El Túnel - La Fin

In the year 708 Aubert, the Bishop of Avranches had a dream that the archangel Michael appeared to him and ordered him to build a church on Monte Tombe, a rocky tidal island in Normandy. Aubert didn't believe this was real and ignored it. Again he dreamed that St. Michael appeared to him with the same request. Aubert blew it off. The third time St. Michael had had it. He knocked a hole in Aubert's head.

Just an aside. It's good I don't have this particular power, otherwise
''GET YOUR SHOES AND SOCKS ON!!!" could be a lot scarier...

My dream coming true

I have wanted to visit Mont St. Michel ever since I first saw a photo of it.

I have a religious fixation, that I think my friends and family would agree is a full blown obsession. I fantasize about being a nun/priest. It 100% appeals to me. There is the light hearted side that can see that being married to JC has some great benefits.

• A. He doesn't snore. (Mike very unhelpfully pointed out that he won't snore either when he is dead.)
• B. I would never have to listen to Him chew anything.

And then there is the more serious side. I want to spend all of my life contemplating God. For now, I tell myself that I am a nun, and Mike is my father confessor. I am explaining this so that you can understand how exciting this day was for me, getting to visit this place I have dreamed of visiting, an ancient site where people have have gathered and worshipped God for a millenium.* (see blog-end)

Mont St. Michel is approximately one kilometer off of the coast of Normandy, on the border of Brittany. It is connected by a land bridge/parking lot, and I have read this might be removed and replaced with a suspension bridge and ferry service. The tides move in very quickly, at one meter per second. Pilgrims can be seen with their pants rolled up crossing from the main land via the wet sands. There are posted warnings of the dangers of quicksand.



Photo by Museumchick, Sucked in the Quicksands, Paul Cappelani, 1909 



Pilgrims

Foreshadowing...

The first thing that happens when you enter Mont St. Michel, is akin to falling into quicksand, especially if you are traveling with young ones. The tourist trap.

Holy Guacamole.
(and, Diagon Alley-ish!)

It was painful, the begging exploded. Mike and I agree, we want this adventure to be about experiences and severely limit purchases. We have talked with the boys about this, but when confronted with plastic swords, snow globes, actual swords, full suits of armor, all memory of recent conversations is lost.
"PLEASE!!!!!!!" (repeat endlessly)
It is a struggle and very annoying. I am not sure how to handle it. I get grumpy and then I am not communing. One idea I have considered is to give them a very small budget that they can use for whatever they want. If you have any brill ideas, please share (brill is a word I just learned from my English friend, I think it's brill, don't you? Manky is another one. I will be throwing manky around, once I know what it means).

The power of desire for stuff is strong. I also find myself wanting wanting wanting.

We made it through, but I wish it weren't there.

French fries, Orangina and a graveyard.

Henri Georges Adam
Donna, is this a relative?

We started to make our way up, ducking into a teeny church as quietly as we could. It is the parish church of St. Pierre, built in the 11th century. It feels very old, and inside is a statue of St. Michael slaying the dragon. I want to explain to the children what is intended by these violent images and others that we see, but it is difficult. I told them that the dragon represents evil, such a tricky concept. Someday I will tell them that I believe we are all 50% evil, but not today.

There are several hotels, and I think staying in such a location could be magical, but the tourists abound. After visiting and seeing the multitudes, I wouldn't choose to stay there.

The verticality of the monument is fascinating.



This is boring! The delicate balance between happy you and happy me.

 

The view.



Contemplating quicksand...

It goes up and up and we didn't really know where we were going. There are tiny, winding streets that branch off here and there. We climbed up and up and came to the entrance of the abbey. You queue up and pay 8.50 Euro per adult, the children were free.

Looooong way down...

Lady bug in the cloisters



The two things that struck me about this place are the simplicity/austerity and the magnitude. It is massive, rooms are massive, fireplaces are massive, columns are massive. It feels like a giant's house.

But the austerity enchanted me the most. I expected religious art work and golden everything. In January of 2010 Mike and I visited Santa María de Montserrat, an ancient Benedictine Abbey built on and into a mountain, located about an hour outside of Barcelona. I imagined Mont St. Michel would be similar in feel, but they are dramatically different. Montserrat is elaborate and gilded and isolated. There is a village feel to Mont St. Michel. According to Wikipedia, it has a population of 41. I saw one nun dart through a door. She looked amazing in long, light blue robes and a simple white head covering. There is a book in the book store with photos showing the lives of the men and women who live and work in the abbey. I was dying to buy it, but no purchases...



It's always karate time!

The most complete information I have found about Mont St. Michel, is in the Catholic Encyclopedia. If you are interested in reading more about it, this is a good place to start.

I love massive thick stone walls.

The drop on the other side of this barrier is straight down for hundreds of feet...
Hold on tight to your babies!

Big wheel, so what.

The sled-like object in this photo was used to haul things up and down a perilous ramp (the opening is seen in the photo of Michael and I next to the frightening drop).  The massive rope and wheel in the previous photo with Dominic helped to move the sled up and down.

Pieta
(broken statue, headless Jesus)
What happened to Jesus' head? Did they cut off his head? Why did they cut off his head?
"No my darling children, Jesus was only nailed to a cross after being tortured for your sins!
He didn't also have his head cut off, sillys!"

After making our way within the upper buildings for over an hour,
we came upon a place where the mountain meets the abbey,
surprising slab of granite good for resting.

If for no other reason, come for the views.

Time to go down, down, down...

This next excerpt comes from Wikipedia's entry about St. Michael. I love it.

In Hebrew, the name Michael means "who is like God"(mi-who, ke-as or like, El-deity), which in Talmudic tradition is interpreted as a rhetorical question: "Who is like God?" (which expects an answer in the negative) to imply that no one is like God. In this way, Michael is seen as a symbol of humility before God.

I can't say our Michael shows an abundance of humility yet, however I know from experience that life is a great teacher of it...

Dominic with St. Michael.
I have to say, I thought he did amazingly well
spending a day surrounded by a multitude of St. Michaels
 and nary a St. Dominic to be seen.



Mossy and gorgeous





Can you see the shadow cast by the spire?

In my eyes, Saints Michael and Dominic.

* (and plenty of horrible things happened too, it was a prison and we all know how rotten the Catholic church has been...).

THE END

Actually, not quite, please tune in again for the very very end of our Fall Break extravaganza.