Back home via Mont Saint-Michel and Auvergne

After our lovely short stay in Brittany, it was time to move on… Our next stop was in nearby Normandy, where the plan was to visit the legendary Mont Saint-Michel.

Mont Saint-Michel is, of course, famous for its abbey, dramatically located on top of a peak which sits on a tidal island in the middle of a large bay. It’s apparently the 2nd most visited tourist attraction in France, after the Eiffel tower. We arrived early in the morning, a very good idea, since it meant we managed to avoid the worst of the tourist crowds. The sight of the abbey didn’t disappoint – I guess it’s one of the most dramatic sites in the world. The fact that the weather was quite cloudy, even slightly misty, gave the place a suitably spooky atmosphere.

Having parked our car (carefully reading the signs – so as to avoid having our car swept away by the tide!), we made our way upwards through the medieval village sitting beneath the peak (I’m sure it was a very atmospheric place once upon a time – but these days every single building houses either a hotel, a restaurant or a shop, unfortunately), to the focal point of Mont Saint-Michel - the venerable abbey.

The abbey first monastic establishment was built here in the 8th century, but the place has been heavily modified/reinforced over the century – the last major modifications dating back to the 17th/18th centuries. The sobre and imposing nature of the structure certainly made a big impression on us – the place has definitely managed to keep it’s medieval nature. We decided to join the guided tour, but gave up on it after a while (the guide spent more time telling bad jokes than talking about the abbey, so…), and decided to have a walk around ourselves. The interior didn’t disappoint either – I really loved the medieval feel, and sheer majesty of the place. I guess it’s not the most beautiful church I’ve seen, but certainly one of the most atmospheric ones. The views over the bay of Saint-Michel are pretty impressive as well.

After a bit more time spent exploring the surroundings of the abbey (during which the sun even peeked out from behind the clouds!), it was time for a spot of lunch. We opted for the classic.choice – Le Mere Poulard, famous for its omelets. We went for the cheap menu option instead, which was perfectly fine. In fact, surprisingly good, considering the place very much felt like a tourist trap. After lunch, we had a short walk around the bay to work off the calories, from where we had some great views towards the abbey (yes, I took rather a few photos…). And then it was time to hit the road.

After a couple of peaceful days in Angers (including a road trip to the Mayenne and Sarthe to visit relatives of Mathilde’s), it was time to make our way back towards the warm South. Since it’s quite a long drive to Cagnes-sur-Mer from Angers, we decided to do a stopover again, this time in Clermont-Ferrand.

Clermont-Ferrand is the capital of the Auvergne region, famous for its volcanoes (including the Puy-de-Dome, which is located just down the road from Clermont-Ferrand). We arrived early in the evening, and headed out to explore the old town, having done our check-in. The place was pretty much dead – I guess due to the rather bad weather and due to it being Sunday, with Monday being a day off as well ?). I guess one could say it gave the place some atmosphere? Anyway, we pretty quickly decided we’d had enough, and decided to go and grab some dinner. Unfortunately, this being Sunday, finding an open restaurant proved to be rather challenging, but we eventually found a rather interesting Auvergne-Tapas type place, where we managed to fill our grumbling stomachs.

The next day, there was no major improvement on the weather front, so we decided to ditch our original tentative plan to head up to Puy-de-Dome, and walk around town instead. Clermont-Ferrand is actually the appy union of two towns – Clermont and Montferrand (we were staying at Clermont). Armed with a pretty good free guide for foot walks we got at the tourist information centre, we headed out to explore town. A couple of hours later, we’d covered pretty much everything there was to see. It’s a pretty interesting town, all in all, but not the sort of place you would make a point of visiting, I guess. The gothic cathedral is impressive, as is the Romanesque church - Notre-Dame du Port (well, the exterior is, I wasn’t that taken by the interior). It’s quite different in nature to other French towns I’ve seen – Clermont-Ferrand is not cute in like towns in Provence, not “rustic” in the Brittany way, nor classy in the Parisian way. I guess you could say the place has a little bit less character, somehow.

Anyway, having done our dose of hiking for the day, it was time to hit the road home… (after a quick visit to Montferrand, the “other half” of Clermont-Ferrand). Good to be back home again, in spite of a very relaxing, if eventful week – and we weren’t sorry to hear we had missed some torrential rains and generally un-cote-d’Azurish weather…