Mont Saint-Michel facts and hotel booking

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About the city

Mont Saint-Michel is a rocky tidal island in Normandy, France. It is located approximately one kilometer off the country’s north coast, at the mouth of the Couesnon River near Avranches. Mont Saint-Michel was previously connected to the mainland via a thin natural land bridge, which before modernization was covered at high tide and revealed at low tide.

City Areas

Mont Saint-Michel is too small to be divided into areas, and its points of interest are rather obvious to the average tourist. Still, it is worth taking into account that besides the few hotels available on the island, there are much more on the mainland, as well as some convenient camping sites.

 

Transportation

There are no direct train services between Paris and Mont St Michel, but rail travel to the island is nonetheless feasible. Still, driving is by far and away the most efficient way of visiting Mont Saint Michel.

Attractions

A settlement that is an attraction itself, Mont Saint-Michel still manages to whirl tourists with more than just its natural beauty, providing many interesting tours of the area, as well as museums.

 

Events

Most events in Mont Saint-Michel occur during summer, when there is also an increased afflux of visitors, but autumn is not to be left out of the tourist calendar, as Saint-Michel is celebrated here at the end of September.

History and civilization

Mont Saint-Michel was used in the sixth and seventh centuries as an Armorican stronghold of Romano-Breton culture and power, until it was ransacked by the Franks, thus ending the trans-channel culture that had stood since the departure of the Romans in AD 460.

Restaurants and nightlife

On the approach road to the Mont there is a small area of shops, restaurants and supermarkets; although not cheap by any standards they are less unreasonable than getting food on the island. Unfortunately, there’s not much nightlife around, except the bars and cafés provided by hotels. 

Development of Mont Saint-Michel

n prehistoric times the bay was land, but as sea levels increased, erosion shaped the coastal landscape and several blocks of granite emerged in the bay, resisting the ocean way better than the surrounding rocks. These included Lillemer, the Mont-Dol, Tombelaine and Mont Tombe, later called Mont Saint-Michel.