Mont Saint-Michel is easily the most epic architectural marvel we’ve seen. The Abbey is built on a small, rocky mountain situated in the ocean.

Wyatt first saw Mont Saint-Michel in an internal video at work. Microsoft was creating a mixed-reality experience of Mont Saint-Michel and they were showing off that work to employees. He thought, “Woah, that building is epic, wish I could go… Wait! we’ll be in France soon!”. With that, Mont Saint-Michel was added to our itinerary.

Construction of the oratory started in the 8th century when St. Aubert had 3 visions of Archangel Michael, all instructing him to build an oratory on the island. The Abbey has seen many periods of construction and decline over the last millennia. Major upgrades/restorations were completed 11th-12th, 15th-16th, and 19th centuries. In contrast, it survived siege in the 15th and 16th centuries, being a prison in the 19th century, and various fires/collapses.

The late 19th century saw it classified as a historic monument which initiated restoration that continues today.

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Rennes

Rennes was a perfect home base for our Mont Saint-Michel visit. The Abbey can be reached via a quick 1-hour bus/train ride and the town was a nice place to rest and recover. Wyatt had picked up a light cold and Jackie was tired from the Loire Valley so we took it easy; doing nothing more strenuous than walking, drinking coffee, and trip planning.

Observations

Eurail Pass

We bought Eurail Passes for our tour of Europe. These passes let you take most intercity trains for free/cheap and they have an app to search for trains. We learned the hard way that the pass does NOT work on most buses, even though the app includes buses in the list of “trains” (with no indication they are buses and not trains). All things considered, we’re very happy with the Eurail Pass and expect it to be worth the price but we ended up having to unexpectedly take a bus that cost 30 Euros when we expected a free train.

Bonus

What’s with these cows in the town outside of Mont Saint-Michel?

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