Bitterroot and Bergamot

A "sea change" from from yesterday's entry: Mont St. Michel, a 1,000-year-old Benedictine abbey just off the coast of Normandy, built on a rock that juts up out of the sea. The abbey is atop, with a little village at the base of the rock. Here is how this mysterious place looks as you are approaching it from the mainland on a gray and misty day:



And here is a view from the parapets, high up on the rock. I loved the angularity of the structures set against the endless reach of the tide flats. In winter, you can feel the ascetic loneliness of the place.

For nine centuries, travelers to Mont St. Michel had to wait for the tide to go out, as it has in this photo, in order to cross to the abbey. As one who grew up in Montana where the "official" history lessons date back only 150 years, I found Mont St. Michel to be most wondrous.


Mont St. Michel, Normandy, originally uploaded by Bitterroot.