On the western coast of France, between the somber beaches of Normandy and the legendary seafood of Saint Malo, lies Mont Saint Michel. This place, as iconic to France as the Eiffel Tower, is a little village on top of a mountain (population:41), at the peak of which is an impressive monastery. The gates to the city close at night and only those who live, work, or have accommodations on the mountain can go through.
Mont Saint Michel
When we began planning our trip to France, we were told we “absolutely had a to stay the night” on the mountain. When we looked into it, the cost was higher than we were hoping for, and we nearly passed up this amazing opportunity. As things happened though, we decided we could have three nights of “splurge spending”. Two of these, out of necessity, occurred in Paris (which is not a cheap city to visit), and the third night went towards a night on the Mont. We had no idea exactly how amazing that night would turn out to be. It is SO worth the splurge.
We arrived and checked into our room. Following five-year-old style bouncing on the bed, (from the excitement of no longer camping) we wandered back out to explore the town. Being a mountain, there are tons of stairs—the only difficulty we had with our stay there. We stopped in for dinner at a beautiful restaurant. We marveled at the waiter’s success at single-handedly taking care of all the tables in the full room. With one look at the fixed-price menu, we became giddy with anticipation of the meal. Being foodies, this is probably one of our favorite discoveries.
After dinner was the real magic though. We went wandering some more. Our mistake was leaving our SLR camera behind and only bringing the video camera. We still kick ourselves for that decision. We wanted to get as high up on the mountain as possible, to get a view of the lit-up city nearby. We climbed a couple flights of stairs to a look-out point. We assumed this would be the best we could get, since the monastery would surely be closed at this hour of the night. That is when we heard it… the sound of a cello playing beautiful music in the distance. After enjoying our view, we continued up the stairs, looking for a street performer or something of the sort.
a musician in the abbey
We came to the entrance to the abbey and saw a surprising sign: Night Tours-Eight (Huit) Euro. The music was enough to convince us, and we were quickly on our way through the tour. As it turns out, (in July and August) each night, the abbey is set up with dramatic lighting and fantastic musicians. Throughout the building we sat and listened to the talented individuals on the cello, flute, and harpsichord, their sound filling the large stone wings.The most incredible part, however, was in the cathedral at the absolute top of the mountain. The amazingly lofty ceilings, lit almost like moonlight through the many windows, and the performance of a harpist. It was beyond perfect. Dennis and I both had tears in our eyes. Such an unexpected end to our night was overwhelming. We later came to learn that many monumental destinations offered similar tours, and participated in one other at the gardens of Chenonceaux. Ultimately, the advice you should take from this:
- Research as much as possible
- Leave time to explore
- Do the night tour!
Chenonceaux night tour
If you would like to hear some clips of the music played in the abbey, or see some very silly, highly opinionated home video of our trip, please feel free to follow the link below. Please know that the first minute of it, (Dennis walking to our favorite NYC pub) is pretty low quality, but it gets much better. If you have even more time after that, you can watch part two on the same link (After video one ends, it will give the option to view “France 2010 part 2)! I look forward to hearing your comments.
http://www.viddler.com/v/3b855c08
Originally published February 22, 2012