122 - wed aug 30 - st malo / mont st michel / paris

we packed up and set off towards mont st michel, surely one of the most photogenic places in the whole damn world. its basically a mini mountain located in the middle of large tidal flats, and atop the hill sits a picturesque abbey. you can see it on the horizon from 30 kilometres away, its an eerie sight getting bigger as you approach it. one road leads in, and apparently it never gets flooded but depending on the tides the mont can sometimes be completely surrounded by water.

at the base of the abbey is a small village, or should i say was a small village because it was long converted into simply a crammed street full of tacky tourist shops and overpriced snack bars and restaurants. honestly it was pretty disheartening, packed in with all these tourists, after approaching the mighty mont with such awe. we pushed our way through the alley, ascending towards the abbey, and the packs of tourists thinned as we walked. up some stairs and we made it into the abbey, signing up for a guided tour.

our guide was great, a marvellous grey-haired french guy with the air of a history professor and the knowledge to match. he told us that he had spent ten years teaching in england and had only in the last few years returned to france to take this more relaxed position at the abbey showing tourists around, and he told many jokes at french peoples expense that obviously went down well with his english-speaking audience. he was casually eccentric and really funny. the abbey itself was pretty stunning and worth battling the tourist crowds for.

back on the road we headed for paris. the sun went down by the time we had made it to the city limits. suz did her best driving through the scary strange roads of the city while i did my best to navigate us around the worst bits. a wrong turn down into an unintended tunnel found us spat out unexpectedly into one of the dodgiest parts of town to drive around in, the financial district called 'la defense'. i don't know if maybe some power grid had gone down, or if they just turn all the street lights off when everyone goes home, but it was a pretty scary experience weaving in and out of slip lanes, motorways, back roads, no idea which way the roads are going, avoiding head-on collisions with hoons making the most of the eerie dark tunnels, weaving in and out. basically it sucked. eventually we found the campsite at around 10pm - paris is one of the only cities in europe if not the world to actually have a campground within 5 k's or so to the central part of town. we pitched our tent in the dark and went to bed exhausted.

click here for photos