Tue Sept 5- Day 6 - Tour Day 4 - Mont-Saint-Michel and Saint-Malo

 We departed from the hotel around 8am this morning.  

 Rather a nice sunrise this morning too.

There was a bit of a slow down in the traffic when we hit Caen. The road to Mont St. Michel takes us towards Bayeaux again.  At the Abbey town. they have huge parking lots for cars and buses etc. From what I could gather, coaches are pre-allotted slots, as Elisabeth already knew that we would be parking in the P7 park.  Once off the bus, we then had to walk to where you catch a free shuttle bus that takes you out to the Abbey. 

No more cars driving over the causeway. That has been closed and things are done differently now days.  Once we left the bus park, we had a great view of the Abbey.

We met our local guide at the bus park.  The shuttle buses run very frequently but there are many people who line up to take the bus.  I think our wait time was about 10-15 minutes.  Some people opt to walk over to the Abbey but it's a fair way to walk. 

Celia was saying that the place was 'busy'.  Most of us thought it was packed. :)

Once we reached the top, we entered the Abbey and Celia gave an excellent commentary on the place.  Once we had visited most of the rooms it was then time to head back down.  We had to be at the bus park by 2:30pm, so had almost 2 hrs to get back and eat lunch before then.  I only stopped once on the way down, to buy a souvenir magnet. I didn't actually have any lunch today.

Anyway, we all managed to get back in time and headed to St. Malo.

After checking in, we then went to the walled part of the city and caught up with Celia, who took us on a walking tour through the old town.  I had been here once before on a previous tour, but that was a day trip from Jersey.

After that, we met up with Elisabeth and there was an aperitif and cake to be had by all and then we could do whatever.  A number of people stayed in the old town, other take our coach back to our hotel but I walked back to the hotel. Only got mislaid once. Started walking the wrong way for about 10 metres but realised I was heading the wrong way.

The view from my hotel room balcony.

I found a small restaurant not far from the hotel and had a light dinner there this evening.

That and a glass of Chardonnay.

I'm now caught up with the blog.

We have a late start tomorrow. Bags don't have to be out until 9am and we leave for the Loire Valley at 10am. A 2 night stay and then head back to Paris for the end of this tour.