May 8th
So we went to a couple of cities today, the first being Mount St. Michel. Which in case you haven't seen all the other pictures/posts I've made is the "castle" that TANGLED is based off of. Yeah. You know that Disney movie about Rapunzel that just came out? And that big castle/city that is her real home? THAT ONE. And no - before the jokes begin, they did not do the floating lanterns. I know. Sad :(. But it was pretty magical without it. Ok, so Mt. St. Michel is actually a small city built on a hilltop surrounding an old old old abbey - hence the reason I put the word castle in quotes up there - it's actually an abbey. It is built almost on like an island because it is completely surrounded by water and you have to cross a bridge to get to it. But when its low tide the water recedes and you can walk on the beach outside the city walls. It's pretty cool to say the least.
So our main sight to see at the city was obviously the huge medieval abbey which is built on the very top of the mountain. And ok maybe it's not exactly large enough to be a "mountain" but I'm not calling that sucker a hill, not after walking up its 90 degree slopes and thousand stairs. I thought I was going to tear the muscle above my kneecap - what muscle you ask? No, not your thigh, the one that is right above your knee joint. Don't know what I'm talking about? Go walk up 20 flights of stairs and then you'll start to feel it. The abbey was really cool...but to be honest...it was also really boring. Is that awful of me to not appreciate this old building rich with history and experience? We got the little audio guides that are supposed to tell you about each room as you move along but of course we got them in French and they were difficult to understand and nearly impossible if you weren't paying 100% to them. So basically I didn't get a single word out of them. It was really cool seeing the building and looking at some of the rooms - I mean one of them was a knights hall! And it had a beautiful courtyard, even though it was pretty small I suppose in comparaison to the large
jardins (gardens) of the Paris palaces, but I loved the classic structure of it.
But after a while, it is just an old old building. If you don't know history and background, things tend not to seem as interesting. And it was a long audio tour/walk through the abbey, we were in there for an hour to an hour and a half.
After wards we were free to explore the small city. I felt like this city was pretty unique even among the other
villes (cities) of France. I mean its built into a mountain for heaven's sake. Which means that a) it's isolated and there are no suburbs or city sprawl b) it was built in the Middle Ages, like literally, and the structure/layout hasn't changed much and c) the streets are the tiniest I have ever seen. Even in Paris. The streets of France are generally pretty small anyway, they just don't make big streets. Maybe that's really why everyone drives small cars. But I kinda loved the small streets just because they were so fitting. They fit in with the town. They hadn't been expanded in an attempt to modernize and profitize and effecticize (those last two aren't real words), they had just been left as is, as they were meant to be, and all the souvenir shops and cafés found space within them. I feel like that's a lesson we can learn from the French. Too often I think in America we destroy things because they're not new enough or practical and then instead we build something new to be more efficient. Just a thought. And the streets really were so cool. Besides being small they were crammed with shops and so steep. But also there were a couple of alleys that led to backstreets - and you thought you were just going to some boring alley behind a house/shop but instead it led to a whole new section behind the main road. They were so cool.
And of course, like everything else in France, so picturesque. I found this little hotel on one of these backstreets and to get to it I took these little steps that were shoved between two houses. The corridor for the steps was honestly the width of my body, I turned sideways a little as I walked in order not to scrap my shoulders...or get stuck. I kept worrying that the walls would get nearer at the top of the stairs like in that scene in Inception when Cobb is running away in South Africa -- or like a cow stuck in one of those herding mechanisms (you know so they can't turn around and have to keep going forward?) Anyway I digress. Point being, the whole place was so cute and fun and adventurous, if you ever go to France put this one at the top of the list. It's worth it. We ate lunch at a little café and bought
un crêpe du burre sucre, which is a buttered sugar crêpe. It's one of the region's specialty, and our professors kept telling us we had to get one. It was pretty good, although I might still prefer fresh fruit crêpes. And then I bought
glace (ice cream) to eat on the warm afternoon. I love French
glace, it's so delicious. So far I've always gotten the
framboise (raspberry) flavor because it's so good. It tastes like sherbet, but is lighter. I'm not really sure what makes it so good or different from American sherbet - maybe it's just that I'm in France and now I have rose-colored tastebuds :)
So the second place we went to was a small town called St. Malo, and so far it has been my favorite place - which is saying a lot. It is this little seaside town that was built back in medieval times and it still has its original ramparts! The old brick wall surrounds the whole town and you can walk it in probably an hour or so. The streets are all cobblestone and most of the buildings are the original old brick. The town itself can be crossed in about twenty minutes by foot which made it perfect to explore. We could walk all around town and it was small enough to not get lost. I'm practically obsessed with this town to be honest. Everything was SO picturesque. I mean each street could be the cover for a different calendar. You see pictures online or in books and you think that just some especially pretty parts of Europe look like that, but honestly all of it does. At least as far as the places that I've been - and this town was the epitome of that. Don't worry, I'll put up enough pictures you'll see - but even then, the pictures don't do it justice. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then clearly this town needed millions of words written about it because seeing it in real life...no picture can truly capture that. So basically we all just explored this town for the rest of the evening. We had dinner together as a group, and I got a salmon crêpe (I know, two crêpes in one day, so French haha) and it was actually quite good. I also had an Origina, which is this soda they have out in France. It's essentially like carbonated orange juice...which may not sound great but it's actually incredible. I love it and wish we had it over in America more. (You can find them at grocery stores but they're more expensive and in a special section). I just really enjoyed walking the town, it's what I always dreamed of I suppose. Roaming the streets in France. We walked out on the beach too which was fun. It is amazing that I am here. That this is my life now. It is quite literally fulfilling a dream of mine, and its amazing to see a lifelong dream like that to come true.
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| Beautiful beach and beautiful girls |
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| When in France, do as the French do - don't worry we kept it sober! |
So we went to a couple of cities today, the first being Mount St. Michel. Which in case you haven't seen all the other pictures/posts I've made is the "castle" that TANGLED is based off of. Yeah. You know that Disney movie about Rapunzel that just came out? And that big castle/city that is her real home? THAT ONE. And no - before the jokes begin, they did not do the floating lanterns. I know. Sad :(. But it was pretty magical without it. Ok, so Mt. St. Michel is actually a small city built on a hilltop surrounding an old old old abbey - hence the reason I put the word castle in quotes up there - it's actually an abbey. It is built almost on like an island because it is completely surrounded by water and you have to cross a bridge to get to it. But when its low tide the water recedes and you can walk on the beach outside the city walls. It's pretty cool to say the least.
So our main sight to see at the city was obviously the huge medieval abbey which is built on the very top of the mountain. And ok maybe it's not exactly large enough to be a "mountain" but I'm not calling that sucker a hill, not after walking up its 90 degree slopes and thousand stairs. I thought I was going to tear the muscle above my kneecap - what muscle you ask? No, not your thigh, the one that is right above your knee joint. Don't know what I'm talking about? Go walk up 20 flights of stairs and then you'll start to feel it. The abbey was really cool...but to be honest...it was also really boring. Is that awful of me to not appreciate this old building rich with history and experience? We got the little audio guides that are supposed to tell you about each room as you move along but of course we got them in French and they were difficult to understand and nearly impossible if you weren't paying 100% to them. So basically I didn't get a single word out of them. It was really cool seeing the building and looking at some of the rooms - I mean one of them was a knights hall! And it had a beautiful courtyard, even though it was pretty small I suppose in comparaison to the large jardins (gardens) of the Paris palaces, but I loved the classic structure of it.
After wards we were free to explore the small city. I felt like this city was pretty unique even among the other villes (cities) of France. I mean its built into a mountain for heaven's sake. Which means that a) it's isolated and there are no suburbs or city sprawl b) it was built in the Middle Ages, like literally, and the structure/layout hasn't changed much and c) the streets are the tiniest I have ever seen. Even in Paris. The streets of France are generally pretty small anyway, they just don't make big streets. Maybe that's really why everyone drives small cars. But I kinda loved the small streets just because they were so fitting. They fit in with the town. They hadn't been expanded in an attempt to modernize and profitize and effecticize (those last two aren't real words), they had just been left as is, as they were meant to be, and all the souvenir shops and cafés found space within them. I feel like that's a lesson we can learn from the French. Too often I think in America we destroy things because they're not new enough or practical and then instead we build something new to be more efficient. Just a thought. And the streets really were so cool. Besides being small they were crammed with shops and so steep. But also there were a couple of alleys that led to backstreets - and you thought you were just going to some boring alley behind a house/shop but instead it led to a whole new section behind the main road. They were so cool. 
Love the photos!
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