Fulbright 2011-2012: Coast to Coast: Mont Saint Michel

Our first real trip was to visit Sophie's parents near Rennes and from there to go to Mont St. Michel - an old abbey that was built on a piece of land that during low tide is a penninsula and during high tide is an island. Its a fortified city with the abbey in the center - a must see if you come to France. We left Friday night and headed to Rennes (a 2 hour drive). We got lost (a requirement when driving here) but had a lovely dinner and chat with the parents before turning in early (early is relative since dinner is around 8pm, early means 11pm or midnight) so we could get up and head out early.

We were on the road and Erin promptly fell asleep (she always sleeps in the car!) and we saw a sign for an American cemetery (from the war) and decided to stop. It was quite impressive. The land was donated to the US and is maintained by the US; I think the DoD, and you can tell with the grass trimmed short and the edges cut perfectly straight. There is always an English speaker to give information about the cemetery - it was a little piece of home. And then to see the rows and rows of white crossed was very humbling - but to hear the parents describe how small this one was compared to the big ones in Normandy was just amazing. From one of the buildings we got to see how the invasion took place and since we were driving passed these places, or saw them while planning this trip, it made it much more real than its been before. Very sad and hard to imagine.

We continued up to Mont Saint Michel and we could see it in the distance and it looked like a magical island in the distance. But I'll be honest when we parked the car just a short 5 minute walk on a well built road I was a little disappointed. The city looked as I had imagined but the semi-island didn't look like it ever was an island. But that was due to the fact that we came at the lowest low tide of the year, so next time I go, I'm going to make sure its during high tide!

We were lucky because it was the weekend that all monuments in France were free to enter. So we all went into the abbey and walked through it - it was the first time the parents did the tour since it normally costs around $15/person. It was quite impressive.

We grabbed a quick sandwich and then got in the car and the parents took us along the scenic route to the next town and I'm sure it was beautiful....but Erin and I were fast asleep :) The next town we went to was St. Malo which was another fortified city right on the water. We walked through the city and then along the old ramparts. It was awesome! They even have a pool that you don't see during high tide and then during low tide you can swim in it - and the water just cycles out with the tides. What a beautiful city. When we were leaving they were having a demo for water sports and we saw Da Kine, a Hawaiian company, and had to take a few pics.

Our final city for the day was Dinard. Following the theme, an old fortified city. We just walked around and marveled at how this buildings from the 1300s still were standing! Some people with the older houses I guess wanted to have some fun with all of the people taking pictures of their houses, so they put up posters of people in the window to startle photo takers - I thought I had accidentally taken a picture of a lady getting dressed!

We had pizza for dinner and Erin got her first accordion lesson. The next day we went on a tour of Rennes - another old city...but it is quite big now. We went to Sophie's grandmother's place along with the old sections. The parents also showed us a small monument where an American airplane had crashed and Sophie's grandmother remembers hearing the plane crash from a few fields away. It's really sad and interesting to hear stories about the war.