Booking a trip around France during the Easter holidays required plenty of pre-planning, as the country has a reputation for 'shutting down' during public holidays. This 4 day, 3 night trip had been booked about three months in advance, as the picturesque abbey of St Michel (part of our travel short-list after watching an episode of Getaway) was situated on a small rocky island (Mont) practically in the middle of nowhere (west Normandy). As this was also our 3rd trip to France, we knew that we were in for some gastronomic delights, great scenery and to our surprise, really friendly locals.
Travel Logistics
Sorting out the travel logistics for this trip was left to Mei. It could have ended up as a hit-miss affair, with Mei's work colleagues admiring our determination with regards to:
a) willingly using public transport to get around even though we were limited to about 2 available trains per day (ie. we should get used to driving on the right hand side of the road with manual steering); and
b) opting to take the ferry across the English Channel when it was the main transport option for families with young (hyperactive) children and coach-loads of bored teenagers that spent most of the time running back and forth around the decks.
Our journey from Portsmouth past Jersey and Guernsey to St Malo
Our train journey from St Malo to Mont St Michel
London to Portsmouth
Our journey kicked off on Good Friday where we caught the 11am train from London Victoria to Portsmouth - the historic maritime centre of the UK. The overground train (booked well in advance for a bargain £9 for two) took about 2 hours and we passed through a number of cities around southern England. In terms of transport linkages, the train journey was then followed by three buses, a ferry, a train and a coach just to get to Mont St Michel and the return journey could be summarised as: coach, train, ferry, train, bus - but more details of those later.
Portsmouth Harbour
We arrived at Portsmouth Harbour just after lunchtime and hunted around for a bus to the Ferry terminal (about 40 minutes walking distance away) where we could drop off our bags using the £3 left luggage service. Unfortunately, the Bank Holiday blues had hit the bus service and we waited over 20 minutes for a bus that never arrived. Basically at the point of almost giving up, the No.700 coastline tourist bus pulled up at the bus station and we asked for a daily ticket, but were persuaded by the bus driver to get singles due to the infrequency of the day's bus services.
Portsmouth Harbour - Spinnaker Tower and a statue of Admiral Nelson
Gunwharf Quays Marina
After dropping off our bags, we had buoyant ambitions for visiting a few museums in the nearby suburb of Southsea, however the lack of buses soon persuaded us to just relax at the Gunwharf marina, enjoy the sunshine and chill out with a pint of Estrella and some tapas at the La Tosca restaurant.
Spanish food at Gunwharf Quay
Portsmouth has a strong association with UK's naval glory days. At the nearby historical dockyards, there were the remains of the Mary Rose [King Henry VIII's flagship from the 1500's], HMS Victory [Lord Nelson's ship from the Battle of Trafalgar] and numerous warships that most likely had seen active service in the more recent world conflicts. With time to spare, we took photos of the landmark Spinnaker tower and browsed around an Easter market where Olie bought a magnet of Portsmouth to commemorate the visit.
We caught the bus once-more back to the Ferry terminal and checked in at the Brittany Ferries desk around 5pm and waited at the Costa Coffee cafe until just past 7pm when we were allowed to board the ferry - Bretagne. The cheapest option for a night-time ferry crossing was to reserve a seat and hope that it was in a good quiet location. Our first allocated location was less than ideal, with the seats not even located next to each other. We were reallocated new seats in a more open area of Deck 8, that had the downside of being located right next to the Cafe and was quite busy with foot traffic. We then noticed that a nearby window seat with a power socket had not been occupied for some time and we chair-squatted for the remaining 7 hours of the ferry crossing. The Air Asia blanket / comfort kits once again came into use, as we settled in to watching the movie Senna on iPad and ate Pringles, pasta salad and a glass of wine for dinner.
Our ferry - the Bretagne
The ferry came with its own helipad, two cinemas, restaurants
and lots of life-rafts
The onboard operations of a ferry work to a rigid time schedule. The lights went out at 11pm to enable passengers to get some sleep (and to force a coach-load of teenagers to stop running around) and lights were on at 6am with an announcement that we had arrived in St Malo, France.
St Malo
St Malo on a Saturday morning was not the most exciting place to be at with disembarking ferry passengers making up most of the pedestrian population along the streets.
Good morning St Malo
Brittany is one of the most popular destinations in France for UK tourists
The thick city walls protected St Malo for hundreds of years
We took a stroll along the sea wall (happy to see sand again after trips to the pebble beaches of the UK) until we reached the main station - Garde St Malo. On route we stopped off to buy morning tea at a small bakery and picked up our online purchased tickets and waited for our 10:30am train to the small town of Dol de Bretagne.
tarte aux fraises (strawberry tart)
Mont St Michel Causeway From there we took a connecting coach to Mont St Michel, traveling up the causeway and car-parks that were still accessible at low tide.
The causeway car-park (right) and the low tide car-park (left)
The bay completely empties at low tide, enabling people (and horses)
to trek to the nearby islands
Mont St Michel
On arrival at Mont St Michel, we found it to look exactly like the tourist brochures. A main Abbey encircled by medieval walls - a true island fortress.
The Abbey dominates the island skyline
The Abbey is a mixture of different architecture styles
dating back to the 11th century AD
According to wikipedia, only 41 people live on the island
Hotel Terrasses Poulard To make our travels around the island easier (due to narrow cobblestone streets and bus-loads of tourists), we dropped off our bags at the hotel - Terrasses Poulard. We were impressed by the signed photos lining the walls of our hotel - a picture book of royalty and celebrities that had been previous patrons.
Famous visitors to our hotel - King Edward VIII and family
Ernest Hemingway
Chez Mado restaurant
We picked the Chez Mado restaurant for lunch, sitting in the under cover area so that we were protected from the sea breeze. The atmosphere of the cafe was quite frantic, with only two staff serving a whole floor of hungry customers. Lunch was a set menu consisting of homemade cured salmon, moules and frites (mussels and fries), lamb stew and finished off with a Normandy apple pie and a local cheese platter – camembert (first made in Normandy), a goat’s cheese and local yellow cheese known as livarot with a strong brine tasting rind.
Tasty cured salmon starter
Lamb stew
Moules and frites
Normandy cheese platter
Normandy apple tart
Abbey of Mont St Michel
After lunch, we walked to the Abbey at the top of the Mont. The audio tour was an informative way to learn about the history of Mont St Michel (named after the Archangel Michel that slew a dragon), the architecture and its use as a defensive fortification and prison for captives of war. After about 2 hours of sightseeing, we had completed the main tourist attraction of the island and the only thing left to do was wait for the tide to come in.
Statue of the Archangel St Michel
Gargoyle drain-pipes at the Abbey
Displayed copy of the Shroud of Turin -
famous as the burial cloth containing the image of Jesus Christ's face (per photo below)
The display was part of the Easter church celebrations
Abbey courtyard
The great hall where the monks ate in silence
Gothic architecture from the medieval period
Outside the Abbey on Mont St Michel
Tide Watching Now this activity might sound pretty boring, and pretty early on Olie was about to give up. But we persisted for a whole 75 minutes before the action happened whereby the floodgates opened and water from a nearby river met with the incoming sea tide. At last Mont St Michel did its best to become an island again (it won't actually be able to achieve this until later 2012 when the existing dyke is replaced by a raised bridge that will let the water in the bay encircle the island once more just like in the medieval days).
Tide is out - travellers beware of the quicksand
Tide comes rushing in, in less than 3 hours the bay is full
Watch where you leave your car But most importantly before the tide comes in, there are plenty of warnings issued in English and French over the loudspeakers for all day-visitors to move their cars from the lower car-parks and onto either the causeway or the car-park about 40 minutes away.
Our video compilation of the Abbey, main street and watching the tide come in
Honey, is that our car floating? However, despite the authorities best efforts to 'warn' people about the dangers and time limits for parking in the car-park, there must be at least a few car-casualties every day. Special ropes and poles have been installed along the car-park to assist in car rescues. So whilst all the tourists are filming the incoming tide, we were also watching it encompass a black people mover that was rapidly becoming an artificial reef. The authorities secured it by the wheels so it didn't float away and become a hazard to the nearby shipping lanes. Admittedly, watching two cars get mopped up by the water turned out to be the highlight of our visit - there must have been a flurry of Facebook status updates and check ins showing the same photo that night.
This car became a tourist attraction
Curious tourists go to inspect the vehicle
The authorities tie a rope to the back wheels to stop it floating away
The drowning car (and one in the background sharing its fate) attract a crowd
Too late to be saved, best to wait for low tide
Le Mouton Blanc Restaurant
We ate dinner at Le Mouton Blanc, a restaurant where we came out not being impressed by the food or prices. Olie's steak was cold and Mei's duck fillets tasted like beef. In addition, although the traditional St Michel omelette was tasty – at 22 Euro for one, it was the most expensive eggs and ham we have ever eaten. Dessert was sourced from a crepe vendor and Olie's Nutella and Mei's salted caramel were a nice finish to the day.
Outside Le Mouton Blanc
Wine was the highlight of dinner
Steak and fries
Duck that tasted like steak
A very expensive omelette
However, two things made up for the earlier bad food experience
1) The red wine - Gamay Rouge, that tasted similar to a Shiraz;
2) The entertainment factor of doing a night-walk along the causeway and by coincidence overhearing a Japanese tourist flag down one of the security guards to 'admit' that the car that had floated during high tide (and become the star tourist attraction), actually belonged to her friends. Words were exchanged in French, but Olie did make out the word 'Stupid' that needed no translation.
Mont St Michel at night
Journey Home
Day 2 on the island started off with a light breakfast of a pain aux raisin and a final walk along the island wall to take some photos of the bay once more at high tide. We caught the 9:30am bus direct to Rennes (a city in Brittany) where we stopped off for a takeaway breakfast of chorizo pizza and two quiches - Lorraine (ham and cheese) and smoked salmon.
Quiche and expresso coffee - very French
All Seasons Hotel, St Malo
From Rennes we took the train back to Garde St Malo, arriving at midday and finally finding the life of the city at the Old Town - Intra Muros where our hotel was located. Our hotel - All Seasons had a modern funky feel amongst buildings with architecture dating from earlier centuries. World War II bombings had destroyed the rest of the town, but this area had been saved. The city's eating spots were spread out in Intra Muros, and we ate another delightful pastry - kouign amann topped with Nutella and a bottle of Breton Cidre.
St Malo specialty
Cathedral of St Vincent
One of the top tourist attractions of St Malo is the cathedral of St Vincent, with beautiful stained glass windows adorning the choir area.
The stained glass windows were amazing
They contained more colour and detail
than any we had seen to date in Europe
Island Fortresses
We were also well timed for the second attraction of St Malo - walking to the island fortresses that were easily accessible at the lowest tide of the year. We spent a good two hours visiting rock-pools, watching a family catch crabs under the rocks, counting mussel beds and visiting the Fort Royal, Petite Be and Grand Be islands, that were connected by a loose causeway during low tide. It was nice to walk on sand again.
Rocks around St Malo are covered in mussels
It was the lowest tide of the year - time to head to the beach
Fort National
Fort of Petite Be
Cafe du Havre
By around 4pm, our feet started to hurt and we rested at a small cafe - Cafe du Havre for a bottle of Brittany beer, curry moules and frites (mussels and fries), and a galette (pancake) filled with cream, scallops and leek. After eating, we took yet another rest and then re-emerged around 8pm to walk the city wall and watch tourists (not cars this time) get splashed with water with the incoming tide.
Curry moules and frites
Scallop galette (a savoury pancake)
On the city walls, tide is in and all the forts we visited earlier in the day
are now islands in the bay
Le Cafe de St Malo
Dinner was eaten at Le Cafe de St Malo - a seafood restaurant that had a side shop selling fresh fish to pedestrian customers - at least we knew their fish came from a local supplier. We drank a Pinot Gris wine from the Alsace region that beautifully complemented the shellfish feast of salad with foie gras, prawns, scallops, smoked salmon and a Fruits de la mer (seafood platter) with crab, langoustine, prawn, snails (small black ones that required a t-shaped pin to dig out), whelks and local oysters that are graded based on quality like a good wine. Seafood heaven!
Main course was half a Breton lobster marinated in Calvados served with vegetables. Dessert was a nougat ice-cream with berry coulis (Mei's) and a ice-cream and expresso combination with three different petite cakes - berry macaron, lemon start and chocolate fudge.
Seafood dinner - yum!
Mixed cakes, ice-cream and expresso
Nougat ice-cream with berry coulis
Journey Home
Full stomachs, content and rather exhausted from the day's adventures and eating, we headed back to the hotel and slept well. Our final day in France started early with a breakfast at the hotel and a short walk back to the ferry port. Luckily for us, the ferry wasn't at capacity and for only £11 extra we upgraded our seats to a private cabin where we could easily relax all the way back to Portsmouth before a further 2 hour train ride to London Waterloo and bus ride back home to end our trip.
Goodbye St Malo
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Booking a trip around France during the Easter holidays required plenty of pre-planning, as the country has a reputation for 'shutting down' during public holidays. This 4 day, 3 night trip had been booked about three months in advance, as the picturesque abbey of St Michel (part of our travel short-list after watching an episode of Getaway) was situated on a small rocky island (Mont) practically in the middle of nowhere (west Normandy). As this was also our 3rd trip to France, we knew that we were in for some gastronomic delights, great scenery and to our surprise, really friendly locals.
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