We arrived at Mt St Michel about 6pm to loads of mosquitoes - of a massive size. Keeping the doors and mozie screens closed on the campervan was a priority. It was quite a warm evening, and we were to find out later that it was also high tide which makes the mozies rise off the sand.

With this being the top tourist attraction in France we'd heard the best time to view it was before or after the tourist coaches arrived or left for the day, and we were keen to get a photo at sunset or sunrise. We expected to be able to see it from the campervan parking area but it was much further to the Abbey than we anticipated. All the parking was 2km from the site- though shuttles ran regularly to and from the Abbey.

Darryl checked the shuttle times and found the first morning one left at 7:30am so we planned for that. We got up early and arrived at the departure site but there was no sign of any transport, ans no timetable indicated either so we decided to walk instead. The sunrise was a bit disappointing photography wise - perhaps not a bad thing as the camera decided to play dead again much to April and Darryl's disgust.

We arrived at what looked like low tide.
The story goes that the tide comes in at the speed of galloping horses - a little exaggerated, but the tidal differences are extreme (at its highest with spring tides it can be 12m). When we arrived the surrounding area was sand for 100's of metres in all directions. Within an hour the water surrounded everything.
When the tide is out the surrounding sand is treacherous in places like quicksand, and the alternative option of tidal currents and water speed at full tide is one of the things helped to make it unbreachable during the war.

The Abbey started as a sanctuary built in honor of the Archangel St Michael in around 708. It became a focus for pilgrimage and a village settled beneath it's walls. It was extended and fortified, and resisted all assault attempts by the English. It was restored in 1874 and is a stunning site, with a presence that is difficult to put into words, but hopefully has been captured in some of our photos.

We spent the morning wandering around the onsite village with very few people around it was serene and peaceful and we enjoyed the views. The Abbey itself didn't open until 9:30am, by then the numbers of tourists had increased dramatically. We were among the first through for the day, and managed to avoid most of the crowds. The place is immense and it took us over an hour just to walk around it.

Darryl: It was a stunning piece of 600 year old architecture. Amazing to see the history of how the building progressed - and how they added additional supports underneath to provide support as they added on. There are some parts that were intended to be built but never completed. The village area while materially is still as you would expect, is unfortunately rather over commercialised, which detracts a little from the overall experience.

April: Words can't really describe Mt St Michel. Due to Sarah's misdirection trying to find the art shop she saw earlier we had to climb all the steps twice. Dad's roadside repair {see footnote below) - #MacGyver.

Sarah: It was big. I liked looking at the art in the window - annoying that the shop was closed.

Scott: plenty of vending machines to check for change (Scott's favourite passtime is checking machines for unclaimed credit- he has collected 4CHF and 1 Euro to date)

A quick update on our campervan experiences todate - as we've had a couple of glitches. The first being the fridge has been flashing errors and only running on battery. We managed to make a detour to a Campervan hire place today - and with some jigger pokery (they did everything Darryl had already tried and then pressed one additional button) they got it going.

Problem number 2 occurred about 45 minutes later when travelling at 115 km/h on the toll roads when we heard a clanging noise as we passed a truck. Initially we though it was coming from the truck but no.... so there we were driving along clanging away hoping it wasn't anything critical and trying to find a leeway on the side to stop. Fortunately the next one wasn't too far- the cause a bracket underneath holding the handle for the grey water tank had come loose. No tools provided - but fortunately Darryl had his trusty multitool, and managed a temporary fix (lying underneath a campervan on the side of a European motorway wasn't really on our to do list!). Now just waiting to see what the third thing is to go wrong.