after her. When Dodie told me that Morgana was evil and had brought about Arthur's downfall, I was shocked. But Dodie said I was being ridiculous, since it is only a fairy story. Yikes, next Dodie could be claiming that Sarek is not Spock's father, or who knows what else!

Brigitte and her husband, of La Fee Morgane

We had an enforced short day on tap for today as well, since all we wanted to do was to reach Mont St Michel and be installed ready for a big visit there tomorrow. The short day gave us time to shoot up to the coast from St. Coulomb,and have a look at Pointe de Grouin. This is just one of many points along this section of Channel, but all are beautiful. It's the combination of rocky outcrops, boats, and little offshore rocks or islands.

La Pointe du Grouin kicks off the circuit of the Saint Michel Bay, which of course ends with the island abbey, Mont St Michel. Around the bay, both the Rick Steeves guide book and our maps detail the things to look for. The first thing is Mont St Michel itself. Rick says to look for it in the distance, and if you don't see it, due to fog, to look harder. We did actually spot it, as a grey blob, like this:

The things to see around the bay, according to the various sources, are oysters - where the town of Cancale is the capital -, sail driven little vehicles, sheep that dine on the salt marshes - producing specially flavourful lamb, poles out in the bay on which mussels are somehow grown, and windmills from past drainage projects on the land. Here is our map, to put you in the picture:

We started in the upper left and spun around the Bay

Cancale was a nice, fairly standard town - with a church square featuring a baker, a butcher, and other necessary commercial ventures. We did spot at the butcher that they sell the special lamb from the salt flats. Rick Steves cautions that you should make sure, in a restaurant, that you are getting the real thing and not a generic New Zealand lamb.

Down a long hill from the church square lies Cancale's waterfront and little oyster market. Once again the Grampies strike out by not being into the delicacies on offer in any given French region. However I do remember some oysters from childhood. My dad would bring them home, and I was very impressed by how they got opened with a screw driver. At Cancale they had many varieties, with one really large one called a Horse's Foot. We noticed one of these still slightly opening and closing, and thought about buying it to throw it back in the sea. Idiots.

Cancale's waterfront also had some attractive houses, though not the Belle Epoque gems we have started to look for.

There is supposedly a greenway all the way from Cancale to Mont St Michel, but maybe due to construction we found ourselves on the too busy D155. This gave us the unwanted chance, once again, to observe the suicidal bad driving habits surrounding passing. One near head on miss of about 6 inches left us shaking. So as quickly as possible we threaded our way to where we found the bike path. And yes, from there it was great all the way.

Dodie mixes it up with a front end loader - but at least he is passing reasonably safely.

As we went along, we were able to tick off the sheep, the sail cars, and maybe the mussels, though we are not sure quite how that works.

We are not sure if these poles are part of mussel culture or not.

These could have something to do with mussels?

These boats look a little comical. But they must have a serious use out on the tidal flats.

There were many windmills like this along the bay, but only this one still had its sails.

Things went into a bit of a doldrums where we did not see the bay nor any sheep nor oysters nor the other things we had been set up to look for. This is where on cycle trips you just patiently crank along, maybe daydreaming. Actually, I might be daydreaming but Dodie still needed to be alert for the signs marking the various twists and turns of the route!

Finally, and sort of suddenly, we found ourselves on the long straight run beside the Couesnon River. The river and and the cycle way lead straight to Mont St Michel, which was clearly visible and growing larger, straight ahead. I was surprised, after all the hype about crowds that I had read, to find just a quiet river and path, with a sprinkling of cyclists and walkers.

Over to the right, eventually, there did appear the hotels and shops that Google Maps had shown us when we researched the area. But this was no multi-lane car clogged high speed zoo, far from it. All there was was several quiet conservative spaced out hotels and restaurants, with remarkably little traffic about. In fact, pretty much all there was in terms of traffic was the frequent, sedate, shuttle busses plying the road back and forth to the island.

We decided to continue on the bike/walking path, which soon merged with the bus route, to go up close to the island for a peek. At one point a sign indicated no bikes from 10 to 6, but we ignored that for a bit, anyway.

We have always been intrigued to know the reality of various accounts we have read, claiming that you can or can not bike to the island, that the causeway has been removed to allow free flow of tidal water, and about the length of walk required to get onto a shuttle bus.

The truth of these matters, at least as of today, is that the island is surrounded by tidal flats that are actually walkable at low tide. Whether or not a solid causeway once existed, right now there is a road all the way up to the buildings of the island, but the road is suspended on piles so as to not interfere with the tidal action. Except for that sign about no cycling 10 -6 and one other no bikes sign, you can use the broad walkway beside the road to cycle right to the buildings. Several people had actually done this and locked their bikes there. However in the area where the buses depart from (a couple of km from the island) there is bike parking and we also saw a sign for luggage storage.

One thing is sure, you can not take a bike on the "streets" of the island. This is just like Venice - streets are actually just passageways or lanes. You are lucky to be able to just walk.

The buses proceed along that 2 km route, stopping at a few spots, so it is easy to get on one. They are free of charge. Interestingly, to avoid having to turn around, the buses can be driven from either end. So the driver just gets out, walks to the other end of the bus, and drives off back again. If one wanted to avoid having to walk the remaining distance to the island from where the busses do this reversal act, one can also hire a horse drawn cart. These go really all the way to the buildings of the island.

The transport than now goes closest to the Abbey.

The island itself is 100% as beautiful and iconic as one might have thought. It is strangely normal and abnormal. The abnormal part is the fact of the huge abbey looming high on the mini island mountain. The normal part is that below the abbey a little village exists, and this has restaurants, hotels, and shops, even churches.

Our game was to arrive in the vicinity of Mont St Michel and get installed in a hotel. Then the next day (tomorrow) we would devote to visiting the island. We have not changed that, but having cycled up to the island and having scoped out the shuttle buses, we could not resist going for a closer peek.

We began by cycling back, to find our hotel, the Gabriel. This turned out to be as we had already observed, not a Las Vegas type situation or anything close. Just a small, if modern, hotel in which they stashed our bikes in a large linen storage and gave us a ground floor room just adjacent. No fuss, no crowds, no glitz.

Our hotel is one of the closest to the actual island

We then walked across the street (and how great is this!) to our very own Brioche Doree and bought a sandwich to take along. Then we hopped on a shuttle and were off!

We knew that there was a Tourist Information on the island, and we wanted to talk to them because we had hatched a plan of taking a ferry over to the island of Jersey, which can be reached from Granville, which is 50 km from here. Jersey has been on our radar not only since we had a Jersey cow, but since we were avid readers of Gerald Durrell, who founded a zoo on the island.

Again, the Tourist Information was right there - easily found - and we just walked right up to one of the three staff with our questions. We did find out about getting to Jersey, but there is only one ferry a day. Sadly, after analysing the timing and costs back in our room, we decided to give it a miss.

From the TI, we set off following the one visible "street", which proceeded upwards and which was lined by many shops and restaurants plus a couple of buildings serving as hotels. The shops of course featured souvenirs. Mostly we love shops like that, though Dodie had been very critical of the same thing at Carcassonne one time. This time it was really fun. There was also lots of overpriced ice cream, and this time we bought doubles. Yikes, why were we in such a good mood?

Along the way we encountered a church - not the church of the island, but the small Eglise St. Pierre. We liked this one a lot - for its wooden hull like ceiling, and intimate, musty atmosphere.

As we walked higher along the street we got slightly different views looking backwards. It was quite delightful. Before we had climbed too far at all we decided we had better quit, to save some fun for tomorrow.

Though Dodie had her two walking sticks, descending proved to be a trial, and she was glad to reach the bottom. From there there was still the short but not too short walk to where the shuttles have reversed course. By the time we returned to the hotel, Dodie's knees were painful indeed. That means tomorrow could be a trial as well. One reason we are cycling is that Dodie feels free on the bike. So it must just be conditioning to think that a "day off" could be relaxing.

We just found out that the shuttle buses only start tomorrow at eight. Eight, are they kidding! We will just start walking before that. No way these French folks can out-crazy us!

Today's ride: 60 km (37 miles)
Total: 4,359 km (2,707 miles)

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