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Le Mont St. Michel: January 24, 2011
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Day 2: We woke up around 4:45 a.m. to start getting ready for the day. Berni picked us up at our hotel at around 6 a.m. and we made our way via the metro to the Gare Montparnasse stop to go to the train station. Our journey for the day would take us to Le Mont St. Michel in Normandy.
Our train left promptly at about 7:30 a.m. and since we were early, we picked up chocolate croissants, water, and coffee for our excursion.
The train ride was about 2 hours long, and I used this time to close my eyes for a nap. We arrived at the Rennes train station, and transferred to a bus for another hour long ride.
The French countryside was so gorgeous in the morning, even though it was drizzling. Towards the end of the bus ride, we turned on a causeway and in the distance, we could see Le Mont St. Michel. It was probably one of the most amazing sights I have ever seen in my life, making the three hour trek well worth it!
The bus dropped us off a little bit farther from the entrance, and Berni asked the driver as to where the bus would be picking us up later in the afternoon. He pointed near the bottom of the hill that was currently underneath water and told us the bus would be waiting at that particular parking lot. We were all confused because there didn’t appear to be enough room for a bus to fit in the parking lot because all we saw was water, but we just went with it. A little bridge took us from the small parking lot to the entrance, and underneath the bridge was water. It took us awhile to actually get inside the town because we kept stopping to take pictures. We even had a nice Asian tourist take pictures for us, from multiple angles! We should’ve hung out with him the rest of the day to be our own personal photographer….kidding.
Once we were inside, the inclining cobblestone path wound its way up towards the top of the monastery, with restaurants and souvenir shops to occupy our attention on the way up. As we made our way past the shops and restaurants, we reached several viewpoints that showed us the vast region of Normandy. Even in the drizzling weather, it was incredible. We had yet to discover that we still had a ways before actually making it inside the monastery, so we climbed up the hill even further. After we paid the entrance fee, we climbed up even more steps to the actual entrance.
We took our time exploring the monastery, and were all thankful for the lack of tourists. There were a few tour groups in the walled city, but I could just imagine the crowds in the summertime when the weather is good. The monastery led us through a garden, refectories, halls, a crypt, and chapels. The stairs led us underneath the monastery and the pamphlet provided to us gave us a description of every room that we entered. I can’t even begin to describe how amazing it was just to be there. 
It felt like we spent a few hours in the monastery, but I could be wrong. I had no sense of time when we were there. We exited the monastery in the gift shop and Berni bought a few postcards. Our next mission was to find a place to eat for lunch. We encountered several restaurants on our way down the hill, and they mostly had the same menu: omelettes and crepes.
We settled on a place called Chez Mado that had a view of the ocean. I ordered a ham, cheese, and egg crepe; Berni ordered moules et frites (mussels and fries), and AD ordered a traditional omelet. Since I ordered the prix fixe menu, I also got a salad and an apple caramel crepe for dessert.
When we were done with lunch, we had just enough time to shop for souvenirs. I bought tin cans filled with cookies for myself and other people at home. I suppose that this region is known for their salted caramel butter cookies, because they are fantastic! One funny part while we were shopping is that a group of Asian tourists came into the store that we were in.
As their tour guide was taking a head count, he mistakenly counted AD and me as part of their group. Ha! We quickly walked away so as not to mess up his head count, laughing hysterically. Next, we stopped in a bar and I got to enjoy my first vin chaud, which is hot wine. Yum!
We reached the parking lot to find out that what was once covered in water in the morning was now pavement cleared of the tides. We now understood what the bus driver earlier had said about the bus picking us up here! Throughout the day, the tides had diminished, revealing a huge parking lot.
The half hour bus ride took us to a different, smaller train station, and from there the train ride was three hours long. At first, there was hardly anybody on our train car so we all stretched out. As the stops progressed, more people came on, and thus minimized our nap time.
Once we reached our stop in Paris at Gare Montparnasse, Berni took us to the Latin Quarter for a fondue dinner at a restaurant called La Fontaine.
The Latin Quarter had beautiful blue lights strung up in the air and it felt magical. I definitely loved this part of Paris that I had never explored before. 
After dinner we stopped at a crepe stand and got dessert. I decided to try something I hadn’t had before and ordered a butter, cinnamon, and sugar crepe. It was delicious! We said our goodbyes after our LONG day and hopped on the metro towards our hotels. AD and I managed to, once again, get turned around once we exited our metro stop. Thankfully, it didn’t take us too long to find our hotel. It felt nice to settle into my comfortable bed and have a nice, deep sleep.
