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Touring the Mount

The town and Abbey of Mont Saint Michel

By Matt Scott

The green pastures of Normandy meet the sea head on and only at low tide do vast mud flats separate the land from the water. Gentle rolling hills form in the distance, and a monument of biblical proportions rises out of the pleasant countryside. Mont-saint-Michel appears as a small pyramid on the horizon, erupting out of the mud and water, reaching toward the heavens.

People are walking between the remaining pools of water, reflected, mirage like, against the wet sands, recreating the path taken by pilgrims over the centuries. The rapidly rising tides claim several lives a year, and while an experienced guide accompanies these groups, the warm beach is more accommodating to a pair or day-trippers from Paris, getting their first glimpse of this historic and monumental sight.

The first church was built on this island hilltop in the early 700s and the first Benedictine community arrive here over 1,000 years ago. Over the centuries the buildings have grown from little more than a stone room to the maze of impressive buildings that can be seen today. The tiered construction, poised between heaven and earth, attracts 3.5 million tourists a year.

Twenty minutes round the coast, through small faming villages, brings us into the bustling town of Avranches and just a short way out of town we drive onto the long causeway that leads up to the mount. Before this was built in 1879 visitors to the island would have to take a boat, or trudge through the mud at low tide. Today, while sheep and cattle graze on the salt marshes beside the Mount, hundreds of cars and coaches park beneath the abbey, dwarfed by the expanse of the medieval buildings.

Walking through the medieval entrance to the island, the plethora of tourist shops and restaurants are a shock after the grandeur of the exterior. However, the inevitability of making Euros from this religious relic can be easily escaped, just a hundred meters of T-shirts, snow globes and the smell of fresh cooking separates the visitors from picturesque medieval houses, grey roof tops and city walls with views over the incoming sea and the abbey’s spire. A walk along the fortifications see you risen above the crowds, the meter thick walls, that once resisted the English during the Hundred Years War, now serve as ideal spot for tourists and their cameras.

The mount’s houses sit behind the island’s walls, gradually stepped up until they reach the sheer walls of the abbey itself. Lines of trees, even the odd palm, break up the level between houses; wooden, tiles and slate roofs, coloured façades, wood, plaster and rock, balconies, window baskets and classic shop fronts create a patchwork of history and colour.

The pathways of the mount gradually slope upwards; narrow alleyways snake around the houses, gradually leading up to the imposing walls of the abbey.

It seem as though everyone walks with their head up, gazing at the spire that follows us around the mount. The spire casts a shadow over the island, acting as a giant sundial; counting down the hours until the tide rushes in once more. Only as you climb a vast staircase and enter the ancient abbey does the view disappear.

After passing through the Guard Rom, which acts as the visitors’ centre and ticket office, we emerge outside once again. The Grand Degre, a wide flight of stairs leads between the sheer walls of the church and the abbey; rising almost twenty meters to the gargoyles on top, which act as an ancient form of guttering. Arched walkways join the higher levels and gothic windows are doted between the buttresses. Doorways, so short they appear to have sunk into the stairway, line one side of the wall. A face appears in one of the windows and a door opens; a nun, dressed in a simple grey and white habit, emerges and makes her way up the stairs.

As we reach the last of the steps and walk a small terrace a large wooden door is opened and we are invited into the church. Rebuilt after the Hundred Year’s War, following the collapse of the original church in 1421, the long nave leads to a simple, stain-glassed window, beaming sunlight over the twenty or so nuns standing in the choir. The church’s beauty is only equalled by the acoustics as the sisters begin their angelic singing. A priest, accompanied by one of the island’s monks waves incense over heads of the congregation as he walks to the pulpit to begin his sermon. The angelic singing continues as we make out way quietly outside.

A large terrace at the summit of the mount give sweeping views over the surrounding area; out into the open sea to the west and across the green pastures of Normandy to the east, these vistas suddenly open up after exiting the church; no longer framed by windows or walkways. The 32-meter steeple now dominates the skyline, with the gold statue of St Michael at its summit. The saint, who served as a war like angel protecting the mount during its many attacks, looks over it still from almost 100 meters above the sea.

Singing can still be heard from inside the church as the incoming tide whispers its presence far below; while there has been a change in architecture over the past centuries, the sights and sounds of this magical area remain.

One of the most peaceful areas of the mount is seclude from many of the views that dominate the rest of the mount. The cloisters are a simple rose and flower garden, framed by a parallel line of ornate pillars; a simple tri arched windows overlooks the coast from the south wall. It is easy to see why hundreds of generations of pilgrims have come to this spot for quiet contemplation and relaxation; it is a relief that such an area is at the summit of the mount, and does not receive the huge crowds of the areas below. It is with some disappointment that we head back inside the building and leave the views and tranquillity behind.

There are small glimpses out to sea through the misted glass of the ancient windows inside the abbey. Ornate pillars support vaulted ceilings and the sunlight casts small beams onto the stone floors of the refectory. A long guest hall with vast stained glass window and vaulted roof leads into darker areas; the great pillared crypt. Beset with wide pillars; only a few beams of light reach to the far walls from the small, plain windows on the opposite side. There is little interpretive information but the changes in style and age can clearly be seen as you pass from room to room, they have not been elaborately decorated, nor do they hold old documents or artefacts to entice the visitor; but the nakedness of the rooms only add to their spender.

One of the only artefacts that remind visitors of the abbey’s incredible history is on the middle level in the monks’ ossuary. The room that once housed the exhumed bones of the Abbey’s monks, now houses a man sized hamster wheel, highlighted by a beam of sunlight from a small window. Used during the Middle Ages to hoist building materials into the mount and during the French revolution to bring food into the jail, it now lies dormant.

Only in 1874, after the mount had been designated a historical monument was work carried out to restore the buildings to their former glory. The years of neglect and decades misuse by the prisons that once lived in the mount it fall into disrepair; the work that has been carried out since resulted in UNESCO recognition as a world heritage site in 1979.

The tour through the buildings of the abbey brings us through a small, empty chapel into the Knights Hall. Once used as a place of work and study by the monks; the manuscripts and books produced are now housed in a museum at Avranche and the room shows little sign of the scholarly masterpieces that were once produced here; the architecture has withstood the test of time that much of the monks’ work did not.

Emerging from the Visitors Centre, into the bright sunshine we can once again look up at the imposing walls that meet the gothic architecture of the church at its summit; the view is made all the more impressive after seeing the intricate maze of corridors, rooms, steps and buildings that are protected by this fortress.

Just a few meters from the islands small port, a one-roomed chapel rests next to the water. Crusted by barnacles and battered by the decades of weather, a small statue of a bishop stands proudly on the roof. The chapel is one of the simplest rooms on the island; no ornate decoration or elaborate architecture has been used to create this small space, its size has dictate that four stone walls and a simple roof is all that’s needed. An old wooden door, bend and broken rest in its frame, allowing sand and dirt inside; it appears no one has been here for months. Surrounded by rocks and vegetation, no part of the abbey or houses can be seen from its door, there is only the open sea and the rocky sides of the Mount in view. There are no other visitors here; for such a small island isolation is not hard to find.

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