The next day we got on the train to see Mont Saint Michel, an abbey that was once on an island when the tide was in. A road has been built out to it since the days of pilgrims, but you can still see the tide come in and out. It can actually move very quickly, and people are advised not to stray to far from the abbey on the mudflats, especially because the fog can come in quickly and the tide can encircle you. We stayed on the island.
We weren’t in a big hurry to get there because there are only two trains there and two trains back. So we took the morning train out and weren’t going to come back until much later in the evening, leaving us with a lot of extra time at the abbey and town. No big deal, we brought things to do to kill time. On the train on the way out, the conductor checked our tickets and then we both fell asleep and when we woke up realized we were sitting at one particular station for a long time. And our stop was still 2 away. We were in the front car and the conductor and driver kept walking back and forth from the engine to the outside with the manual in their hand. Like Stephen said, when they break out the manual, it’s never a good sign. They ended up telling us, with broken English and gestures, that we were going to have to get on a bus.
The train company called out two buses to come get us, one going straight to the final destination and one doing the two stops before the final destination (which included Pontorson, where we were going). So we all loaded on the bus and headed to the train station. The train station from Pontorson is a 15 minute drive from Mont St Michel, but they have a shuttle bus that is scheduled to coincide with the trains that come in to the station and drive you out to Mont St Michel. That is, assuming your train arrives when it’s supposed to. Because of the delay sitting on the train and then the fact that we had to actually ride a bus, we missed the shuttle we’d wanted to take and had to wait about an hour and a half. We set off to find something to eat.
Pontorson is not really a tourist destination, and it was only around 10:00 at this point. We’d only eaten a little, and it had been pretty early in the morning, so we were looking for food, not just a croissant. After some very difficult attempts at communicating with people who spoke absolutely no English, we finally got a pizza at a little cafe.
Afterwards we went back to the station and took the shuttle bus over to Mont St Michel. There is quite a hike up to the abbey, with lots of stairs and winding little alleyways. But we had pretty good directions from Rick Steves and were able to avoid the crowded main road up.
Everyone has to go through this gate....I think
Looking down at the streets
Slowly working our way up
Notice the little track that was used to get supplies up,
I'll refer to it later
LOTS of stairs
More stairs...
...and more stairs....
Looking down at where our last picture of the entire abbey was taken
The abbey has been used as an abbey (duh), a fortress, and a prison throughout its existence. We had very informative audio guides in addition to the Rick Steves book guide, so we took our time working our way through all the rooms. It wasn’t too crowded, except for the occasional school group that we would let pass us.
Don't look down...
The abbey used to become an island when the tide would come in. It's one of the fastest tides in the world and was very dangerous (until they built a causeway out to the abbey)
If you look closely, you can see tiny little people walking on the mudflats. It's not recommended that you go very far from the abbey without a guide because it can get very foggy and the tide can surround you very quickly. We didn't go on the mudflats...
A garden inside
One of the big halls, I think this is where the monks ate
Looking up one of the giant fireplace chimney
Me in the fireplace
another garden
Looking down the trolley line
The giant human hamster wheel that was used to raise and lower the trolley
Another hall
After several hours touring the abbey, we headed back down to find something to eat. Mont Saint Michel is known for its omelets and mussels. We both had the fixed price menu, and one of Stephen’s courses was an omelet (very very fluffy) and I had mussels. They were still in their shell, but there was a light cream sauce that they were cooked in. Very good.
Pretty good local cider, or cidre, one of the region's other specialties
My view at lunch. See the abbey up above Stephen?
Stephen's view at lunch. Still blissfully unaware of my big oops...
Much more water than when we got there
As we head back down to the bus stop to catch the shuttle back to Pontorson, Stephen asks if I have and 10 euro bills in the money belt. As I’m looking, I realize our rail pass is not in the money belt. Where it has been for 2 and a half weeks. It’s gone. I fall apart and desperately search every pocket and bag that I have. Stephen pulls everything out of the backpack with no luck. A little girl asks if I lost our bus ticket. Oh, if only.
We run back to the restaurant we just ate at because I’d gone to the bathroom there, where it would most likely have fallen out of my pocket. It’s not there. We didn’t go up to the abbey because there were only 2 buses to the train station, and one would have been arrived very close to our train departure time (the only train back to Bayeux). And if it fell out in the abbey, there’d be no way of knowing where it was (and we’d have to pay to get back in). It was more likely in the cafe in Pontorson or left on the bus or train.
We searched the shuttle bus (same bus and driver as earlier), but it wasn’t there and the bus driver didn’t have it.
The nice lady at the train station who (thank goodness) spoke enough English to understand us and called the bus company who’d picked us up when our train broke down, the station our train broke down in, and even reached the conductor of the actual train. No one had it.
We went back to the cafe and asked there. Well, “asked” after a lot of charades and trying to explain what we wanted. They spoke zero English. Like I knew more words in French than they did in English. We tried “rail pass” we tried “ticket” we tried “train,” we made a rectangular shape with our fingers, which they took to mean croque monsieur (a toasted ham and cheese sandwich, very common). We said no, pointed to the table we sat at that morning, said “pizza,” and yes they remembered we had been there earlier. And now we wanted a croque monsieur. No.
Finally a guy a the bar who spoke English helped us out, and they searched everywhere for our pass. Not there.
I cried some more, Stephen comforted me and said we had our passports, our cash, and our credit cards, we were fine. We bought our train ticket back to Bayeux and headed back.
I remembered I’d bought the rail pass insurance, which we read that night. We had to file a police report (which was a difficult thing to do with very short hours at the police station - we ended up going to the national police station - and again not speaking the language). And it looks like they’re not going to give us all our money that we had to pay out of pocket because it was a 15 day rail pass. They take the cost of the pass, divide by 15, and give you the remaining day’s worth of money.
The worst thing was that the ticket we had bought for the Chunnel (the train that goes from Paris to London underneath the English Channel), was a rail pass holder’s ticket. So in order to use this already expensive ticket, we had to have a rail pass. And on short notice, those chunnel tickets are very expensive.
I’d bought the rail pass from Rail Europe, but they only had a number to call from the U.S. or Canada. Luckily, our friend Stacey was on instant messenger and was able to call my parents who could get on iChat and video chat me while they called Rail Europe from the U.S. My mom spent several hours on hold and redialing, while I researched the cheapest way to get tickets and the other options we had for getting to London. (Thanks Mom)
At around 2 in the morning Bayeux time, I decided it was going to be cheapest to take a train to Caen, a taxi to the ferry terminal, a ferry from Caen to Portsmouth, and then a train from Portsmouth to London. We actually got to sleep in a little bit more than we would’ve for the Chunnel, and got in only an hour or two after we would have. It’s still really annoying that I lost the pass though.
I think if I knew where I’d left it, I would feel better. The last time I remember it for sure was when the conductor checked in before the train broke down. He came by a second time and at first didn’t remember us, so I pulled it out again, but then he did remember us so he never actually took it. It’s possible I left it then.
It’s also possible that it was on the bus that took us to Pontorson. When we were boarding we thought we might need the pass so I unzipped the money belt, but don’t know for sure that it was in there at that point. And I left the belt unzipped as we boarded and forgot about it, so it’s possible to could’ve fallen out then. I find it unlikely that it fell down my pant leg without me feeling it, so if it wasn’t on the train, it probably fell out when I went to the bathroom. But we checked every bathroom, including the train that broke down because we were on the exact same train on the way home. (I know for sure because our trash was still in the trash bins by the seats we’d been in). It’s also possible that someone thought it was just a ragged piece of paper and threw it away, or that someone got a few free days on the trains. I just can’t believe I was careless enough to lose it in the first place.
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