MONT SAINT MICHEL ABBEY

OK I know this is not very articulated but WOW. This is one of the most spectacular sites Ive ever seen: Highly recommended by Mariana and David and Erwin, and by my own fascination with the middle ages I took the tour to it; It is located in the north coast of France in Normandy right at the border with Brittany: The site was chosen to honor St Michel back in 708 and since then it has evolved through the years: Started as a modest chapell on a rock and grew a lot mainly during the 14 century; at that time they had the max number of benedictian monks; around 60 mainly dedicated to pray, meditate and create texts in the fashion of the illumination - colourful with lots of gold manuscripts: The abby combines roman style and gothic style and its really easy to see it, it was a stronghold during the 100 years war and used as a prison during the 1800: Today there are 7 monks living in there and 4 nuns in the town: UNESCO declared it a World Heritage Site in 1979.

Build in the Middle Ages the builders used the rock its on to build the monastery in some sort of pyramidal shape; going up to the abbey its a little town like the ones in the movies with narrow roads made of big rocks, little windows; steep: The rock is a small island; sometimes the tide comes in and surrounds it (happens maybe 4x year) the rest of the time is surrounded by sand; dangerous to walk on as there are rivers that run underneath and the salt and sweet water create a dangerous quick sand effect. In that area is where Camembert cheese comes from so that is what i had for lunch. It is sooo medieval, it is like being in a time tunnel; they could loose the souvenir shops but still is amazing: They have the monks tables, beautiful gardens; definately a place for meditation. It is incredible; misty, foggy, dark; cold and windy; perfect setting for all those stories of knights; crusaders, prisions and massive solitud to create the kind of work done there: