An architectural wonder

St Michel’s Mount in Normandy, France, is a tidal island where legend, myth
and history come together, writes Uttam Sengupta

IT is said to be a labour of love involving the sky, the ocean and architecture. But, I must confess, we had never heard of it. Mo-se-mishell is what it sounded like when our French friends offered to take us there. They had been there a number of times, they said, but were still excited at the idea of visiting it again. And seeing our quizzical looks, they placed an admonishing finger on their lips, forbidding each other from enlightening us. The suspense was to last till we arrived at the world heritage site.

We were in Northern France, close to the English Channel and barely a few hours away by ferry from the British coast. European countryside is like picture postcards, immortalised in the paintings of the Renaissance period. Green, undulating landscape with barren grey fields with rolls of hay dotting them. We were in two cars and our excited friends stopped at a strategic spot, after a one and half hour’s drive from Normandy, to give us our first glimpse of the destination.

It looked like a tower rising against the azure, blue sky. A church spire perhaps? We must have looked rather unimpressed as our disappointed friends got back into the vehicle and drove on. As we neared the destination, the number of vehicles returning from the site gave us the first inkling of its popularity. It is apparently the third most visited place in France after the Eiffel Tower and the palace at Versailles. I actually felt like an ignorant country cousin.

The approach appeared to be a bay with a wide road bifurcating the channels of water. A hill, a rock really, rising like an island out of the water. Small cottages dotted the slopes and there were ramparts and turrets on the periphery, giving it the appearance of a fort. Rising above everything was a church spire and a tower that looked like a spear. A close look from a huge terrace later revealed a magnificent gold-plated statue of St Michel, with wings and a sword in hand. Helicopters are used to clean the statue from time to time.

Imagine looking out to the sea around you from a modern, 16-storey building! The view from the terrace was truly breathtaking. Vast expanse of water has a soothing, calming effect on viewers and when you see the water from such a height, you almost feel languorous, reluctant to shift your gaze and move away.

There is a church on the island that is said to have been built in 709 AD. By the 11th century it had expanded into an abbey and a monastery housing hundreds of Benedictine monks. In the 14th century, during the 100-year war between England and France, the abbey was attacked but withstood a siege that lasted for 30 long years. It was used as a prison after the French Revolution. And while the abbey continued to draw pilgrims from all over Europe for a thousand years and more, tourists began to flock Mt Saint Michel since 1979 when Unesco declared it a world heritage site.

The paid parking lot is on a higher elevation but most of the tourist buses and vehicles are parked close to the water on either side of the elevated road. During high tides, the water level rises and floods the area, because of which warnings are issued over loud speakers, exhorting visitors to remove their vehicles.

It was not seasy getting into the ‘village’. The slope was steep and the only street was narrow and bustling with visitors streaming in and out of the gateway. The small ‘village’, again a thousand years old, is almost entirely populated by people who cater to the tourists. Souvenir shops, hotels, restaurants exist cheek-by-jowl on the solitary street and while it leads to the abbey, several flights of stairs lead visitors to the hotels, the residential quarters, the cemetery, parks and to the ramparts from where one could admire the setting sun, the rising tide and the ocean beyond.

With over a million visitors to the abbey every year, it is advisable to book hotel rooms in advance. During the tourist season the hotels and the restaurants can be very pricey. There are cheaper options outside but then unless one spends a night on the island, one misses out on the silence and the solitude, the illumination at night and the walk through the village and on the rampart.

It is, of course, an architectural wonder. Built over several hundred years, one can only marvel at how such heavy stones were taken up and put together. There is a hanging garden on, say, the 10th floor! A hall with windows placed in such a way that as one enters, not a single window can be seen. There is a dining hall that received food from the kitchen below on a table lifted by a pulley and the stained glass and ornate designs on stones would have taken years to put in place.

The French writer Flaubert is credited with the statement that one visit to the Mount is not enough to understand all its complexities. And a short, overnight stay certainly was not enough to explore the museums, the prisons, the dungeons and the abbey itself. But the next visit hopefully will take place in the off-season, we prayed while leaving next morning.

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