An Excursion to Mont Saint Michel and Saint Malo

     Last weekend I had my first out-of-Paris experience since my arrival in January.  I'm glad I waited a while before leaving - I was ready to leave Paris and explore a bit, but I was also glad to come 'home' to Paris at the end of the trip!

     The excursion was through the International Parisian Youth Club, which the program recommended us to.  Five people from the program (including myself) signed up for the trip and we were joined by about 30 other young people from all across the world who are also studying and living in Paris.  We left Paris at an ungodly 6 am Saturday morning in a coach bus, arriving at Mont Saint Michel late morning.

    Mont Saint Michel is a small rocky island in the Normandy region (northwest France) that becomes completely surrounded by the ocean during high tide and can be reached by car during low tide.  I actually had a poster of Mont Saint Michel in my dorm room, so seeing the real thing in person was pretty wild.  At the top of Mont Saint Michel is a centuries-old abbey that is very beautiful.  We had 

amazing weather - a rarity in Nor-mandy, evidently - so we were very lucky!

      Of course, we couldn't resist taste-tasting all the local specialties: galettes de blé noir (buckwheat crêpe-ish pancakes with fillings like cheese and tomatoes or ham and egg), cidre (alcoholic cider), moules frites (fried mussels), galettes bretonnes (extremely addictive buttery cookies), and last but of course not least, caramel salé (salted caramel).  I think one of the best things about France is that it is such a rich and diverse country agriculturally that each region has very different and delicious specialties.

     After a day at Mont Saint Michel, we headed back to the bus for a quick ride over to Saint Malo, located in Bretagne (the Brittany region).  We spent the night at a nice youth hostel there and woke up the next morning to explore.  Saint Malo is an ancient, walled city with very pretty sandy beaches and island forts.  It is also the home to corsiers, which were basically legal pirates back in the days of kings and empires.  Chateaubriand, a famous French author, was born and buried at Saint Malo, hence the multitude

 of avenues, roads, alleys, and buildings named "Chateau-briand".

    It was a very enjoyable trip - this weekend I am off on a similar excursion to Belgium with the same group, so I will write about that next!