Mt. St. Michel

As you may have picked up on, Easter weekend was a party! In addition to festive family visits, finger-licking foods and a cruise to Concale, we also participated in perhaps the best activity of all: a tour of the famous Mt. St. Michel! As an island with a centuries old (former) convent and an equally enthralling city surrounding it, there is no question as to why this destination is ranked the second most popular tourist site in the world (right after the Eiffel Tower of course... Darn it! These French really have a monopoly on the super-awesome-romantic-delicously-catered-tourist-destinations don't they?)

 

Tucked in a corner of the maze of stairs which surround the convent, we found a popular wishing well (Which is, contrary to popular belief, NOT indeed a well but actually an open turret). The bottom was filled with coins - Jean-Yves even spotted a 2 euro coin! I sure hope that wish came true...

At lunch, we all stopped for a quick picnic in the convent's gardens! What was super awesome was that our desert consisted of Jiffy Bars that my mom had baked and sent me by express mail as an Easter treat! I just found it really cool that we were chomping on some Madison-baked treats - over 4,000 miles away!

After our brief tour of the city (and chapel) we finally took off towards the main attraction: mud-slucking!! What? You don't know what mud-slucking is? That may be because mud-slucking is not yet recognized as an official sport. Orrr that may be because mud-slucking is not a word... But let's not get caught up in the details!

'Mud-slucking' as I have so graciously dubbed this activity, is the act of treking (okay, sludging) in sinking mud! Mt. St. Michel is surrounded by bay but, with the immense difference of water-depth between high-tide and low-tide, the island is surrounded by mud half of the time. Interestingly enough (nope, not surprising at all) tourists are inexplicable drawn to this sticky situation! Actually, the attraction is pretty explicable, the mud is fun and squishy and gross! And this, my friends, is quite an industry! I'm not kidding, there are at least half a dozen guides trained to give tours in the muddy muck! And that's just what we did - a muddy muck mud-slucking tour!

Remember how I said the sand was sinking-sand? Well, it was more like quick-sand in some parts! At one point, our guide sunk almost as deep as his somache! Luckily, he was fully trained in the arts of quick-sand escape and quickly (haha, see what I did there?) dislodged himself.