King Of The Castle
The guesthouse hidden behind the big brown door in Tours, had 4 guest rooms and two breakfast sittings. Our lovely host Alexandra invited us to breakfast with a couple of Germans in their 70s while she fed us fruit salad, fresh baguettes with homemade jam and scrambled eggs with a good wedge of smelly French cheese. While I was quietly pondering how much I have grown accustomed to having a hunk of cheese for breakfast, a lively political conversation was underway around me. French politics, German doctors, taxes, unemployment, technology, university fees, Putin, Trump… No stone was left unturned.
After bonding over our shared desire for world peace, we farewelled Alexandra and our new German buddies and deliberated over which one last castle we should visit before leaving the Loire Valley. There are so many castles in this valley we were spoilt for choice. We decided on Saumer Chateau but realising we were almost out of petrol, were sent on a wild goose chase by the GPS to try and find our closest petrol station. Our friends Al and Michelle called us from Australia just as we were getting lost, hahaha! I popped into a supermarket to ask if they could point me in the right direction but the guy on the checkout knew not an iota of English and they didn’t teach us how to say “where’s the closest servo?” in French school. One of the customers jumped to my aid and programmed the address into my phone. Merci monsieur!
Saumer Château was even older than yesterday’s castle and was set high on a hill with panoramic views over the old town (which was in fact the new town when the castle’s picture book silhouette first appeared on the horizon). From the castle on the hill (good name for a song) we could see all the matching pointy grey roofs on the uniform houses down below and over the river was an old bridge running along a row of stone arches. I know I said this yesterday but it really was the stuff of fairy tales. Saumer Château had its own eventful history and we were amazed to find out Joan of Arc had once lived there!
It was a big day of driving today (422km to be exact, with lots of stops along the way) so we climbed back onboard our trusty Renault with Ross at the helm and motored towards the famous Mont Saint Michel, with a pit stop at Le French Maccas on the way for des burgers and ‘petit fries’.
As we wound around country roads past paddocks of browsing cows and fields of waving wheat, it was incredible to see the iconic Mont Saint Michel rising up out of nowhere, from quite a distance away. It was huge!
Multiple car parks were lined up along the road but once we parked the car the signs for where to go to catch the shuttle bus were few and far between. Luckily we had internet reception and could Google it!
It was late afternoon when we arrived and people were pouring from the town, making their way across the long bridge. I thought it was a good sign that it might be a little less crowded (I was wrong!)
The shuttle bus dropped us at the far end of the bridge and the tide was way out, leaving a grey muddy sludge for miles around the ancient fortress. This place has the highest and lowest tides in all of Europe - when it’s high tide, the water laps at the city gates, making it look more like the island it is, but if the tide is low you can walk across, not that I’d recommend it, unless you come prepared to roll in the mud. There were actually tour groups all over the place, shoes off, mud squelching between their toes, embracing the experience.
As we walked along the bridge approaching the town, a big gust of wind came up, lifting my earring out of my ear so it took flight and plopped down in the mud right beside the bridge. I could see it there on the flats, as clear as day but it would have been a long, squishy walk to retrieve it. If only I’d had go-go gadget arms. What a bummer. I really liked those earrings too.
Rising dramatically from the sand, Mont Saint Michel is crowned with a soaring medieval abbey and a lofty gilded statue of the Archangel, Michael, who as legend has it, inspired the building of the place and gave it its name. The island of solid granite is all rock walls and spires as you gaze upwards, with encircling ramparts and gates that made it impossible to penetrate by enemy forces back in the day. We were amazed at the number of gift and tacky souvenir shops they had crammed into the narrow cobblestone streets, heaving with curious tourists. It had its own post office and bank but there are only around 29 permanent residents on the ‘Mont’!
Rossco and I walked to the top, hoping to have a geez inside the mammoth abbey but it was closing up for the day and although it was still open, required tickets for entry that were all sold out. We weren’t too perturbed as we had a good look all around it and didn’t really mind avoiding the crowds.
The sky was a dramatic grey today, quite fitting and adding atmosphere to the monochrome landscape of grey, gothic architecture, but as we gazed out over the vast mud flats, God gave us a pop of colour, popping a beautiful rainbow on the horizon.
It was amazing to walk around the streets (& up the stairs!) of this resilient little island that has weathered wars, sieges, centuries of change and now multitudes of tourists pounding its pavements.
A walk back across the bridge and a fond farewell to my right earring still sitting there staring at us from the mud, took us back to the tour bus and our car respectively and we pressed onwards towards Normandy.
We had a delicious dinner in a bustling little restaurant, ‘Down Under’ playing through the speakers as we paid our bill and headed to our accommodation, which is inside a little old castle, and is pretty cool!
