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| Mt. San Michel from the causway |
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| looking thoughtfull |
Ah Brittany, the quintessential French experience,
with its small villages and winding rivers and among other impressive sights
one of the top Christian sights in the world... The famous island monastery of
Mount St. Michel (Mount of the archangel Michel) and it definitely deserves top
ranking. Built on a mountain in the middle of mudflats, at high tide it is
completely isolated by the rising sea and only a single causeway links it to
the mainland, while at low tide mudflats and quicksand surround it. This place has one of the fastest tidal fluxes
in the world and it races in faster than a horse can run! As an aside, just
down the road in St. Malo they’ve been generating electricity from the tidal
flux since 1961! Peasants have been coming on pilgrimages here since the
monastery was built in the 8th century A.D. and continue to this
very day. They got the idea to build this when, in 708 A.D. St. Aubert was
visited by dreams of the Archangel Michel telling him to “build here and build
high”. Unfortunately though the first few of these orders went unnoticed until
finally (according to legend) St. Michel got so fed up with it that he came and
pushed in St. Auberts skull with his thumb in a dream. When the Saint awoke he
realized the mark was there and set about building the church. (Don’t say you
never learned anything from me.)
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The view from ontop
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