Mont St. Michel

Yesterday was one of the more difficult days we have had in France.  As I mentioned previously, car drives are not our favorite family outing--yesterday, we did a total of 6 hours in the car (should have been 5, but we spent an hour getting lost!).  The fact that we made it home without physically harming one another is a true miracle.

The day started beautifully with a wonderful breakfast at the chateau--I think Maddie is going to turn into a chocolate croissant by the end of the trip.  We said "Au Revoir" to our wonderful hosts and little Paul and set out for a visit to Mont St. Michel.  We had been warned about the crowds, but were sure that we could tolerate this as I was armed with my Rick Steve's book and a good strategy for seeing the Abbey while avoiding the crowded walkways.  As we got closer to the island, the Abbey appeared to be floating in the sky--it was absolutely surreal.  It is easy to imagine why pilgrims have journeyed to this site for over a thousand years.  (My picture doesn't do it justice.)

We parked in a giant parking lot and started to make our way to the shuttle that would take us out to the island.  This would have been great except it was 95 degrees outside and around 110 degrees on the shuttle.  I started to get a little worried at this point, but we drove an hour and a half out of our way to get here, so there is no way we were going to give up!

Wishing that there was an elevator to the top, we started our ascent to the abbey---it is all uphill and Bobby carried Brooke on his shoulders the entire way.  

This is the kids pretending to enjoy this visit.

Here is how they really felt.

Once we reached the top and made our way through the crushing crowds, we decided that our 1 hour visit was enough and it was time to head back to the car.  Not our best sightseeing day!

Next, we were off towards Rouen to visit with my friend Hanne.  Hanne graduated with me from Truckee High School.  She came for her senior year as an exchange student from Norway.  I hadn't seen her in years and was looking forward to catching up and meeting her family.  We had a delicious dinner and a wonderful time.  It was special to have the kids experience a visit with a French family--they had a great time and were actually well-behaved:).

Our day ended with our final drive towards home in Marly le Roi.  We got lost of course---scary to be lost in France at night, but finally made it home at midnight.  Rest day tomorrow!