Mont St Michel

It would be a MUCH MUCH MUCH better experience to arrive late afternoon at MSM, spend the night, and leave early the next morning.

The thing is, EVERYTHING in MSM is cramped. There is only one street and it is only 20' wide and literally crammed with tourists during the middle of the day all trying to do the same thing you are trying to do.

You will hear people complain about too many tourists no matter what famous site you are trying to visit. Most places, you just deal with it and it's not really that big an impact. You can still enjoy your visit. Not so with MSM. It is a completely different experience depending on the time of day and the tourist crush.

Randy's got the right idea, but here's another twist:

Arrive an hour or so before dark, look around, and leave. Stop on causeway and look back at the illuminated mount. Go spend the night in St Malo, saving a few hundred bucks.

MSM has got to be the most expensive place in the country -- seven bucks or more for a short beer last year. Comparatively high twenty years ago as well.

True, MSM is very expensive. But compare an overnight there with what you would have paid for a tour plus whatever you would have paid to stay in Paris or some other location another night instead. You would still likely come out ahead at MSM. If you really want to cut corners, there are plenty of places to sleep and eat just 5 minutes away on the mainland that are much cheaper, but you still get the same exposure to MSM sans tourists.

We toured the abbey on the tip of the island at night and it was a magical experience. It isn't the most opulent, but that just adds to the magic, IMO. The abbey took a good 90 minutes to see every nook and I would want to have another 90 minutes minimum to stroll the street and the myriad of twisty walkways with surprises around every corner. So that is 3 hours minimum without sitting down.

I agree that Randy has the right idea. If your itinerary is flexible enough, arrive late in the afternoon spend the night and leave around mid morning which is about the time the day trippers flood the place. A thought would be to train from Paris to Caen, rent a car and drive on to MSM. Rental cars are located across the street from the train station. We stayed inside the Abbey walls in May and found a place for less than 100 euros for the night. Granted, not the nicest place there but it was clean with a private bath.

Mont St. Michel is one of the most bipolar places in Europe. Mobbed and gawky during the day, peaceful and other-worldly beautiful at night. If you can see it at night, do it!

BTW- Anyone ever hear more from that poster who insisted that the Mont St. Michel abbey was an active monastery and that they had a guesthouse? I hope she wasn't too disappointed...