Traveling – Mont Saint-Michel, France

A portion of our 2003 month-long driving trip in France, took us from the beaches of Normandy to Mont Saint-Michel, the town island town and monastery just off the coast of France.  We highly anticipated visiting this site and we were amazed when we first saw the top of the church spire above the surrounding seaside.

We drove over the causeway that connects the island to the mainland and parked our car in the parking lot that was (currently) above the tide level at the base of the town.  Our walk through the narrow streets and over the wall ramparts was one of the highlights of our trip.  We spend most of that day walking over and around the island.

When we were ready to eat, most of the restaurants had closed, but we found one that would let us eat outside on their terrace with views of the buildings and out over the tide flats.  The menu was entirely in French, but we deciphered that their specialties were galettes, a flat buckwheat crepe.  I ordered mine with mushrooms (fungi) and my wife with eggs (oeuf).

We also ordered a glass of calvados, a sweet apple brandy made in the area.  When our galettes arrived, we were very surprised to see that the eggs were basically uncooked and just spread over the top of the galette.  Being the nice husband (cheap and not wanting to waste food), I swapped meals with my wife and I ate the egg and cheese galette which wasn’t too bad, and my wife enjoyed my mushroom and cheese galette.

It was easier washing the egg galette down with the glass of calvados!  We are very sorry that we didn’t purchase a bottle from one of the many roadside stands in the area.  I guess that leaves us an experience for our next visit to the region.

We spent that night at the first hotel Verte (green) which is the first hotel on the mainland off the causeway.  Just about everything in our hotel room was green, rugs, tables, chairs, wardrobe, and comforter on the bed.  We really enjoyed our stay at Mont Saint-Michel and spent the following day touring the monastery and spending additional time on the island until it was time to head south to the castle region of France.

A special thank you to Rick Steves whose excellent travel materials made this visit possible.

Adventures In Food: Author: Kerry Howell