Mont St Michel Advice

Here's the problem: You know MSM looks amazing, you want to go see and experience it. So does the rest of the world. A lot of them have the same plan as you: a quick stop at MSM, mid-day.

You can try to squeeze in, into the very limited space on the Mont, while hundreds of other people have stepped off tour buses and are trying to do the same thing. It's pretty easy to imagine what it's going to be like: the tiny, narrow street -- there's only one street -- it's narrow, lined with shops, does not go very far, and at midday, it's going to be absolutely full of people who had the same idea as you.

You can make your peace with that, and have a shared-with-mass tourism experience. Just calibrate your expectations of exactly how "shared" it's going to be.

Or, you could tweak your plans so as to only share it with a relatively small number of other visitors. Do that by staying overnight in one of the few (expensive, ultimately imperfect) little hotels on MSM itself. Arrive at MSM mid- to late-afternoon. Note the large number of tour buses idling in the parking lot. Note also the crush of people in that one little street. Make your way through that crowd to your little, expensive, imperfect but perfectly tolerable hotel on MSM itself. Wave your credit card and don't think about how much cheaper it would be at the local Motel 6 at home, you're paying for location location location. Note how all the crowds of people are moving towards the fleet of tour buses. Note them start to drive away, and how the crowds thin out at the end of the afternoon. Savor that. Enjoy the evening on MSM in relative peace and even solitude. It'll be quiet, magical, dream-like. Go to bed and sleep deeply. Wake up early (really early) the next morning. Go out and savor the quiet again, for a couple more hours when there are nearly no tourists at all. Eat breakfast, note that rumble you hear in the distance -- the day-tripper tour buses are coming. Check out of your hotel. Squeeze back out through that little street, now becoming jammed shoulder-to-shoulder again. Take a few last photos as you depart. Then go, and don't look back.

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/france/travel-to-mount-st-michel

This website has lots of train lovers, including me. But some stops are not particularly suitable for fleeting visits by train. This is not a case of the train being at the actual attraction. We only spent 4 hours at the site, but we had a car, going away from Paris.

I wish there were a simple answer to your question, but there are so many factors, particularly those visitors who revere the idea of waking up in a deserted medieval castle in the water. (We felt we didn't miss anything like that at all.) BTW, can you work the Churchill hotel's same-day MSM runout shuttle into your plans? Hotel room there not required. It's more practical.

I arrived by bus on a overnight tour, so I can't comment about the train. I would be more likely to see about taking a day trip that provides transportation and then going from Bayeux to Paris upon your return.

Once at the Mont there is a strategy or two to avoid crowds.
First, if you time it for early in the morning or late afternoon/evening it is better.

Second, Don't join the throngs on the main street. After you enter the gate, climb up on the walls and continue up to the abbey on the walls.

Caution: this trip is not for the mobility impaired. If stairs bother either of you, this is not a good use of your time.

MSM was the biggest disappointment of a 6 week trip to France and no, I wasn’t there at the height of the tourist season or middle of the day. Dreadful food and tacky tourist shops. It had more magic when it was approached by the tidal causeway, but has been ruined by building the road right up to the entrance.

I had a car so wasn’t reliant on public transport - we cycled down. I have subsequently stayed in the nearest village to MSM - Pontorson last month and haven’t bothered to return to MSM. It will be busy in early September. What are you going to do with your luggage? You need to walk or take the shuttle bus for the last mile or so.

Bayeux was a delight and there is plenty to see around there.

David is absolutely right, if you can’t arrange your schedule to spend a night at MSM, then don’t go there. We visited MSM on the RS Heart of France tour. Arrived by bus around 4pm as the day crowds were thinning, watched the tide receding while enjoying a glass of wine, had a leisurely dinner followed by sunset over the ocean. Toured the monastery at the top early next morning and was back on the bus by 10am as day crowds were arriving. Our stay was magical, a day trip would not be worth it IMO.

MSM was on my bucket list so we did a quick in/out by car a few weeks ago. Arrived about 6:30pm - waited a few minutes for shuttle. It was full by time we hit the last hotel stop on road in. Overall very little crowd. Cooler too. Strolled up to monastery where we watched sunset. stunning! My only regret is we didn't make a dinner reservation and stare at the tide rolling in before strolling up. By our 10pm return back, most restaurants closed but a few shops and ice cream open.

What David said. I'll also add a vote to staying on the island. No, don't just go to the ticky-tack souvenir shops and over-priced omelette shops on the main road. That is not what the charm is about. Have a perfectly fine dinner at one of the hotel/restaurants, and walk the ramparts and back trails where few tourists go, after most of them are gone. I think those who have been disappointed didn't bother to do that. They just walked the main drag with everyone else. That's not where the magic is.

Its not well suited to an in and out visit. Because of the crowds, you will spend 1-2 hours just getting to and from the island via the shuttle. You need an hour to tour the abbey (and 10-15 minutes climbing up there). If you want to explore the rest of the island or the bay, you are talking half the day. I would second the suggestion to change your plans and spend the night.

SCFamily, I'll admit it was 2012 when we made a four-hour stop at MSM, with a rental car. But did you really have so much trouble getting to and from an island that is only a stone's throw from the mainland?

We were there the first year they built massive parking lots with automated ticket issuance, but it's not true that healthy adults cannot walk from their car to the doors in the island wall. It is tedious to wait for a diesel bus in the parking lot and then an electric bus near the causeway. But we enjoyed a leisurely long walk, viewing the island, investigating the supermarket (!) along this new "shopping and hotel strip", and the inlets on either side of the causeway. We chose to walk up the ramparts first, since the main street was already crowded.

You can lament that it's not like our grandparents saw just after World War II (if they even went to Europe back then.) But the sad fact is that the infrastructure improvements actually speed mass tourism, rather than impeding it. I'm not flogging anybody, but as long as we are using this website and buying Rick's books, we are promoting mass tourism of popular sites.

I'll relay what our guide told us. As one of the principal pilgrimage sites in Catholicism since the 11th century, MSM has always been crowded with tourists (pilgrims). With throngs of people climbing up the hill to the Abbey, and the tiny street filled with tacky souvenir shops and cheap food outlets - all to serve the tourists (pilgrims). So its not historically inaccurate to experience the same now. Just annoying.

I know for the majority of tourists, the religious significance of the place is unimportant, and the inconveniences of crowds and tackiness is a major detriment. That's why people recommend the quiet time of early morning or late evening, when you can contemplate the why and how of this place.

Tim,
We took the shuttle because my daughter tore her ACL not long before our trip, but it took us at least 5 minutes to walk from the car to the shuttle stop, 5+ minutes at least waiting for the shuttle, and 10-15 minutes on the bus to get to the end of the line (there are a couple of shuttle stops, unloading/loading time at each, and a short walk from shuttle drop off to entrance). Since we were staying on the island we got on the first shuttle that showed up. Add it all up and ittook us around 30 minutes each way at non-peak times. The lines to get to the island were much longer when we were leaving, so I would say it is over an hour total at the busier times. I probably should have said 1+ hours rather than 1-2.

I have read walking takes 25-30 minutes, which seems plausible. But others may be able to speak to that better than I can.