Photo 1 - Mont saint Michel (by Mariacristina)
When you study France as a child in elementary school, three are the most common photographs that represent it: the Eiffel Tower, Pont du Gard, Mont Saint Michel. In 2016 I managed to complete bringing live the images seen in the school book 50 years earlier, fulfilling the desire of a “visual” person like me.
Photo 2 - Mont saint Michel
And it appears to you from afar, like a fairytale castle that rises from the earth and at any moment you expect to see some dragon circling around the highest spire, spitting flames on the defenseless inhabitants!
Photo 3 - Mont saint Michel (approaching on foot)
But you get back into reality, you park your car in the huge parking lots, and you walk along the 2.5 km of the road that will take you to the mountain. The long walk takes you into the dynamics of the tides, realizing that you arrived at low tide, the sea is not even visible and only a few streams of water in the sand makes you understand that just before there was the sea. After the bridge, you arrive at the square where the buses turn and from there you enter the walls of the fortress. Here, too, you have to work with your imagination, and instead of souvenir shops and restaurants, you can imagine seeing many artisans at work in their medieval garments. The smells, just the smells are very different, well I am “visual” not “olfactory”! The visit to the Abbey, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979, is nothing short of exciting. Immersion in medieval history, in the Gothic, in the silence of a spiritual encounter as everyone can conceive it.
Photo 4 - Mont saint Michel . The church.
Inside the Church, silence is absolute and obligatory, many people pray. The abbey stands on the site of the apparition of the Archangel Michael in 709. The Archangel had been busy with apparitions for years! In fact, there is an ideal straight line that perfectly connects three shrines dedicated to the Archangel Michael, between them and the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem. In 2016, with little merit and little faith, we visited all three of them: Mont Saint Michel, the northernmost, La sacra di San Michele in Val di Susa in the province of Turin, symbol of Piedmont and the Church of San Michele in Monte Sant’Angelo in the Gargano, perhaps the one that gave me the most on a spiritual level. The Cloister with its lines, arches, sculptures, creates games of perspective and geometry that are difficult to resist from photographing.
Photo 5 - Mont saint Michel . The Cloister
Photo 6 - Mont saint Michel . The arcades of the Cloister
The various rooms are all a riot of vaults and arches and also with some space for the imagination of some contemporary artist.
Photo 7 - Mont saint Michel. The monastery
The spire with the golden Archangel stands 170 meters above sea level.
Photo 8 - Mont saint Michel. The spire with the golden Archangel
Photo 9 - Mont saint Michel . The golden Archangel
After the visit to the Abbey, the time of high tide arrives! The high tide phenomenon is not so relevant every day. The best times are in spring and autumn with the coincidence of the full and new moon. When the tide classification exceeds the score of 110, the tide achieves the purpose of returning Mont Saint Michel yet another island. We arrived in the summer day with one of the highest tides but, below 110. We also understood what the power of nature is, enjoying the spectacle from the top of the arrival of high tide.
il video dell’arrivo della mareahttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pjeNqL2nyM&w=560&h=315
All of a sudden the tide rises, it seems to witness a gallop of horses. The wave arrives and the sea rises more and more, and moreover, we arrived on a day of absolute flat calm of the sea. Being on the sand walking at the wrong time can be extremely dangerous. In fact, when the high tide arrives, from the abbey terraces, rescue men scan the horizon in search of possible unwary tourists. In the video below, you can see the wave coming and continuing its almost unstoppable run. You look from above and then go down to see where the water rises and if the mountain becomes an island.
I pass through an ancient door on the rocks and after a few minutes, I realize that I would never go back to the same place, the water had covered the passage. I take photos of the maximum point where the water stops its ascent and practically, almost immediately, the descent begins, slow but inexorable towards a new low tide.
Photo 10 - Mont saint Michel. Low tide top view of the abbey.
Mont Saint Michel at night accentuates its fairytale side, despite being invaded by tourist establishments. If you want to visit it, choose the period and time well, do not miss the arrival of high tide, check the times and height of the tide, and if you can, choose the right day.
Photo 11 - Mont saint Michel by night
Visitato assieme a Mariacristina il 7/7/2016. In copertina foto di Mariacristina