Noon Report:

• Location: N 49° 28.93′, E 000° 06.43′
• Speed: Docked
• Course: Docked
• Weather: Cloudy, Occasional Rain
• Temperature: 12º C; 54º F
• Wind: SSW 10 knots; 11.5 mph

Today is King Charles III coronation and London will be crazy – luckily we are off on the last of our private tours, this one arranged by our friends Keith and Cherylanne.
Our destination was Mont Saint Michel – about 2 hours away along the coast. Amid the flat beaches, there are a couple of large granite outcroppings (these, plus the Channel Islands, are left over from when England and France pulled apart millennia ago).

Mont-Saint-Michel was used in the sixth and seventh centuries as a stronghold of Romano-Breton culture and power, until it was ransacked by the Franks in AD 460. According to legend, St Michael the Archangel appeared to St Aubert, bishop of Avranches, in 708 and instructed him to build a church on the rocky islet. Aubert repeatedly ignored the angel’s instruction, until St Michael burned a hole in the bishop’s skull with his finger. When the bishop died, they kept St. Aubert’s skull as a relic for the pilgrims to view and the monastical buildings here became a popular pilgrimage site (and so much closer than traveling to Jerusalem). The mount gained strategic significance in 933 when William I, Duke of Normandy, annexed this peninsula (In the Bayeux Tapestry you can see his soldiers attacking, but the tide turned against them (the tide can change the depth by 14 METERS and “moves as fast as a horse can run”). However he just waited until the tide went out again then claimed it for Normandy. During the Hundred Years’ War the English made repeated assaults on the island but were unable to seize it due to the abbey’s improved fortifications.

We (15 of us) met our guide (Igor) dockside and loaded into the van, heading out on our adventure. Along the way we enjoyed views of the French countryside – quite a bit different from most of what we’ve seen these past few months (fairly flat and very green because it rains a little every day).

Arriving at the site we walked a ways to the head of the parking lot and boarded a shuttle bus that carried us across a bridge (replaced the causeway that kept getting flooded) over the sand flats toward the island. Igor first took us on a tour of the village at the base of the mont which has sprung up to service the pilgrims and tourists that arrive daily (and sometimes want to hire rooms to stay overnight).

Igor is very much a regular to this site, so he was a wealth of information. But more importantly when he suggested an early lunch, he was quickly able to arrange with a busy restaurant to seat us. The service was quick and the food was delicious. I had an omelet created by the woman who started the first restaurant on the island – being often short of supplies she developed a process of whipping egg whites before stirring in the yolks and cooking in a hot pan. The resulting omlette has a firm top and a middle that is as much air as it is egg. It was quite good. Cheryl ordered Chicken with cider sauce – also very good.
Being France…

After lunch we headed up hill a way to the church of St. Peter.

From this point Igor turned us loose for free time wandering. He, and a group of the adventurers returned to the meeting point (by way of the souvenir shops).

Three of us decided that we hadn’t climbed enough, so we bought tickets to see the Abbey on top of the Mount and began to climb.

We gathered at the appointed place at the appointed leaving time (actually a bit early) and headed back to the bus. Glad we came early as there were few people around – probably at home watching King Charles III’s coronation on TV. It got very crowded in the afternoon with crowds of tourists, including the boy scouts (to try their luck against the quick sand), a group of bicyclers, and several armed guards for protection because this is such an important religious and tourist place.

Arriving back at the ship we were greeted with:

Dinner tonight was “A taste of England.” I had been looking forward to the ship’s excellent Fish & Chips but…had fries with lunch and…they had shepherd’s pie along with the English National Dish – Chicken Tikka Masala.

After dinner we grabbed a photo of an interesting shoreside sculpture…

…and headed back to the stateroom.
There’s nothing going on this evening (except a movie we’ve never heard of that doesn’t look that interesting). No more BBB, No party, so it’s a good evening to work on the blog.

We gain that hour back tonight as we move from France to Britain.
Whatever.
We’ll appreciate the extra hour of sleep (or is it the extra hour to work on blog posts).Nite all,
R

Cheryl’s Factoids – BRITISH MONARCHY:

• Today was the Coronation Ceremony for King Charles III (and Camilla as his Queen). He has waited 64 years to ascend the throne. His mother, Queen Elizabeth II ruled for 70 years as the longest reigning monarch of Britain (barely beating out Queen Victoria). Their ancestry goes clear back to Alfred the Great. They are also descendants of William the Conqueror, Mary Queen of Scots, and Henry VIII, and Queen Victoria.
• In 700 BC, the “Stone of Destiny” sat atop the Hill of Tara – this was where the Irish crowned their kings. Celtic Scots seized the stone and took it to the Abbey at Scone (pronounced Scoon) for the coronation of the Scottish kings. Kind Edward I (the “Hammer of the Scots”) captured it and took it to London. The Coronation Chair was commissioned in 1296 by King Edward I to contain it, so the Stone of Scone is under the wooden throne that the English queen or king sits in to be crowned. In 1996, England returned the Stone of Scone to Scotland, with the proviso that it be returned to England at any crowning, and was used for King Charles III coronation today.