Day 7 - Mont St Michel

Half of our Breakfast

Josh and Daniel admiring Breakfast

We woke up this morning to sound of breakfast being delivered to our Hotel room. Our hotel in Caen (Hotel Astrid) is a quite old and traditional and is located right in the middle of Caen.  The Lady who runs the place is one of the most friendly and nice people I have ever met.  She reminds me of Trudie Poppenberger from Salzburg but without the party room.
Breakfast was Croissants, Baguettes, Yogurt, Cheese, hot Chocolate and Tea.  Just the thing to get us ready for our drive out to Mont St Michel.

Mont St. Michel

Mont St Michel is a monastery built at the top of a rock islet that overlooks the sea, right on the border of Normandy ad Brittany. Legend has it that the Arc Angel Michael appeared to the Bishop of Avranches and instructed him to build a Monastery on the site.  Today it is a world heritage listed site, but it has been a monastery and even a prison since it was built in the 8th Century.  The drive took us about one and a half hours, but it was well worth it.  Even from 10 km's away the monastery looks quite spectacular.

View from the carpark

As we got closer to the Island, the traffic started to build.  By the time we arrived, we were in bumper to bumper, snail pace traffic.  We ended up parking about 1000m from the island.  There was a steady queue of people heading over to the island from the carpark, so we joined the crowed and headed over.  At this time Josh mentioned that he wasn't feeling very well. We asked him what he wanted to do, and he said he would keep going, so we did.  By the time we got to the base of the Island there were people everywhere. - I guess the one drawback of being such a spectacular place is that eveyone else wants to see it as well.  We pressed through the crowds and started to climb the steps towards the Monastery.  When we finally arrived at the Monastery there was a long line of people all waiting to the enter.  After watching the line for a while (which didn;t seem to be moving) we decided that Josh was not up to a long wait in the sun, so we headed back down through the crowds and back to the car.  We've loaded some more photos to the following link

https://picasaweb.google.com/100598507530209494896/MontStMichel

Josh had a sleep in the car on the way back to the Hotel, and by the time we arrived he was feeling much better.  After a short rest for eveyone else back at the Hotel, we headed off again, this time to see the Abbaye Aux Hommes, or Mens Abbey, which was built by William the Conqueror.  He was also buried at the same locaton.  After Napoleon, Joan of Arc and now William the Conqueror, this Holiday is  starting to feel a bit like an "Age of Empire II" tour. Oh well, at least the boys are showing an interest in History!. After that it was back to the Hotel to pack again, as tomorrow we head to the England.