Sunday 4th April

According to the weather forecast, today was supposed to be mostly sunny but soon after we opened the blinds, it started raining. The main plan for today was to go to Mont St-Michel via Cancale. If we had time we were going to travel west of St Malo to see some of the coastline.

After yet another nice continental breakfast, we drove out of the B and B at about 9:30am. We had decided to take the coastal road to Cancale so we could see the ocean along the way. As it turned out, the road wasn't within sight of the sea for most of the time but the countryside was very pleasant. There certainly wasn't any problem with traffic on these roads.

Eventually we did come to the coastline and we stopped at a beach with golden sands. It could have been a beach anywhere in Australia - provided that you can image such a beach at 6C and strong cold winds. As I took photos, I noticed a large number of people running along the other end of the beach. As we drove about 200m further on, we found out why. There was a fun run in progress with a lot of participants. We had to wait for a while as traffic controllers let the runners cross the road towards the beach and the headland.

We reached Cancale before 11am. It was very busy but we managed to find a parking spot a few blocks away from the centre of town. Here people park on the footpath in suburban streets and so we did the same. After a coffee break at a charming little cafe, we found the open air markets that Suzy wanted to visit. Believe it or not, I ended up buying something at the markets - namely, an innovative wire frame for the barbecue that would be ideal for kebabs, etc.

Next we walked down the hill towards the sea. There we found a pedestrian path along the cliff top and so we followed it towards the port. Because it was such a bright sunny day, the sea was a beautiful blue colour and the sun made the water glisten. We found our way down to the port and walked along the promenade near the beach. Judging by the crowds, it was clearly a popular spot to be on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

Suzy had heard that this area is famous for its oysters and so we stopped for lunch at a restaurant that specialised in oysters. Suzy had her half-dozen oysters while I had prawns cooked in Calvados brandy. It was a great meal overlooking the sea.

Once again, we took the scenic route to Mont St-Michel and arrived there by 2:30pm. This was also a popular spot to be today because the car park area was full of many hundreds of cars.

When we got out of the car, I was surprised that the ground was very wet with puddles everywhere. We hadn't seen any rain since before breakfast. It wasn't until later that I realised that this was because the car park is under water at high tide. Mont St Michel is built on a small island next to the coast. Nowadays there is an elevated causeway that makes it accessible at all times but it used to be that you could only reach the island at low tide.

The beach in this area is very flat and the tides vary markedly from low to high tide. When the tide is out, you can walk for 18km to the low water mark but when the tide turns you had better be quick because it rolls back in faster than you can walk.

Initially when I got out of the car I put my baseball cap on to protect my eyes from the bright sunshine. I quickly realised that this was a bad choice because the strong wind would have taken it back to the Loire Valley in no time. I swapped it for my beanie to keep warm.

Inside the walls on the island, it was very crowded. We decided to go to the tourist office near the entrance to find out about the best way to get to the abbey at the top of the hill. He said we could take the main path past all the tourist shops or avoid the crowds by walking along the ramparts. We did the latter and reached the entrance to the abbey at about 3pm.

The queues for the abbey ticket office was more than 100m long as it wound its way up the stairs inside the building. We decided to get the audio guide too and we were very pleased that we did. It is a fascinating place to visit. It is amazing the way they have built the various parts of the abbey by wrapping it around the hillside.

The island is classified by UNESCO as a world heritage site. It is easy to see why. I was always fascinated by it when I was studying French at school and so it was an exciting experience to be here to see it for myself.

By the time we had worked our way through the many parts of the abbey, we were ready for a break. In among all the tourist shops, we found a creperie where we stopped for crepes and coffee with a window view overlooking the vast expanse of sandy beach beyond the island.

We left the island just after 5pm and it soon became apparent that lots of other people had decided to leave then too because it took more than an hour to get out of the car park, over the causeway and back onto the mainland. It was worse than trying to leave the SCG after a one-day match. The local road authorities and police could do with some simple advice about traffic management for a large event.

It was 7pm before we got back to the B and B. At one stage we thought that we might have still been in the car park at that time. The other deadline in the back of our minds was the high tide at 10pm which would flood the car park.

For dinner we decided to drive down to the town at the bottom of the hill near the river. Although it wasn't raining, Suzy didn't want to walk down and back. We went to a different restaurant this time. The theme was that of an Irish pub and they were playing English language dialogue and music in the background. The food was much better than last night and the house red (Merlot) was great.

It was the end of a very memorable and enjoyable day. Unfortunately, it was our last full day in France for this trip. It would be great to get back to Brittany some time to see more of this fabulous place. Maybe next time we'll come at a warmer time of the year.