Legend has it that in the year 708, the Bishop of Avranche received a visitation from St. Michel, the warrior angel who protects the French nation. The angel told the Bishop to build a sanctuary in his honor at the top of a pyramid-shaped peak in the middle of a bay on the Normandy coast. The story of how this was accomplished – over a period that lasted from the year 1,000 to the present – is astonishing.
A traveler’s first view of the Abbaye is glimpsed across the flat green fields, dotted with sheep – its monumental shape and shining spire look like a visitation from another world… as you come closer, you see that it’s not a spacecraft after all, but an enormous granite fortification that rises above the tides of the bay. In its many lives, Mont Saint Michel has been a pilgrimage site, a Benedictine Abbey, an impregnable stronghold that held off the British during the Hundred Years War, a prison after the French Revolution, and finally a French national monument and UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Lovers of architecture will recognize the Romanesque arches, the Gothic columns and flying buttresses – it’s possible to see examples of architecture through the centuries as you wander through the building. What gave me chills was to imagine what it would be like to be a King of France, indulging himself in front of the roaring fire in the banquet room… a monk studying texts or meditating in the cloister…or a prisoner doing manual labor as punishment for his political beliefs, gazing longingly out the windows across the water. They have all walked where we were walking – the history of Western Civilization in one awe-inspiring package.
It looks awesome Cathy & Dick. Thank you for all this wonderful journal of adventures. I hope one day I can do something like this.
ReplyDeleteKeep up the stories... love to read a new one every few days :)