Mont St. Michel, Dinan, Léhon part

This weekend was the first real excursion Catherine and I had had for a while. We decided to go see Mont St. Michel, which we had been planning to do since we got here. It is located in Brittany, the name of France's extreme northwestern region. Mont St. Michel itself is an island that is known for its old abbey and cool old shops on it. It is surrounded by water when the high tide comes in, so tourists have to be sure not to park or walk around the island as the tide is coming in. As we found out later while walking around on the mud flats, there is also quick sand when the tide is not in, so they severely discourage walking around the island at any time. Anyway, for starters we got to Dinan, a smallish Breton town, on Friday night. It was somewhat difficult to get to, because we had to make several train transfers, most of them in really small towns. When we got there, we were glad that we had chosen to visit the town. Every building looked distinctly Breton, with much stone and half-timbered buildings. It also had a good view overlooking the river. We walked around and eventually ate a crepe and some local cidre, an alcoholic apple cider that was very good. The town itself was great to walk around, even without looking for particular sites. The next day we woke up to go to Mont St. Michel. Unfortunately, we soon found out how hard it was to actually get to the island during the off-season, even though it was such a huge tourist attraction. We ended up taking a bus to St. Malo, on the coast, with the intention of taking a bus to MSM. But, we found out the next bus didn't leave until night time, so, after much thinki

ng, we took a train to Dol and then took a taxi to MSM. We got to spend about an hour in St. Malo, and could see the beach and the neat boats of the rich resort town. will write more later, but am tired now