Cow etiquette

We left at 7 am for the long (over 100 km on the wrong side, with speed limits varying between 30 and 130) journey. We had a 10:15 guided tour and wanted to beat the crowds. 

All was going smoothly on the freeways, but a little slower on the smaller roads. 80 usually means 70 for me and as we drew closer, the line of cars behind was considerable.

Then we came to a problem that I've only ever been close to whilst driving in Tasmania. The line grew longer. I inched my way forward. What sort of damage would a cow do to a car if you got too close? I had to man up, unlike the car coming in the other direction, who was not only stopped, but on my side of the road. In what locals now refer to as The Parting of the White Cows, it seems my pilgrimage to Mont St Michel was already paying off.

It's hard to describe the structure that was built over 800 years ago. For starters, it is surrounded by water when the tide is in. And it's massive and it's tall. It was built on a rocky island.

When the tide is out, you can walk on the river bed, but some of it is quicksand. This immediately takes me back to Gilligan's Island and all those Tarzan movies where all that is left of you is a hat on the surface while you continue to sink. 

People were out walking on it as we left and the tide had gone out. They had guides and no surface hats were seen.

Note, always take a note of where you have parked so that 5 hours later you don't look like a lost idiot searching in parking lot 10.

Note, free toilets near the carpark and also just before you climb lots of stairs to the church to start your tour (but not free in the village).

We booked the guided tour online (the guided part is free). It was considerably busy and the guide's accent was a bit hard to understand but the tour of 75 minutes was good. 

Another poster was purchased in the gift shop after. Maybe we need another house for some wall space. 

We walked around the rampart (fancy name for wall), looked in the village and headed back. 

My beliefs that JK Rowling stole everything for Harry Potter leads me to believe that Diagon Alley came from here. Settle down Potterheads. Ideas come from somewhere. Let's not get into arguments of how much Lord of the Rings stuff she stole. My opinion only. But I'm right.

Did I mention the massive gulls?

On our way back to the car, which is around 3 km (plus extra as you can't find your car), we decided to eat our beautifully made by me baguettes. Strolling, I mentioned that it looked like the birds above were looking like they wanted our lunch. Then, Bam! One swoops down and gets a chunk of my lunch as I put it to my mouth. We decided to eat later. Annette heard two women next to us exclaim in French (Editor's note: I recognised the word 'bouche' as 'mouth' - my Duolingo French lessons are paying off!).

We checked out the dam up the river on the way back, looked, eventually found the car and did the long drive back to Caen.

We were way ahead of our schedule so we took a stroll into town, fixed my light headedness from lack of food with some nice frites, checked out some shops and got a new Tour de France hat.

This is possibly the 3rd or 4th town that the tour is visiting, so when I get home I can watch the whole thing to see if I recognise things from the holiday.