France Day 9

I of course had grand plans for Day 9 because my intention was to get to Mont Saint-Michel. I got up early for a Sunday and walked down the bus stop and found it didn’t start until 9am. Fine by me, the walk to the stop is only about 10 minutes. I walked back and had the buffet breakfast by which I mean I had some cereal, a croissant, glass of very pulpy orange juice and a cup of coffee. When I finished this I walked back to the bus stop and rode the bus into St. Pierre Station then walked on to the train station. At the ticket office I found out that for some reason far beyond my comprehension the first trip to Mont Saint-Michel starts at 2pm and it takes about 2 hours to get to the city of Pontorson where you would still have to take a bus for 9km. That means not arriving to the monument until past 4pm. The places closes at 7pm if I am lucky then it would be a two hour ride back to Caen but the likelihood that a train was coming back from 7pm to 9pm was near impossible. Then I would most likely have to taxi back to the room for the return. So basically, France defeated me again.

I ended up wandering the city of Caen for the rest of the day. I was in town by 9:15am and did not get back to the hotel until after 3pm, so I did make a full day of it. I walked through just about all of the main part of the city and saw all of the major churches and revisited the chateaux as well as found an open air market happening down by a pier on the river where a ferry apparently lets in. The market was all either food stalls many of which smelled very good or the typical flea market junk or counterfeit clothing and watches that you always find. It was unfortunately still very early when I was walking through it and I didn’t end up buying any food. I can’t bring any of the produce they had home either so while some of it looked very good I skipped past it all.

From the market I found one of the two abbeys in the town. This one was smaller and on the eastern side of the city and was closed for the day because it was Sunday. I am sure it is an historical place and was attached to an older church. The abbey building however looked newer. There was a large park in back of that and I walked through that for a bit. I walked back through the town and revisited the chateaux to see if there was anything I missed but really just passed through it sort of quickly. The museums were closed for Sunday. From there I took sight of the other large church which was St Etienne and also had the other abbey on it. Also closed but this time for the lunch period of 11am to 2:30pm or something like that I didn’t bother to go in. It was just past noon when I got there. I walked back to the center of town where in search of lunch I ended up eating at Quick. Which is the French version of McDonald’s. Unfortunately, their name may be a bit misleading as I had to wait for about 5 minutes for my Double Cheese (Doo-blay cheez) burger. Though she gave me the fries and drink right away. The place was fairly busy. The girl didn’t speak any English. The food was better than McDonald’s maybe by the slightest bit but not much really if at all. By the way the chronology for today during the wanderings is a bit of a blur to me. I went all over the city eventually and it was a very nice day out (yes, people here were still wearing their winter jackets) and I enjoyed the waking. I am just not 100% sure if I went from A to B to C or A to C to D to B, etc. In any event I walked a real lot and visited about every site to see in the city I am pretty sure, recognizing that aside from the chateaux everything was closed.

After eating I was undecided what to do. I sort of thought of looking for a café to have a beer but instead though I would try to walk back to the hotel. While on the bus ride into town I kept close eye on the way we went and found that there appeared to be a path that came down the hill and along the road and allowed a pedestrian to walk across the street up a distance and make it to town. I initially took the wrong street and had to backtrack a ways when I realized my mistake but on the second attempt I found the correct street and took the path and it did indeed come up to the street that the Memorial bus stop was on which lead right up to the Memorial. I returned to the Memorial because the place was so crowded on Saturday I stayed out of the gift shop after finishing the visit and my guess paid off because the place was only an eighth as full at best as it was on Saturday. I browsed the shop and bought a couple things then went up to the cafeteria and bought an iced tea because I was very thirsty by this point. Of course my politeness made me let someone order in front of me though I probably arrived to the counter first and it turned out to be one of those orders from hell. All I wanted was the iced tea. I could have been done in seconds but ended up having to wait for about 10 minutes. Yay me. After I sat and drank the bottle and then rested my legs for a very few minutes I walked back to the hotel and typed up stuff.

I got here just after 3pm and I started on the plot that I had hatched in my brain not to be completely defeated on Mont Saint-Michel. I got online and searched the rental car sites for the area and the Alamo site claims they have cars that are automatics available tomorrow. So I put a reservation on it (no money down) and I am going to try to get there when they open tomorrow and rent a car for the day. The drive from here to there should be about 2 hours or less down the A84. I have seen estimates as low as 1 hour 17 minutes but 2 hours to be on the safe side. It was something like 68 miles anyway but I am not sure of road speeds and all of that. From there I should be able to stay a couple hours and then drive right back to the rental place and then hop on a train back to Paris where I can check back into my hotel there. I am sure that all sorts of hell will go wrong, most likely that I won’t be able to find an automatic (I’m not about to pay for the clutch on a foreign car to learn how to drive stick with no one to show me), or who knows what else. If they don’t have a car I can drive then I will just get on a train to Paris and call this area quits. I know I won’t be able to stay too late in Mont Saint-Michel if I can get there but I am going to try anyway. It will amount to being more expensive than the visit to Pierrefonds including having to purchase fuel I am sure. The reason I am not taking a train to Mont Saint-Michel on Monday then heading straight into Paris is that I have no means of keeping my luggage on a train though I could store it in a car for the time after I check out. The hotel is so far out of town there’s no way to get in from the train, get the luggage if they would store it here and then head back to the station without far too much time being wasted. Lastly, the train station in Caen is too small to have lockers. I did a quick sweep but there’s nothing there for that or I would have considered that option (heck it would be the cheapest on one day of rail pass travel) as the best. So basically I am expecting total defeat number 2 but I have my war face on and I will try what I can to win anyway.

On a side note, the French apparently play rugby, or so the TV shows…

After resting for a while I went down to the hotel restaurant and had lunch. This time I had the upside down tomato pie for a starter and then the sliced duck with red wine sauce for the main course. Both were good though the red wine sauce was perhaps a bit sweet for my taste. To follow I had an espresso and the pineapple carpaccio which was very thinly sliced pineapple with a syrup of some sort over it. I liked it but I was actually trying to have the apple pie with vanilla ice cream. I didn’t have the heart to argue with them.

My only hopes are tomorrow works out the best or signals its failure early. Renting the car then not getting there would be worse than not renting the car at all.