Mont Saint Michel

water play to cool down

the team on the way back

muddy muddy...

for those who don't know that place... it's in Normandy, it's classified as world heritage at the Unesco, same as the Kheops Pyramids...

it's packed with tourists most of the year.. so we went there by foot, across the bay as it shows vey clearly on that link:

http://www.decouvertebaie.com/mont-saint-michel/plan-acces-traversee-baie.html

we went from B to D and back in 1 day during low tide, had a pic nic at the foot of the mount and walked back accross, well for the older kids and adults anyway.

that big bay is totally uncovered at low tide, it goes for kms so if you time it right you have all day to get there and back. you do have to be aware of the 2 (sometimes 3) rivers to cross as their depth and strength vary each tide.

apart from that there's very little danger. However the "guides" are maintaining some legends and fear of some quicksands patches and flushes of water in the rivers, the legend and "ear say"says as well that the tide comes bak in at the speed of the horse galopping...all that is very good but untrue... they have to sustain their business I guess.

My sister Melanie has been doing that crossing each year for a while now, my parents were doing it with us when we were kids (by foot or horse back) and I have done it as well quite a few times now.

we are getting sick of paying a guide who is barely nice with us if polite and pulls a face when we start asking questions...

so off we went without a guide but with a bunch of kids from 3 to14, 8 of them and 4 adults.

we had a great time the kids were swimming , through mud, swimming again...until 30 min from the mount, when a guide on our left at about 100m with about 50 people behind him yells at us a few times to tell us that "if we carry on that way we are putting ourselves into great danger, that it's not reasonnable to take little kids and that the rescue chopper is 3000 euros per head, there will be a release from the damn in 10 min..."

Melanie walk towards him to avoid the yelling and say "Hi" and get the same contents without a She rejoins us and we talk about it while keep walking. we really think he is full of s.... but with the littles one we head towards where he advised us to. walk accross the river where his group does, pass his group and walk back towards the mount, giving our crossing an extra 30min that the kids would have spared happily.

as we were walking close to the mount we saw him and his group recrossing the river at the same place and coming towards the mount where we initially wanted to. Melanie and I looked at each other fuming against their lies of danger to pertain their business. oh and by the way there has been no release whatsoever.

apart from that we had a really great day, the kids had a ball and it was so glorious, the photos speak for themselves...