Mont Saint-Michel

I kind of expected it to be bigger... and maybe a bit less touristy but I wasn't disappointed as some people said they were :)

We took the bus from Rennes early in the morning (9.45) to the main access that now has a brand new visitor complex with tourist information and toilets etc. From there you could choose from 3 options to get to the actual site: walk (45 minutes on a newly built footbridge), take a free shuttle bus (25 minutes) or pay for a seat on the horse carriage (35 minutes). We chose the free bus that was jam-packed with people. Even the first bus driver (who drove us from Rennes to Mont St-Michel) said that the site is absolutely filled with people and when wanting to come back with the bus be there early! so we'd expected that.

The town/island (? I really don't know how to call it properly) was absolutely lovely with its few streets filled with shops and restaurants. That was one negative side though :( Everything was aimed at tourists so it had lost its authenticity a bit but the streets that were a bit higher up weren't as crowded and didn't have any shops :) To simplify and create an image in your mind there are 3 main streets/paths - one on the very edge of the town with stunning views to the mainland and mud that people were walking on barefeet. That was lined with restaurants on one side. Second a level down in the town lined with only touristy shops and restaurants (mostly the same ones that had a terrace on the first street) filled with people. Crowds everywhere! Then there's the third level - mainly staircases connecting the abbey - the highest point - to the second street. All of them are basically an endless staircase going up to the abbey or down to the entrance gate. And that's about it. Just a lovely little tiny staircase town :)

The abbey is huge and totally worth going into :) Somehow we're always lucky with queues and had to wait there for max 15 mins before entering :) when we exited the queue was well longer than 30 minutes. So beware. That is the main tourist atrraction there and you can be assured that the people you see on the streets will probably want to go there sooner or later ;) 

That's about it really :P What you see (at first when approaching the island) is what you get. There's nothing on the "other side" of the island. 

It took us a couple of hours to walk through everything. We got there around 11 and by 3 we were done - this included enjoying a galette in a restaurant and later a coke and cake at a different café. Since we had time for our 5.20 bus back to Rennes we decided to walk back on the foot bridge, taking lots of pictures of it and marvelling at it one last time :)

Going back the bus was absolutely full and we were quite surprised that they were still selling tickets to people because there were people who had previously purchased a return ticket but they got another coach to come pick the people who didn't fit into ours so no one was luckily left behind :) Some people came from Paris for a day and had to catch the TGV back! So I think it was organised perfectly (you could hear people complaining though).

Ttyl ;)
Jazzz...