L'Aber Wrac'h, Bretagne, France.

5-10-07 L’ABER WRAC’H, BRETAGNE, FRANCE: We left Pleven early after le petit dejeuner and beat some of the crowds at Mont St. Michel. Driving up to it is most impressive, it dominates the skyline from miles away looking like a big sand pile with a central spire. Once it was surrounded by water at least at high tide. Now it is surrounded mostly by sand and sheep. It probably gets water at the base only at the highest tides. This is what several years of continued erosion and river delta deposits will do. When we were in Ephesus, Turkey years ago it was well inland but was a port city when Paul preached there, more erosion and delta deposits. Anyway, MSM is a gigantic warren of huge stone rooms, and some small ones, but each one requires climbing more stairs to get to. We avoided the tours and did the self guided thing without the history of each stone and each sacrifice. It is a religious fortress with walls, battlements, slit shaped windows for shooting beseigers. This goes along with the island location. The lower levels, like all the French religious sites we have visited, are awash with vendors selling food, souvenirs, trinkets, rooms, maps, guides and toilet privileges. Worth a trip, as Michelin says.

From there we went back to the ouest to Dinan. This city has an old, midieval center. After lunch we went on to l’Aber Wrac’h and our hotel, almost at the western end of Bretagne. On the way we stopped at a few coastal fishing villages, now being gentrified into resort towns. That peculiar looking and sounding name is Celtic, not French. The road signs in this part of Brittany are in two languages, like Ireland, but in French and Breton, of which there are four dialects. After dinner at another seafood place, we crashed. The hotel was modern and in the middle of construction and disappointing. It was, of course, the only one I chose.

Mont St. Michel

Mont St. Michel-interior chapel

Mont St. Michel-dining room

Dinan