Podcast 25 – The miraculous Mont-Saint-Michel, a legendary landmark
Janine: Bonjour and bienvenue, hello and welcome to The Good Life France Podcast – everything you want to know about France – and more, much more!
Though I was born in the UK, I now live in the far north of France, in the department known as Pas de Calais, which roughly translates as the ‘pass of Calais’ or the strait of Calais, strait meaning a narrow passage of water, in this case the English Channel which separates France and the UK, at its narrowest point by just 21 miles. But those few miles don’t mean anything – even at that distance the two countries are a world apart, and my passion is to explore the culture, history, regions, food and wine of my new home – and share what I find with you together with my podcast partner, Olivier Jauffrit.
Oli: Bonjour, bonjour, I am Olivier, but you can call me Oli! I am a Frenchie, from the west of France, now in England but soon to be returning to France to live in the south where the sun shines and the food is formidable, French for absolutely delicious! So, we will be coming to you from the north and the south soon!
Now, let’s get down to business! What are we going to be talking about today Janine?
Janine: Well I thought it would be great to chat about one of France’s most iconic landmarks, a world record breaker, a place conceived with the help of an angel with a pointy finger, a building that seems to defy gravity, and a site so wondrous that it has inspired artists, musicians and writers for centuries and influenced many films including the Lord of the Rings.
Can you guess where I am talking about?
Oli: Well I can and I think that some people will definitely know it from the hint about the angel with a pointy finger – it must be Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy yes?
Janine: Yes! You’re right – today we’re going to be talking about the majestic marvel called Mont-Saint-Michel…
Janine: Mont Saint-Michel is one of those places that, although its wiggly cobbled streets might be covered by many, many visitors - the magic still shines through. First, let’s talk about where Mont-Saint-Michel is…
Oli: Well, this tiny town sits on a granite island cradled between the coast of Brittany and Normandy. Some people think it is in Brittany, and once it was when boundaries were different and it’s very close to Brittany now, but it is actually in Normandy in the Manche department.
You can see it from miles around and from far away it looks a bit like a helter-skelter. Victor Hugo, the great French writer called it “the pyramid of the seas” and you can really see what he means when you view it from a distance. It is one of the wonders of the world and has attracted hordes of tourists since the Middle Ages. And that is how it is a world record breaker. There are only 30 people living on the island, but there are about 100,000 visitors per year per inhabitant, which is a world record!
Janine: I have been one of those visitors! I took my dad there once. He didn’t want to go, and he moaned the whole way there in the car. But I am very stubborn and insisted. We arrived and walked through the big stone arch which forms the entry to the town and my dad went quiet. He just stood there open-mouthed at the sight of this incredible island of monuments. We made our way up a cobbled hill, past chapels and many souvenir shops, and cafés in medieval buildings. I’d been before but I never made it up the stairs to the Abbey and I really wanted to do that but first we had to have lunch.
We stopped at a restaurant which had an outdoor terrace which looked out over the bay and the tide far below us. We had big steaming bowls of mussels, if I shut my eyes, I can still smell them, garlic and wine and cream mixed with the scent of salty sea. We mopped up the sauce with crispy bread – that’s what the bread is for in France – you have to mop up the sauces! Then we had cheese – you always have cheese before dessert in France. And Normandy has some of the most amazing cheeses, there was a ripe Brie and smelly Camembert, Livarot and pungent Pont l’Evêque, heart-shaped Neufchatel and Pavé d’Auge, - can you smell them?
We didn’t know what to choose and the waiter didn’t help, he made them all sound so delicious.
“This one comes from a dairy farm in a sleepy village among the rolling ‘ills…” this is me doing my French voice! And “this is one of the most creamy and delectable cheeses in the world.” And “flavoured with a little Calvados, this one tastes of ‘eaven, it’s funky and delicious…”
Oli: How did you choose the cheese… I mean how you can choose from such an amazing display, it’s impossible - right?
Janine: Well, we know it’s polite in France to choose just a few slivers from the cheese board, but my dad said “I’ll have a bit of everything” which made the waiter laugh so he gave him a bit of everything! 7 cheeses! My dad said he thought his body composition was about 15% cheese after he finished, and he had eaten himself to a standstill.
Oli: If you go to Normandy, you’d better like cheese…. And butter. And garlic… and a whole host of other things. Let’s just say, you don’t go there to go on a diet and whatever you do, don’t forget to pack your stretchy trousers.
Did you go to the restaurant Mère Poulard?
Janine: No – we didn’t… another day I hope.
Oli: Mère Poulard is the most famous restaurant on Mont-Saint-Michel, and in fact they are famous for their fluffy omelettes. The cooks there have a secret recipe, and they cook the omelettes on an open fire in front of customers. They have done it this way since 1888 – 135 years!
Mère, which means mother was the name awarded to the first cook, Annette Poulard who gave her name to the restaurant which also had lodgings and was very popular with pilgrims. She cooked there for 50 years, and she had 700 recipes, so she was given the honorary title Mère, it’s awarded to women chefs with special skills who have contributed to French gastronomy.
The restaurant became very famous – Kings and Queens went there, and Presidents including President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Many famous artists and celebrities went there to enjoy omelettes including Claude Monet, Picasso, Marlene Dietrich, Ernest Hemingway and Marilyn Monroe – in fact if you go – you may still spot celebrities!
Janine: It’s not a cheap restaurant, for an omelette its quite expensive – about 40 euros last time I looked, but it is a legendary place for sure. I definitely have to go back – and if you want to go there, you might want to book in advance because the world and his dog want to go there too!
So, what else can we see at the Mont-Saint-Michel Oli?
Oli: For a tiny island – there’s lots to see and do. But let’s start at the bottom, in the Grand Rue, the main road of the island which winds its way round. It looks like something out of a Harry Potter film, there are lots of souvenir shops in medieval buildings and if you are a fan of Harry Potter, it looks just like you imagine Diagon Alley to look!
Janine: Did you know that the capital city of Minas Tirith in the Lord of the Rings films was inspired by the island. And it also inspired places digital worlds in video games like Dracula’s castle in the Castlevania series and the Tower of mastery in Pokemon
Oli: It’s easy to see why it’s so inspirational.
There are half timbered houses of the 15th and 16th centuries. There are several museums and monuments. Archeoscope is about the construction of the Monument and its sacred history. The Museum of History houses a collection of paintings, sculptures and weapons. The Maritime and Ecology Museum is about the tides of Mont Saint-Michel. And Tiphaine’s House which was built in 1365 is now a museum with period furniture, paintings and tapestries.
There are little winding streets, and a maze of narrow passages and staircases that leave you breathless and ramparts overlooking the sea. You will walk past the rooftops of medieval houses and restaurants with open terraces looking out to sea like the one you stopped at with your dad. And there are various viewpoints where you can look down over the mudflats about 90 metres below.
Janine: Now some people might think looking at mudflats might not be that interesting right. But they are included in the UNESCO World Heritage Site listing that the Mont-Saint-Michel has, and they are a timeless view – it would have looked like this a thousand years ago when the abbey at the top of the island was being built which brings me nicely to a point where we talk about the history of the island – and the angel with the pointy finger I mentioned at the start…
Oli: It is a very strange history for sure and it goes back thousands of years. In prehistoric times, the Mont was just a little bump on some dry land. Probably prehistoric man would have hunted woolly mammoths here. Then, as the climate changed, sea levels rose and erosion kicked in, outcrops of rocks started to appear. Some were eroded by the tides, but some resisted and one of them eventually was given the name Mont Tombe. Some say that it was created by a giant, who dropped his shoes on the dry land, and they became hills that eventually became islands. Some people believed that the island of Mont-Saint-Michel was a link to another world. From the start when it became an island, it always seemed to have been special and mysterious. Hermit monks lived here in the 6th century as it was so secluded.
Janine: It became really, really special in the year 708 when an angel appeared to the Archbishop of Avranches. He was called Aubert and it’s said that the Archangel Michael appeared to him in a dream and told him to build an abbey on Mont Tomb island as it was known then. Aubert ignored the vision. He had the dream again, he ignored it again. And then again. Three times the archangel Michael told him to build and Abbey in his name, three times Aubert ignored it. Well Archangel Michael was the leader of God’s Armies against Satan, and he wasn’t to be put off by a procrastinating archbishop. He stuck out his finger and burned a hole in Aubert’s skull and told him again ‘build it’. Not very nice of him. But it worked. Aubert couldn’t get on with it quick enough!
Oli: Yes, he built that Abbey – I would too if I was him. If you go to the Basilica of Saint-Gervais of Avranches, there is a relic there, a skull said to be Auberts with a finger-sized hole said to be the scar of the archangel Michael. It was found on Mont-Saint-Michel in the 10th century and that’s how the legend of Aubert began, and the island became Mont-Saint-Michel. After it was found, pilgrims flocked to the island, it was considered a path to paradise and the island became the second most important pilgrimage site after Santiago de Compostela in Spain. And those souvenir shops you see there, well there have been souvenir shops since the middle ages because the pilgrims loved to buy souvenirs to prove they had been there and as a memento of their long journey. In the old days reaching the island was an act of penitence, sacrifice and commitment to God, it wasn’t an easy journey. Pilgrims who walked across the sands and mudflats, called it ‘Saint Michael in Peril of the Sea’ because the tides can rush in so fast – it was dangerous.
Janine: Victor Hugo described the tides coming in as “swiftly as a galloping horse.” The tides can rise to 14 metres from their low water mark and this stretch of coastline has some of the highest tides in the world. It’s as perilous now to walk there as it was in days of old It and the tides can come in at around a metre a second, so you need to take great care here. And there are what’s called Super Tides here. According to National Geographic, these “super tides” occur about every 19 years and the next one will be March 3 2033 – one for your diaries!
Oli: But back to the Abbey. The one you see today is not the one built by Aubert. Today’s Abbey is newer – not very new though, it was built in the 11th century, more than 1000 years ago.
And here’s a couple of fun facts! In the middle of the 11th century, Harold, then Earl of Wessex, later King Harold of England, apparently rescued two Norman knights from the quicksand there. It’s depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry in a battle scene.
The year after Willian the Conqueror’s victory over England in 1066, the monastery of Mont Saint-Michel gave support to his claim to the English throne. As a reward, William granted the Benedictine monks who lived there, land and property on English soil. It included an island off of the coast of Cornwall and an abbey was also built there known as St Michael’s Mount! And it looks a bit like Mont-Saint-Michel from a distance.
Janine: Over the next few hundred years, Benedictine monks settled in the Abbey and a village started to take shape below its walls. By the 14th Century the monastery, abbey and church were completed as they appear today. Things were pretty quiet for a while. Then the French Revolution happened.
Oli: The French Revolution saw the overthrow of royal and religious rule. And for a while Mont Saint-Michel became a prison and a garrison quarters. But it had many famous supporters such as Victor Hugo and they campaigned for the island to be declared a national treasure. In the 1870s, the prison was closed, and the island was declared a historic monument.
Janine: And the Abbey survived. It’s very different in the Abbey from the busy shops and streets below. You reach it via a chest thumping 350 step staircase. There’s no lift. So, it’s often less crowded than the streets. When I went there were a couple of paramedics sitting on a bench halfway up. We joked that they were there to help us fools making the climb. Then we ran out of breath to joke. If you have a heart condition – don’t even try it. When you reach the top though, it really is worth challenge. The thick stone walls of the abbey have beautiful arched windows and you get breath-taking panoramic views over what is officially one of the most beautiful bays in the world. And inside the Gothic abbey there is a feeling of spirituality and of peacefulness and the cloisters seem to be suspended halfway to heaven. And right at the top, in a gravity defying position is a golden statue of the Archangel Michael. At its highest point it’s more than 300 feet high, twice as high as the Statue of Liberty.
Oli: Guided tours are available, or you can rent an audio guide, or you can get a free leaflet from the ticket counter and work your own way around. It’s all signposted and easy to follow.
You’ll discover ancient crypts, corridors, staircases and even a huge wheel which was used to hoist food up to the prisoners during the Abbey’s time as a prison.
It’s also possible to attend Mass there. It is still a place of pilgrimage and on the on the Abbey’s 1000th anniversary in 1966, a religious community moved back to the island. Friars and Sisters from “Les Fraternités Monastiques de Jerusalem” have for the last few years provided a spiritual presence.
Janine: And when it’s time to leave, going down the stairs is way easier.
Now, it has to be said, in the summer months especially, Mont-Saint-Michel does get crowded, and it is touristy. And if you want to see it without lots of visitors, go out of the peak season or at night, when the coach loads have gone.
For me, I think this little island really does live up to the hype. And you know I told you how my dad moaned about going there. Well, when we went to leave he had truly changed his tune. It had been a typical June day, sunny and rainy with dark clouds and then sun again, piercing the clouds like an email from Heaven and as we went back out through the arch my dad said, “This is one of those places that everyone ought to see before they die”.
Oli: Yes, I feel the same way – it is a wonder of the world…
But now it’s time for a listener’s question. In every episode, we’ll answer a question sent into us – it could be about life in France, food, fashion. So, Janine, what have we been asked this week?
Janine: Today’s question is from Brad Pitts…
Oli: Brad Pitt? He’s asking us a question?
Janine: No, not the Brad Pitt – Brad Pitts who lives in New Zealand. Poor man, it must be a nightmare booking a restaurant and everyone is expecting the real Brad Pitt to turn up! Anyway, Brad Pitts wants to know “I am planning to go to France for the Olympics in 2024 and I will be staying in Paris and have just a day and a half free for visits – what three things do you think I must see to get the Paris experience.”
Well Brad that is a tough question – Oli what would you say to Brad – the three things that are absolute must-sees in Paris?
Oli: Hmmm the Eiffel Tower of course, she is so Parisian – night or day, a must visit though I love her best at night when she twinkles… And I would say the Cathedral of Notre Dame which we are all hoping will be ready for visitors by the time the Olympic Games begin – we should do an episode about Notre Dame eh?
Janine: Absolutely – yes, we should.
Oli: And for no. 3 I would say a museum – maybe the Louvre, the most popular museum in the world – any beyond, because if aliens do come to Earth, they will definitely want to go to this museum.
Janine: Great choices, and I’m just going to ignore that bit about aliens, but if you’re just tuning in to this podcast for the first time then I will explain that Oli is convinced that extra-terrestrials will join the rest of us Earthlings in making France the most visited country in the world and even the universe…
Ok, for my three choices, and I love your choices Oli and I totally agree so I will go for three lesser-known places that you can fit in around Oli’s choices… So, when you go to Notre Dame – add on a visit to Saint-Chapelle an absolute jewel of a church with the most incredible stained-glass windows, older than Notre Dame and now a fabulous venue for evening performances of classical music. And when you go to the Louvre, if you’re a museum fan, cross over the river and pop to the Musee d’Orsay which is a wonderful museum in a former train station – a quite different experience from the enormous Louvre, and full of French art – paintings, furniture, mainly from 1848 to 1914 – impressionist, Belle Epoque and Art Nouveau and it has a lovely restaurant so it’s great to stop for lunch there (but book in advance). And finally, when you head to the Eiffel Tower, take a boat ride on the Seine, the boat quay is at the base of the tower, and then you will get to see the sights from the water – you get a quite different perspective and see so much.
I’ll be publishing heaps of Paris content on my website www.thegoodlifefrance.com and in our free magazine over the next few months, which you can find at magazine.thegoodlifefrance.com so watch this space!
Oli: Thanks so much for this question, Brad. If you also have a question for us – feel free to send it to janine@thegoodlifefrance.com or via our podcast newsletter.
Oli: Thank you for listening to our podcast, we love chatting to you and sharing authentic, real, and yes sometimes odd France! And a huge thank you for sharing it with your friends and family – we are really grateful to you for helping us to grow our podcast.
You’ve been listening to Janine Marsh and me Olivier Jauffrit. You can find me at parischanson.fr
Janine: And you can find me and heaps of information about France – where to visit, culture, history, recipes – everything France - at thegoodlifefrance.com where you can subscribe to the podcast, my weekly newsletter about France and our totally brilliant, totally free magazine at magazine.thegoodlifefrance.com
But for now, it’s au revoir from me.
Olivier: And goodbye from me.
Janine: Speak to you soon!
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)