After doing some research before we left Chicago, we decided to use the cute town of Pontorson as a home base for visiting the ancient abbey on the water in Normandy, Mont-Saint-Michel. On the day we were leaving for France, we woke up early in anticipation of a long day of travel. We had an 8:30 am Eurostar train to Paris that went underneath the English Channel. Everything went smoothly with our train transfers, one in the town of Rennes, until we got to Pontorson. We arrived at our hotel, a small and adorable Best Western (that did NOT live up to its state-side reputation) that had taken over a 16th century building with a creaking original staircase and old artwork throughout. When dropping our bags in the room, Kevin immediately realized that with all the hectic coming-and-going, he had accidentally left his backpack on the train. Since it contained both his computer and our camera, we were freaking out. We tried to call and talk to someone in English but after about 30 minutes Kevin felt like Mr. Mcallister looking for lost Kevin while in Paris. We then asked the extremely nice and helpful front desk attendant to help us. He was able to fill out a lost property form online and suggested we head back to the train station in the morning when it opened. Since it was already around 7:30 at this point, we figured the only thing to do was grab some dinner and try not to think about it until morning. A bottle of Bordeaux helped with that. We had a wonderful pre-fixe meal at a restaurant/creperie near our hotel called Le Grillion.
The next morning we headed straight to the train station to talk to the attendant. She only spoke broken English so it was a bit of a challenge explaining the situation to her. She seemed only mildly concerned, had the ‘stupid American’ look and told us to go visit Mont-Saint-Michel and come back later in the afternoon after she had figured the situation out. As we headed back through Pontorson, we came upon the weekly market set up in the town square. As you could imagine, it was rows upon rows of fresh vegetables, cured meats, stinky cheeses and fresh seafood. There were also several street food vendors selling galettes and crepes, the specialty of the Normandy area. We learned that we could bike ride to Mont-Saint-Michel and rented bikes at a nearby camp site. The path that took you to the abbey was about 7 km long and followed a beautiful river. The weather was beautiful and it was so nice being outdoors in the French countryside surrounded by picturesque windmills and fields of flowers. We could also see Mont-Saint-Michel in the distance getting closer and closer as we rode.
The abbey itself is located on a small island and is quite a sight to behold. It’s almost as if this large castle-like structure is rising up out of the sea. As anticipated, the site was very crowded, but after a quick bite to eat we made our way up to the entrance. Mont-Saint-Michel is a monastery that dates back to the 8th century – it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and clearly exemplifies the feudal society of the period.
After returning to town, we dropped off our bikes and headed back to the train station to see if there was any news on Kevin’s bag. Luckily, she had located it!! It was at the last stop on the train line – Caen. She told us matter-of-factly that we would go there tomorrow to retrieve it. When we explained that we had purchased tickets on the 9 am train the next morning, she gave a long sigh. She then rebooked us on the early train to Caen and told us we would have to speak to an attendant there about getting our ticket from Rennes back to Paris changed. The early train was at 6:39 am so we just grabbed a quick dinner and fell asleep pretty early. When we got to Caen, we went to the French version of lost and found and (phew!) found Kevin’s bag! The only downfall was that we were forced to relinquish our original train tickets and buy new ones from Caen to Paris. However, I’d much rather pay for train tickets than a new laptop and camera. We also lucked out in that the next train left soon after and we would still be able to make our next train to Beaune in the Burgundy region. On an unrelated but coincidental note, Caen was also one of the towns that Kevin’s grandpa visited when he arrived in Normandy after D-Day. While there, he traded cigarettes with farmers for onions to help make the K-ration meat a little more flavorful.
Recommendations:
- Best Western Pontorson. 13 Rue Couesnon, 50170 Pontorson, France. https://www.bestwestern.com/en_US/book/hotels-in-pontorson/best-western-hotel-montgomery/propertyCode.93481.html.
- Le Grillion. 37 Rue Couesnon, 50170 Pontorson, France. http://legrillon-pontorson.com/.
- Mont-Saint-Michel Abbey. http://www.abbaye-mont-saint-michel.fr/.
