Bretagne Neighborhood Stroll

We strolled around our little town here in Bretagne...

First stop - the beach!

Then the church

Then some interesting buildings 

You can't see it from here, but this building has a triangular footprint - both sides angle back!

We thought this was another church, but it's a middle-school

There are a *lot* of stone houses here!

Mont St. Michel

Our day trip - Mont St Michel!

It was a fantastic day - cool (22°C/72°F), interesting clouds, and almost low tide here...

View of the abbey from the ramparts 

But, of course, there were *crowds*!

Plus some fairly empty areas...

~~~

We had an easy morning, then drove for 1.5 hours (mostly calm roads). Parked, walked to the bathrooms, ate our sandwiches, and discussed our needs (not much walking, avoid too many stairs and steep streets) with the helpful tourist agent, and hopped on the shuttle.

We walked along the ramparts (1 story worth of stairs) until the path started up, then we turned around and took a different set of stairs down. It was too crowded and steep to continue up, so we looked at another path (also steep after just a few steps). 

We decided we were done, and headed for the shuttle - we could have stopped at the barrage (a photo op), but we felt we'd seen enough.

Just a note to our future selves, and to others who can't walk or climb far - it's still worth going! You won't see the interior of the abbey, and you won't get the views from the absolute top, but you get plenty more!

Bretagne Hiking Trail

We took a little walk along our section of the GR34 hiking trail - it was beautiful!

This is also known as the Customs Trail, established in 1791 to combat smuggling - it stretches all along the Breton coast, for 2000 km, from Mont St. Michel to St. Nazaire. We'll be seeing a lot more of it on this trip!