France Journal: June 7, 1996
7 is my lucky number! It was a wonderful day. Breakfast wasn’t all that great, but we soon travelled to Mont St Michel. Mont St Michel is a beautiful abbey on a rock in the English Channel, just off the the coast of France. The tide changes so much that it is possible to walk out to another island a half mile out and within the next hour be trapped for 4-5 hours! We visited all the important places and there was a lot of climbing to do. However, it was worth it. On the way down we ate lunch and shopped. I bought 2 berets at 60f each. When we got back to the city of St Malo, we shopped for about 3-4 1/2 hours. I ended up with one deck of poker cards, 1 deck of tarot cards, 2 smurfs, 1 tin-tin, 4 berets, and a word search book.
» 1 September 2007
This is what happens when you take children to somewhere so great and let them spend their own money. They buy Smurfs. I still have my St Malo Smurfs. I actually love them still, but I wish I had found a more meaningful trinket from there or from Mont St Michel. How was I to know that I would not be caught dead in a beret within a year of the trip. Several of the berets and both decks of cards were gifts.
» 20 June 2016
I fell in love with the abbey at first sight. I wanted to spend many hours there. As we walked up to the top, I felt very alone — not in a bad way, but in a wonderful way. It was as though I was the only person who existed in the world and I was seeing this place before anyone else. Each stone made me happy; the sides of the structure were as beautiful close up as they were far away. There were chains that I felt compelled to take pictures of, rock sculptures that were so beautiful I was deeply changed. At the top of the abbey sits a courtyard lined in shrubs, perfectly maintained and trimmed. There was a space where a block was placed over one shrub. I still don’t know why, but it did complete the perfect lines of the rest of the plants. I wanted to lose myself on the island in the distance. The many other tourists around melted away in what would be my favorite place on the planet. If you have never been to Mont St Michel, it is worth going. It has such magic to it.
There is something so special to me about this place even today, but it’s interesting that I don’t have words for that. This happens to be frequently; things I hold close are often the things I find the most trouble describing.
A rather boring day. First, we got up and had a gloriously good breakfast. The beverages were watered down. We then drove about an hour and a half through rather flat country. Many of the towns had “troglodite houses,” houses built in the cliff using it for 3 of the 4 walls. We then arrived at a winery in Saumur. They made a sparkling white which was actually champagne but not from the Champagne area. It was wonderful! I loved it. … I guess my wine experience wasn’t over — just for red wine! We then rode about 6 hours to St Malo. The most beautiful city I have seen on our tour thus far, sail boats lined the coast and the old city was gorgeous. We had a dinner at which we ordered a white wine — I didn’t have any. I am quite addicted to Orangina. A few of us left at 9:30 for an evening walk in the old city. All the stores were closed and the city was beautiful. We bought some ice cream. I had passion fruit. It was quite wonderful. We then “strolled” back to the Hotel Mascotte (where we were staying). It was great.
My time if France was rushed; there was so much planned for us to see in two weeks that when I look back on it, I think of it as more like a two month vacation. I clearly remember the moments I believed would be those I carried with me for the rest of my life, and I remember trying to dwell in them slightly more in order to create the memories I knew would be so important. In many cases I was spot on, and those events are absolute stand out moments. But rushing in a bus through the Loire Valley, I couldn’t know how the troglodyte houses would stick with me. I think of those homes often, enchanted by the fairy tale beauty of little cottages stuck in the sides of cliffs, sprawling communities that resemble so much other villages in France, but with almost disregard for the rock structures around them, or rather in spite of them. I wanted to go in the houses, see the rocky interior walls, experience how these people lived. But we were only driving through, on to bigger and more typically touristy destinations. Saint-Malo, one of the most visited towns in France by those who do not live in France, was one of these places. One of these places we were expected to be found and so had been placed. Don’t get me wrong, I still hold Saint-Malo in my heart as the jewel of my time in France. It’s the place I would wrap myself in if I could, live in, revisit, talk about. However, twenty years on it seems like I might have missed out on experiences that would have stood out even more.
