20240518 Saturday, May 18, 2024; Le Havre France, Mont Saint-Michel
We had to set alarm clocks to get up early for our Le Havre port of call. There are tours making the 3 hour drive each way into Paris so the ship is opening the gangways early. Our tour disembarked at 7:15am. Instead of heading to Paris, we went west to Mont Saint Michel in Normandy, bordering Brittany.
Leaving Le Havre, we crossed the dramatic Normandy bridge, the last bridge before the Seine River empties into the English Channel. It was the longest cable stayed bridge in the world when it was completed in 1995.
The Normandy countryside is lush with scattered herds of Normandy cows, which are white with brown spots including characteristic brown sunglasses.
Most of the cities in Normandy were destroyed during the Nazi occupation and subsequent Allied liberation on D-Day, but most were rebuilt. The roads in France are certainly wider and straighter than in England.
Mont Saint Michel is an Abbey set atop a fortress on a tidal island that is actually surrounded by real quicksand pits. Interestingly enough, they have popular tours onto the mudflats that surround the island at low tide. Getting views of Mont Saint Michel from different angles is undoubtedly one reason to venture out there, but perhaps being able to say you navigated the quicksand and survived is the main attraction. There are specialized guides who lead these groups out there.
Mont Saint Michel is quite the remarkable sight, even from quite a distance away because it arises like a jewel from the sea.
It is one of the most visited cultural sites in France and a UNESCO world heritage site. The French would like to refer to it as their 8th wonder of the world.
We were fortunate to arrive before it got super busy, according to our guide. We walked under the portcullis through the main gate and zig zagged our way up the entry onto the main pathway lined by shops and restaurants. We then began a steep climb up the Mont via zig zagging stone staircases through the village and up to the Abbey.
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We toured the inside of the Abbey with many chambers, more stone columns than you can count and many chapels. They say this enormous Abbey was home to only 30 monks.
Many Abbeys were torn down during the many religious wars, becoming quarries for building other structures, but this one survived by serving as a prison for a period of its history.
It is remarkable how they were able to build such marvelous stone structures in medieval times that have lasted over a thousand years.
While there are castles and abbeys scattered throughout Europe, this one really stands out for its unique beauty and geography.
We had our last sit down dinner featuring bacon wrapped meatloaf and surf and turf. Dessert was the obligatory Baked Alaska.
Then we spent most of the evening repacking our suitcases which had to be picked up in the evening. It’s too bad we didn’t have another sea day to do all that.
The Princess Theater featured a farewell variety show featuring each of the recent entertainers doing encore performances, and concluding with a presentation of the officers.
Our clocks go back an hour tonight as we head back to Southampton where we will disembark tomorrow. The 15 day Atlantic crossing went very quickly. It’s too bad we didn’t think of extending on the ship for it’s next segment which will go into the Baltic from Southampton, but we have a different kind of adventure in store for us with the self drive UK tour and rail France tours to come. The Atlantic crossing was smoother than our Pacific crossing up until that low pressure system developed between Açores and Ireland. Having skirted around typhoons and crossing the Drake Passage, we’re no strangers to rough sea conditions, and this was really only 2-1/2 days of weather. The English Channel crossing last night was like a duck pond.
As a way to cross the Atlantic, this was much more comfortable and enjoyable than 10-12 hours in a plane. And it was much less expensive than the business class flights we have booked for our return. We will probably look for cruises where we can avoid the transoceanic flights altogether in the future.
