Mont Saint Michel - 8 September

Mont Saint Michel is an abbey and village built on a rock off the coast of Normandy in France. My first visit was in 2002 with Adam and as we were picking the hire car up from Rennes this trip it was somewhere Belinda and Matt just had to see. We stayed on the Mont (Adam and I had stayed in an isolated B&B further along the coast) which allowed plenty of time for leisurely exploration of the abbey, village and beach.
Until the 8th century it had just been a rock. The story is that a huge tidal wave came through and flattened the area including the forests. Aubert, a local bishop, was visited by the archangel Saint Michel in a dream ordering him to build a place of worship dedicated to him. After the 3rd visit when St Michel, cross at being ignored, put a hole in Aubert’s skull, Aubert ordered some relicts from Italy and built a sanctuary. Over time the rock became known as Mont Saint Michel. What you see today has evolved over the centuries since. Monks still live and worship on the Mont.