Days 18 & 19, written on the latter, Monday 15 June

The best time to visit France has absolutely got to be June. Tourist season has only just begun, temperatures are very moderate and everything, everything is in bloom. Plus, you can do last-minute stuff without having to worry too much. Real life example: On Saturday, a bit after midnight, I decided that I would go to le Mont Saint Michel, and less than eight hours later I did. All I had was a reserved seat on a TGV, literally 'very big fast' [train], some basic supplies, my guidebook and food for two days [aka a bottle of water, 10 granola bars and a can of soup], and I was off! They were possibly the best two days together I've ever had so far, like, in my life- I invited two fellow students along with me, but they were tired after Amboise on Saturday, so all I had to worry about was myself. Total transportation time to le Mont was probably about four and a half hours, but everything worked out and on the bus I was the first to see it- a blue mound rising in the distance, and you could just make out the roof line. It was pretty much another Disneyland for adults [if you remember my earlier comment about Marie Antoinette's fake village], and very touristy, but absolutely freaking gorgeous- it is a city built on a hill and, at high tide, surrounded by water. The first church was established in the seventh century, I believe, on the Mont, which was originally a hill-island taller than the ones in the area. It was gradually built up and refined with the town growing around it, until you have today's version complete with earth causeway access and large parking lot. That was sad, but the mont is taller than anything around, and on top of the abbey you can see the delta silt spreading for miles to the north, a sparsely populated marsh-and-farmland mix of coast to the east and west full of sheep, more farmland and RV's behind, and in the far distance just the thinnest strip of azure sea. Coming in on the train it had been blustery, with spats of rain, but with my luck as soon as I got to the mont it became beautiful, I can't even tell you. The one other really good day I've had was the one I randomly decided to go to Montmartre and Sacre Couer, which had a spectacular view.

Of course at le Mont St Michel I visited the abbey, and got a handheld audioguide to explain things to me [you can get them at pretty much every major and semi-major thing to see in France]; the biggest point of architectural interest was the fact that the abbey had been built over several centuries, and you could see the division between medieval and Gothic styles; I got insanely turned around, because the monks [who still lived there] had built into and above and out from the rock for three stories that they let tourists through, but I saw staircases going lower and the place was an absolute maze; one bit I really liked was a staircase over a thousand years old [which was strange to think about, being ephemeral, you know], and another was the cloisters, aka, a square jardin with a roofed walkway going around it that was actually on the third floor of the abbey, so you know it was high up, and the terrace that the monks kept for that purpose when the building that originally stood on it burnt [the mont is, according to the guide, a marvel of planning, and I agree, but with that much history there's hardly any part of it that hasn't burnt to the ground or fallen down] that had the best view and the fact that the gift shop and ticket counters were in the lower part of the abbey traditionally used to give hospitality to the common people and the poor.

The weather stayed good, too, which was great- I walked on the marsh for a bit with a group led by a bay guide; I tried to blend, but then figured out that I was the youngest by a good twenty-five years and was Discovered and told to go back due to [insert something in French]. I thought they were going to the smaller island nearby, just to check it out, but they were actually just the advance guard for a group of easily five hundred people who all, led by guides, walked onto the marsh and off into the distance. At the time I mostly thought about how environmentalist-people would throw a huge fit in the United States if that many people walked across a delta probably every day for three months, but I realize now that I have no idea where they all went. Looking on a map, there was nowhere for them to go, no town, no hotel near big enough, but I have photos of this huge tide of people getting filthy in the slime, all migrating east. Weirdest thing.

This mini-tour was done around two periods of exploring the mont, which really only took the day to master; pretty much anything with a slope less than +/- 60 degrees was habited, which meant the inland-facing, picturesque, scenic side looked just like a city on a small mountain rising out of the delta and river water, topped by a Gothic-style abbey whose bell tower had a statue of an angel on it [except the causeway and its parking interrupted it a bit]. So I did my wandering all over the city, down narrow cobblestone chemins and around the city walls and up a lot of stairs, and had a great time.

I spent the night at a campground about a mile south of the mont, and it only cost nine euro to get a cot in a dorm that I had to myself. I had my soup with a great view of the mont and walked down the causeway again during the sunset; it wasn't a great one, but the town and abbey lit up at night white and yellow, and I finally got some real sleep.

Checkout the next morning was easy, and after getting some pastry I caught two buses no problem to get to St Malo, about a fifty minute trip total. The weather was less great, with rain clouds and a strong north wind, but after just a short time in the area the wind blew it all away and it became just as gorgeous as yesterday. Before going into the old part of town, which was walled like le Mont St Michel [but on less of a hill], I walked to the gare and got a ticket for a TGV that evening; the old part of the town and the more recent bit are split by a sort of inland port that mostly seemed to ship wood, which was strange, and meant that any photos of the picturesque walled bit of town were interrupted by the masts of sailboats. The very exciting thing about St Malo was the scenery- the city is on a part of the France called the Emerald Coast and the bay was pretty shallow, which meant that it looked like the Caribbean. Between mini-peninsula-bluffs that were rocky and had houses on them was pure beach, real beach, not like the mud at le Mont St Michel, and there were sailboats everywhere and small islands and again, absolutely gorgeous. What I found very exciting were the tidepools on the one rocky bit of beach- I'd never seen any before, and had a great time poking in them and being a total nerd. There were a lot of sea snails and clams, and I found crab shells and the occasional [I think they were] krill.

By this point, the tide was low enough that I could walk out to the island that was pretty close- it was less than an acre large and rose fairly high, and had a better view than the city walls of the bay, surrounding village, other islands, beaches, lighthouses, boats, everything, and I spent quite a while just walking around it soaking up the sun. It was a Monday, and there weren't swarms of tourists [though it was definitely a tourist place], and I just felt very peaceful. I also walked along the beach, of course, and went into a place and asked about renting a sailboat, but they would only let me have a catamaran [which I've only piloted once, and I could have managed, but it would've been tragic to lose my backpack]. Farther down, there was a specific area of the beach designated for windsurfing and kiteboarding, and it was amazing to watch; the wind never let up all throughout the day, and it was insane how fast they were all going. Some of the better kitesurfers were getting at least ten feet of air [as in, ten feet between their board and the ocean, so that's huge], and spinning around, and crashing, and zooming around the rocky areas. At the peak point there were ten kitesurfers and four windsurfers.

Walked back along the beach with some clouds rolling in and went through the town a bit, looking into shops and different restaurants, going through mini-squares and having a scary experience with a public restroom which, unlike the rather feeble-looking ones in Paris that gave you hope of being able to break through if you got trapped, was indoors and made of stone and tiled, and the metal door clicked when it shut and I had visions of myself like a scuba diver lost in an underwater cave running out of air, only not quite as bad. Sadly, at this point it didn't stop raining until I reached Paris- I walked around the town walls for a last look at everything between showers before going back to the gare. Nothing to note about the trip except for I got back to the dorm around 11.30 and probably stank.

Weird stuff about France: The tune in train stations just before an announcement is made is done a capella and sounds like it's straight out of Glee.