Le Mont St.-Michel

Long before I ever visited France, I was fascinated by it. At the top of the list of places I would have chosen to visit as a young teenager was le Mont St.-Michel in Normandy. One of my French teachers had a poster of it on our classroom wall. A rocky outcropping on the Atlantic shore, topped with a medieval abbey, le Mont St.-Michel is an island at high tide but attached to the mainland at low tide by a thin land bridge. Romantic, historical, beautiful.

Well, it used to be a tidal island. A causeway built in the nineteenth century, as well as canals and a dam on the nearby Couesnon River (the border between Normandy and Brittany) have caused silt to build up. Over the years coastal land has been reclaimed, Dutch-fashion, for pasture. Finally last year the French government decided that le Mont St.-Michel should be an island again, and began pumping out the accumulated silt. In another five years or so, the project should be completed.

Although I've visited France many times, and lived there at two points in my life, I'd never made it to le Mont St.-Michel. Till yesterday.

High tide was early in the morning, before I arrived, so I didn't get to watch it. It rushes in at the rate of one meter a second, which must be an impressive sight. But I was just happy to be there, and at a time--mid-week, mid-spring--when there weren't too many tourists. I guess I could pencil it in for 2012, when the de-silting project will be completed. Put it on my napkin, as it were.