France - Episode 7

Mont St Michel has always been a source of wonder for me. I've seen numerous photos of it and it is 1 of the items listed in the book 1,000 places to see before you die. We set off fairly early for our bunch and headed south. It was a bit of a drive and you knew we were getting close as the traffic iincreased.

But the scene is breathtaking when you catch a glimpse the very first time and makes the wait worthwhile.

We parked with the million other tourists and walked towards the Mont.

We had all agreed at breakfast that La Mer Poulard would be our choice for lunch. It is restaurant that is recommended by 3 tourist guides and has won numerous awards. It has been in existence since 1888 and is considered one of the best restaurants in all of France. And it is not expensive!

I thought I had made myself perfectly clear that this is what we were doing. This was the one and only thing that was not a topic of discussion during our entire holiday. Oh, but not everyone understood this!

As we walked into the walls of the Mont the restaurant stood on our right and I pointed out to Sean that this was where we were eating. He said no, he preferred to go further into the town. I stood there gobsmacked. Not wanting to rock the boat and create tension I just went along with it. We ended up passing all the restaurants on the ascent up the hill and had to come partly down to go to the last one we passed.

Don't get me wrong. We had a brilliant meal of lobster at Les Terassess Poulard. They had goodie bags for the children (which oddly they delivered at the end of the meal). I had oysters, prawns and the cockles thingies (that I won't ever order again if I can avoid it).

It was a good thing we ate so much. We began the brutal assault climbing the steps up to the top. Even little Lottie did it although it was touch and go at the beginning. The children had a blast running around this ancient building and going through all the various rooms. The architecture is spectacular.

I was a bit put off by my vertigo which I discovered when I lived in Germany. Going up and down spiral staircases (especially really old ones) sends frightens the heck out of me. I now had responsibility for getting Abigail down a spiral staircase and I was frozen in space and time. Abigail looked up at me and asked if I needed her help. I could have died!

The climb down was easy as most of the tourist had made a run for it. You have to vacate your vehicle from the car park before high tide or the cars go under! This mass exodus made for a frustrating departure hindered by the inefficiencies of the French gendarme (police). It took quite a while to get home but we managed.

That evening I taught Sean & Helen (again) how to play Farco. This is a dice game that is played addictively in my family. At their request I've written up the instructions and point scoring and will publish the post shortly. Oddly, Helen took forever to get on the board. Everyone else was well on their way to finishing before she managed it. and then she won. How did she do that? Was she cheating at Farco as well? Can you cheat at Farco? At this point, I was wondering if we should play any more games with Helen!

By the way I took way too many photos to include here. I have now managed to load all of our pics on to Flickr. Clicking this link will take you directly to the photo set. Feel free to leave comments!