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Mont-Saint-Michel

Mont-Saint-Michel
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Mont Saint-Michel is a rocky tidal island which holds a monastery. The first monastic establishment was created here in the 8th century.

The mount gained strategic significance in 933 when William "Long Sword", William I, Duke of Normandy, annexed the Cotentin Peninsula, definitively placing the mount in Normandy. It is depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry, which commemorates the 1066 Norman conquest of England. Ducal patronage financed the spectacular Norman architecture of the abbey in subsequent centuries.

Year Decision Comments
1979 Inscribed Reasons for inscription
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Reviews

Clyde (Malta):
I visited in Summer 2011 and could admire this WHS in low and high tide. I saw Puccini's Madamme Butterfly en plein air just in front of the WHS and it was truly an unforgettable experience. I explored the rocky tidal island with a tiny population of only 44 people. In the morning when the tide retreated I walked all the way the to Channel Islands following some tourist groups from afar to be sure to avoid the quick sand zones. It is certainly one of the most beautiful WHS France has to offer.
Date posted: September 2012
Klaus Freisinger (Austria):
Mont St.Michel is one of the most famous and recognizable sights in the world, and one of the best-known symbols of France. Known as the Wonder of the West, or Merveille de l'Occident, it is famous as much for its artistic, cultural and religious significance as for its unique location on a small island off the Norman coast. Though it is visited daily by countless tourists and pilgrims, it is quite well managed, as many people stay in the restaurants and tourist shops of the village at the foot of the mount. It takes a bit of effort to reach the abbey at the top (which charges a fee), but this is certainly worth it, as the abbey is really a great and very interesting building. There are also several museums, but those are overpriced and only mildly interesting, and only recommendable if you have some time on your hands. To reach the mount, I stayed in Rennes and took a bus, which was quite convenient and trouble-free. There are also bus connections to the villages of Pontorson and Dol-de-Bretagne, but of course Rennes is a large city with several sights of its own. It should be noted that, similar to the cathedrals of Amiens and Bourges, Mont St. Michel is a double inscription as part of the Routes of Santiago de Compostela.
Date posted: August 2012
Thibault Magnien (France):
The Mont Saint-Michel and its bay have been the first French site to be registered as a WHS in 1979. The great abbey is the main attraction of the Mont. The statue of the angel Saint-Michel is located on the top of the church tower, 170 meters high.
In 709, a sanctuary started being constructed to honor the angel Saint-Michel. In 966, the Benedictine abbey was erected. Then and for centuries, edifices have been set up on the Mont until the current abbey to be completed during the 16th century. It has been a pilgrimmage site and a prison but it has always keep its religious value for people.
The little rock island, situated in the bay, is now linked to the continent by a dyke with a road. However, this dyke is planned to be destroyed and changed into a long bridge to allow sediments and sand to flow without being stopped. These sediments were creating sand mounts risking to change the island into a part of the continent.
The bay surrounding the Mont is the place where the biggest tides in Europe occur and welcomes a great diversity of fauna and flora.
I have visited a lot of sites in my life and the Mont Saint-Michel is for me one of the best ones. This quiet and marvelous place bewitches visitors and makes them fall in love with its beauty.
Date posted: April 2012
Clarence Admire (USA):
In July 2009, I took my son and two grandsons to tour the Normandy battlefields[my brother was in second wave at Omaha beach-three of us are navy veterans. We stayed in Ponterson and made a trip to Mt Saint Michels. The first view of it was awesome and the visit to the Abbey and surroundings was history firsthand; but the thing that we all remember about the visit was the number of people walking far out on the tidal flats, apparently they were experienced in the high tides period because we observed a picture of the island completely surrounded by water. The visit was one of the hightlights of our trip.
Date posted: June 2011
John Booth (New Zealand):
I stayed in the village of Pontorson and caught the bus to Mont St Michel from outside Pontorson station. It went right across the causeway and stopped at the entrance to the Mont. There are also direct buses from Rennes station that stop there.
Despite the huge number of visitors the abbey appeared well organised with no congestion as visitors follow a set route from the nave through several chapels, the cloisters and crypts and back onto the steps again.
Date posted: May 2010
Jorge (Mexico):
Since I first saw a picture of Mont St Michel I thought: "Someday I will be there"....this March my dream came true. This is the most fantastic, ethereal, incredible place I have ever been. It is like a dream, unbelievable. I am a lover of medieval architecture and gothic chatedrals and monasterys. My wife and I spent the night at one of the hotels in the island, so we could see the magnificent dusk and then at night the structure became illuminated and it was awesome. Specially at night, when tourists leave the place, you can stroll and wander the narrow streets and you can feel a lot of peace and comfort, very good karma. Go there!!!!! and spend one night, it is worth it.
Date posted: November 2008
Frederik Dawson (Netherlands):
Mont-Saint-Michel is impressive and truly one of the symbol of France. It seems to me that many people have a problem of public transportation for visiting this place; the easiest and quickest way (that you can make it as a day trip from Paris) is take TGV to Rennes, a lovely capital city of Brittany and then take a hourly special shuttle bus to Mont-Saint-Michel which parks in front of the train station. This bus will take you to the main gate of the island. SNCF also provides a special train to Mont-Saint-Michel in Summer.
One more tip if you take the last bus back to Rennes in the evening, you will have a chance to see the famous tide of this region which is one of the quickest in this world and see Mont-Saint-Michel becomes an island again
Date posted: August 2006
Ian Cade (England):
This is one of the earliest inscriptions on the World Heritage List, and is defiantly deserving of its place, the outline of the island and the abbey that crown it are so well known that it felt like a really familiar place when I finally managed to visit it. I first saw the island some 12 years ago but I finally managed to ‘tick it off’ with a day trip on a glorious Saturday in April 2006.
The abbey on top is the main focal point and has evolved pretty much continuously from its founding by St Aubert in 708. It is actually quite a feat of engineering with later additions to the buildings using the foundations of the earlier incarnations as their support. In fact the rear of the abbey is called ‘la Merveillle’ (the marvel) due to the way its splendid gothic features perch on a fairly precarious position. The tour of the abbey starts in the cathedral at the very top and spirals down through the many levels and is very well laid out.
Le Grand Rue is the other part of the island and this is the main road up the abbey entrance, it is actually quite nice, however it is cluttered with overpriced restaurants and purveyors of tourist tat (if you desperately want a plastic Mont or a replica lord of the rings sword look no further!). It is worth ducking in to St Pierre’s chapel which is nicely decorated and has scallop shell motifs on the bénitier/ stoup highlighting it’s place on the route to Santiago de Compestella.
The tide (the bay has the second fastest tides in the world) was out when I visited so we were able to walk a lap around the base of the island, which gave a new perspective of the great walls on the town, which still has a population of 53 and is a member of the Organisation of World heritage Cities.
Despite this being the most visited site in France outside of Paris, it is actually quite a difficult place to get to on public transport as trains and buses are so infrequent they serve no practical purpose for a casual visitor (I discovered this the hard way on a failed attempt to visit in 2004). If you are looking for places to base yourself nearby you can’t go to wrong in St Malo, which is a great walled city about an hour West.
Mont Saint Michel is a great site, and if you can handle lots of tourists is a rewarding destination.
Date posted: May 2006
James Kovacs (USA):
Mont St. Michel is magnificent. What a unique place
to build an abbey. The narrow lanes leading up to the
abbey are lined with shops and restaraunts. It is
altogether extremely charming. I have never been to
a more unique man made place.
Date posted: February 2006
Jim Humberd (USA):
One year as we approached Mont-St.-Michel from the east on the “little” road near the coast, our first sight of the cathedral was across a mile of grassy pasture with grazing sheep and cows in the foreground. Once we arrived at the point where the causeway leaves the coast, there were still two kilometers of awe and wonderment as we continued to the parking lot near the Outer Gate.

One evening, as the sun was setting through the clouds and the floodlights were gradually illuminating the Abbey, we walked the two kilometers from the mainland and took twenty-five or thirty photos of the ever-changing ethereal scene in front of us.

From our book, Invitation To France (Google)
 


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