A few days prior to our planned road trip to Normandy, our Parisian friend Claude, who was going to drive us, had an altercation with the Gendarm (the French Police).Instead of stopping when he knew he was caught speeding, he thought to himself, “I’m already going fast and the cop is just parked.If I speed up, make a few turns in the tiny side streets of Paris, go in reverse a quarter of a mile down a side street at high speeds, all while at night with the lights turned off… in his fiancés’ car, everything should be just fine.”Right now you may be thinking, “Chris, I didn’t know you had 18 year old friends.”Ah, it would be normal to think that, yet my friend is 30 years old and somehow holds down a job in finance at a big multinational corporation.So, back to the story…
Claude pulls into the quiet shelter of his apartment complex parking lot, quickly turns of the engine and begins to make a run for the stairwell.What he doesn’t realize is that although Smoky and the Bandit has outrun the police car, he didn’t outrun the radio.A motorcycle cop has pulled up behind him and is now chasing after Claude on foot.There is a brutal tackle (maybe the French cops do watch American Football) and Claude is on the ground.“What do you mean officer? I just came down from my apartment to get something from my fiancé’s car.”“Are you trying to lie to me garcon?”Needless to say, Claude did not pass go, or collect 200 euro; he went strait to jail for the night, (a weeknight) with his fiancé’s car keys in his pocket.
To make matters worse, Claude did not get a phone call like in the movies and both he and his fiancé were supposed to be at work in the morning.Now put yourself in the head of his fiancé, who we will call Marie.Your fiancé said he was going out with the guys to watch a football match and he wanted to take your car because his car wasn’t working too well.It is 6:00am and he is still not home, but you notice your car is outside.You’ve called his friends and they verified that he left after the game, and on top of all this, you don’t have car keys to drive to work.
Needless to say Claude wasn’t our driver to Normandy.His license was suspended for six months.Miraculously, Claude and Marie were on speaking terms just one day after all of the drama occurred.Fortunately for us, Marie offered to drive the four of us to Normandy herself.
The scene of the French countryside to Normandy is nothing short of beautiful.Once outside of the hustle and bustle of Paris, endless fields of brightly colored yellow flowers cover the landscape.Apparently, according to Claude, these flowers are being grown for some sort of new technology that is to be used as an alternative to gasoline.Leave it to the French to make something functional and beautiful.
After a fantastic dinner and a good night’s sleep, we woke up the next day to a morning of warm sunshine for our visit to Mont. St. Michel.Mont. St. Michel is a Benedictine Monastery built circa 900AD.Its one cobblestone street spirals up from the great granite base to the towering Benedictine Abbey, an architectural masterpiece of the 13th Century.The existing structure replaced the original abbey, which was founded in 708 by Saint Aubert, bishop of Avranches, when Archangel Michael appeared to him in a dream commanding him to erect a monastery on this rocky islet.Following its destruction by King Philip II of France in 1203, the new abbey was erected.Sadly enough, the beautiful abbey served as a prison during Napoleon I's reign.Restored after 1863, and connected to the mainland by a causeway (completed 1875), the abbey is preserved as a national historical monument and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Perched atop a pyramid shaped rock, Mont. St. Michel appears to jut defiantly out of the water in an otherwise flat landscape.The tides here are among the greatest in France, with a swing of up to 40 feet between the high and low.Coupled with an almost flat sea floor, the water ends up moving several miles in and out, two times a day.In the past, this natural phenomenon added great peril to one’s pilgrimage.Contrary to popular belief, the tides surrounding the rock do not rush in at 60 miles an hour, but they still have been rumored to create small pockets of quick sand.
When we arrived at Mont. St. Michel, it was low tide and we wanted to experience first hand what it felt like to stand in the vast emptiness of a sea floor.We walked out about a mile or so and when we looked back on Mont. St. Michel, all we could see between us and the abbey was a tiny stream here or a puddle there and nothing else but sand, sand and more sand.The outgoing tide had created an interesting ripple texture in the sand, which had not, and would not get a chance to dry completely because before we knew it, the tide would return for an encore.
As we walked further, we began to wonder if we would have enough time to get back to Mont. St. Michel before the sea reclaimed the land.We saw other visitors making their way back to the rock, so we decided that was a good clue that the bell does toll.As the mount came back into focus, we were impressed by the massive fortifications which enabled the islet to withstand repeated English assaults during the Hundred Years’ War.The abbey was beautiful, striking, and strong.Best of all, it survived the test of time so that people like us could enjoy it in all of its splendor.
