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Mont Saint Michel is an island situated in the middle of a...lake? Sea? in Normandy, France, and where Leon and I decided to spend a whole day following our first day in Paris. As we always do when we travel, we decided to leave our main destination and head to a second one within the same country just to see more and experience even more new things.
When choosing our trip within a trip for France, of course the first thought we had was to head to Versailles, only an hour out of Paris. Unfortunately though, we just missed the low season (when tickets to the surrounding areas are free) and we decided we weren't in the mood to pay for entrance. I do still wanna see Versailles for myself someday, but I can wait till we come back.
So began the scramble to look for another destination. We went through about maybe seven options? Some were just too far, some were not so special for a day trip, and still some were better explored in more than a day. Then I finally stumbled onto Mont Saint Michel. When I showed Leon the photo of the place he asked me on the spot if we could confirm that one. I usually get my way when it comes to planning where to go during our travels, so the rare chance that my husband asks me to get his way, I'm usually happy to oblige.
Finding info on how to get to Mont Saint Michel is not easy, let me tell you. I had to dig around for a whole day until I finally found what I was looking for. So here it is, all the transport info you need:
- To get to Mont Saint Michel, you have to take both a train and a bus. The whole trip will take you about three hours.
- The train is usually from Paris > Rennes. It departs from Gare Montparnasse. You can buy your tickets online (if you want) or from the SNCF counter in the train station. You can buy combined train + bus tickets to get to, and return from, Mont Saint Michel, which I highly recommend doing because the transfers get quite convoluted sometimes. I bought ours at the station because we planned to leave on the 7:30AM train but we weren't confident if we could wake up and get ready in time (we did). I suggest buying at least a week or at least a few days before.
- Once you get off the train you have about 20-30 minutes to find the bus.
- The bus won't stop right in front of Mont Saint Michel. It will stop you at the tourists' center. To get to the island, there are free shuttles, paid horse carriages, but you can also walk if you want.
After that we just walked along the outer wall, which is a lotttt of stairs. The view is worth it though, even though it was raining and unbelievably cold at the same time. Yep, all the while Paris was having another sunny day, go figure. But I wasn't fazed because when I think of beautiful, solemn medieval settings, I always imagine them in overcast, cloudy weather with showers anyway. It didn't remove from the experience. You can also enter the abbey at the very top of the island, but as always, Leon and I opted out of that.
We were in Mont Saint Michel from 10AM to about 4PM. The bus station back to Paris is situated near the Tourist Center, so make sure to give yourself enough time to wait for a shuttle (which gets full) and walk back to the bus stop. We left about 2:45PM? Our bus back was to depart at 4:00PM.
All in all, Mont Saint Michel was a different and worthwhile experience we had the pleasure of experiencing while in France. While I don't think I'll be returning anytime soon, only because we were quite thorough with our walk around the battlements, I would still think fondly of this time.
So, would you take this day trip? Yes? No? Maybe?
Let me know in the comments below! See you soon - Che
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