Mont St Michel to the Bayeux Tapestry

Sunday, 06 September

I headed for the Eiffel Tower for my morning walk but couldn’t make it in the hour I had. I did see the top third when I turned around. On the way back, I realised I was running through dry, brown leaves on the path. Autumn was here! Well, Autumny enough for the leaves to fall and to have a chill in the air.

The previous night we made friends with a Canadian family cycling through Europe for an entire year. They have a 9 year-old son and 11 year old daughter and have been on the road for the last 5 weeks. So far, they have had an excellent time, even when they have to cycle up to 70km a day, cycling for 6 hours a day. It pales the girl’s complaints of sitting in Springy reading their books for a few hours a day while drive in comparison.

The day was spent taking the backroads out of Paris. We initially intended to visit the massive market in Paris before we left but the lack of parking and the acres of stalls, mostly knockoff clothing and shoes, put Dee off. So we then had to negotiate  our way out and back onto our original path.

Luckily, we came across a small local produce market and stocked up again, buying some yummy food from one vendor. So impressed with the food, I went back to buy more for dinner tonight. I also gave their young daughter, who had tried to translate for us, a few Australian coins.

We found our farm for the night that had geese, chicken and other poultry. SO, me acting a goose was perfectly acceptable.
J

Monday, 07 September

Taking more backroads, we finally arrived at Mont St. Michel. After a quick bit of math, I figured it was 16 years, 3 months and 3 days since we had been here last. We noticed the changes that had taken place, mainly the massive carpark a few kilometers from the Abbey. With the high level of tourism, it’s not surprising this occurred.

Unfortunately, the who day had a shadow cast over it by the behavior of the guide directing us to the relevant parking spot for campers. I don’t expect the staff to all speak English, that would be arrogant and ridiculous. I would expect that the guide not to be smug about not being to help us if we didn’t speak French and dismissive of us. It infuriated Dee to the extent that she didn’t want to visit the site at all.

After lunch and an afternoon kip, we took Dee to the Abbey but she didn’t tour through as the steps would be too much effort on her heart.

As the abbey was over 3km from the carpark, a free bus service was available that operated from 7am to 1am. If you have ever read, ‘Dr Doolittle’, there was a creature with a head at either end of its body called a ‘Push me-Pull you’. This buses were like that with a driver’s seat at each end as there wasn’t enough of a turn around space at the Abbey or the information place.

I took Gene through the Abbey and we enjoyed it immensely. We had come at just the right time as the Abbey closed its entrance just after we left, an hour earlier than normal. We had planned to dine on the island but all the restaurants didn’t open until 7pm an hour and half later. We decided to head towards the ‘town’ (more of a supporting complex with restaurants and hotels). We had a wonderful dinner and spent the night in the carpark, especially considering parking was over 20 Euro for a 24 hour period.

Tuesday, 08 September

My walk took me back to Mont St Michel, enjoying the sight of sun rising a multitude of tourists taking photos of it. 

More backroads took us to Omaha Beach , a museum and the cemetery of the fallen American soldiers. Dee really didn’t want to be here but I felt it was important for Gene to see and experience the site.

In the afternoon we visited the Bayeux Tapestry (noting it is actually an embroidery). It had been moved from the last place where we saw originally. Much less of an explanation about it at first with an audio guide that shuffled you along until it deposited you at the souvenir shop. At least we weren’t on a conveyor belt this time. It was wonderful to see the embroidery again. Strangely, I was the only person dressed like the people in the art……….

We loaded the GPS with our rest spot for the night which was only a few kms away. The GPS wanted me to drive 1 ½ hours, so I knew something was wrong. After triple checking the co-ordinates, we realised they were incorrect in the book, so we had to decipher the directions and make our way to the cider farm.