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The water rushes quickly and steadily into the bay.
From the fortification walls, visitors watch the tidal wave advance, eventually washing under the bridge and shrinking the space at the foot of the mountain.
There is an almost awesome silence.
The natural phenomenon is perhaps as impressive today as the sight of the pilgrimage destination after a long and dangerous hike, on the last stage through swamps, silt and quicksand.
Down there in the mudflats, the undecided are still considering whether to go to the monastery or the bridge.
The water is already ankle high.
The Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy is about to turn into an island - at least for hours.
For almost 150 years this was no longer the case, when a road embankment connected the monastery mountain with the mainland, and the water no longer splashed completely around the mountain.
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In place of the dam there is now an elegant stilt bridge made of steel and wood, the lowered end of which disappears into the water at high tide.
As a result, the sacred mountain in the sea actually becomes an isolated island of the tides again for around 50 to 70 days a year.
How Mont-Saint-Michel became an island again
The bridge construction was the result of a project of Herculean proportions.
Before that, the bay was so silted up that the monastery island threatened to silt up.
Not only Unesco, which counts mountains and bays to the world cultural heritage, observed this development with concern.
At low tide: the water has retreated a long way.
Then the Mont-Saint-Michel looks like a mirage in the red sand
Source: picture alliance / Christopher Neundorf / Kirchner-Me
After all, its inaccessible location is just as characteristic of the magic mountain as its importance as one of the most important sites of the Christian Middle Ages.
In the mid-1990s, the EUR 184 million project to “restore the maritime character” of the mountain was devised, and the complicated dismantling was completed a good 20 years later.
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The dam and the ugly parking lot were removed for this purpose; in addition to draining coastal areas and channeling the Couesnon River, it was the reason for the silting up of the bay.
Mud was dug out and a dam was set up in front of the Couesnon estuary.
The tidal dam releases the sea water held back at high tide with pressure and sweeps the washed up sediments out of the bay.
The highest tidal range in all of Europe
Today the sandy foot of Mont-Saint-Michel is three meters higher than before and the mountain can be reached via the elegant, 760-meter-long bridge - on foot, by shuttle bus or, in a romantic way, by horse-drawn carriage.
And now the tide rushes back into the bay and then carries the sand back into the open sea.
With a tidal range of more than twelve meters, the tides in the bay of Mont-Saint-Michel are definitely dramatic.
Nowhere else in Europe does the sea move so dynamically.
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After the full and new moon, when the so-called tidal coefficient - a value between 20 and 120, which is mainly used in France to describe the difference between the low and the subsequent maximum water level - is more than 90, the tide becomes particularly high.
It reaches record values around the equinoxes.
In 2015 the water rose by 14.5 meters within five hours, the tidal coefficient was 119. At 110, the mountain is no longer accessible on foot.
This year it was already the case at the beginning of March;
The tide calendar promises further spring tides for the last three days of March as well as for the end of April, the end of May, and then again for October and November.
The speed of the tide is enormous
Then a flood rises from the English Channel, the first wave of which washes around the Mont-Saint-Michel and pushes itself into the Couesnon.
It is called “Le Mascaret” and looks quite harmless from the defensive walls and viewpoints of the monastery mountain.
It is not high, but fast.
She quickly carries kayaks, jet skis and rubber boats into the bay.
Because the speed of the incoming water masses is enormous - the writer Victor Hugo did not exaggerate when he compared the drama with that of a galloping horse.
View from the ramparts: visitors to Mont-Saint-Michel wait for the tide
Source: Rene Mattes / hemis.fr / laif
Mudflat runners who have not got themselves to safety in time have the unpleasant experience of having to run away from the water.
Again and again careless hikers have to be rescued from the floods from the air - despite all warnings to only explore the area with experienced guides.
“The bay is shallow and funnel-shaped, and the water is coming back with force from the southern coast of England,” explains François Lamotte d'Argy, the mudflat guide, when the sea has disappeared again on the horizon three and a half hours later.
Behind him, the first holidaymakers climb barefoot into the mudflats with their trousers rolled up and shoes tied to their rucksacks.
They take off their masks, which are compulsory on the mountain - keeping a good distance is easy in the bay.
As every year, regular guided tours will take place from Easter onwards.
The construction of the church and monastery was considered a miracle
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On the back of his left hand, François has noted the times of the high and low with a ballpoint pen, as always.
The 42-year-old runs a small hotel with his wife on the opposite side of the bay in Dragey-Ronthon and also works as a mudflat guide.
He usually spends 200 days of the year with his feet in the water and shows holidaymakers the nature in the bay and the monastery fortress from unfamiliar perspectives.
“The bay is a great playground for me, but it also lifts the soul and spirit,” says François.
No wonder, since it lies at the foot of one of the great Christian pilgrimage destinations.
Bishop Aubert von Avranches is said to have had a little church built on the rock in the sea in the 8th century at the behest of Archangel Michael.
The small Catholic chapel of Saint Aubert is perched on a cliff
Source: Andia / Universal Images Group via Getty Images
After the mountain was taken over by Benedictine monks, the most complicated and expensive construction site of the Middle Ages was built here in the 10th century.
The granite stone, which was needed for the construction of the church and monastery, had to be transported by boat from the Chausey Islands in the English Channel to the rocks one kilometer off the coast and literally piled high on the upwardly tapering terrain.
Back then it was so difficult to imagine how such a complicated multi-storey complex could be built on a mountain top that they named the project “La Merveille” - the miracle.
It took a full 500 years for the Romanesque and Gothic masterpieces to be completed.
Most important sight in France next to Paris
A mudflat hike to Mont-Saint-Michel is a slide, then as now.
Now it's getting slippery, warns François.
It doesn't promise too much: the first 50 meters you have to concentrate to stay on your feet at all.
The freshly exposed seabed is smooth as hell.
But soon the ground becomes more reliable and it is possible to look around.
It's worth it: on the one hand there is infinity, on the other the mighty monastery rock and its reflection in the mud.
The slender top of the monastery church, crowned by the bronze figure of the Archangel Michael, protrudes into a pale sky.
The spire was built late.
But the panorama could hardly have looked much different in earlier centuries.
From the mud flats nothing can be seen of the rush of visitors in the alleys that usually visit the most important sight in France outside of Paris.
Watts to the horizon: in order not to be surprised by the high tide, hikers should keep an eye on the tides
Source: Andia / Universal Images Group via Getty Images
François identifies waders, oystercatchers, mallards, plovers and sandpipers, shows an osprey in the sky.
It shows the way through the first of the two rivers that flow into the bay at low and high tide.
He knows where a crossing is possible.
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However, the current makes it quite challenging - the river is pushing towards the vanished sea and it is not easy to keep your balance.
Across the river appears Tombelaine, the uninhabited neighboring island of Mont-Saint-Michel.
Once they wanted to build a hotel here, today it is a bird sanctuary.
Better to hike through the mudflats with a guide
We continue over a sandbar and then through ankle-deep water at a pleasant temperature.
François says that he keeps driving hikers out of the bay who are late or without a knowledgeable guide.
He recently saw a family with two children on the sea side of a creek.
“I called out: You have to run ashore over there quickly, you can't come over here.” Only yesterday he met a couple who ran out into the sea when he and his group were on their way back.
He succeeded in persuading the two of them to turn back.
François shakes his head.
Not only because of the movements of the water and the rivers, which are not easy to wade through everywhere, it is advisable to only roam the bay with someone familiar with the area.
The quicksand, which in earlier times often caused deadly difficulties for pilgrims within sight of the destination, is still a danger.
In quicksand: Mudflat guide François shows how to get out of the silt
Source: Stefanie Bisping
François knows the places where seemingly solid ground is soft as pudding and demonstrates how quickly you sink in here.
Fortunately, he also knows how to free himself: He leans back and forth until the body weight ensures that the quicksand gives in with a smack.
“You have to enlarge your body area.
The best way to do this is to swing back and forth, then you gain space and come out again. ”He can then free himself from the mud with a few swings.
A fairytale castle set in the sea
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As a child of the bay, François followed the project to restore the maritime island character of Mont-Saint-Michel with passionate interest.
Every year, more than a million cubic meters of sand was washed up in the bay, which was held in place by the road embankment.
In the meantime, the layer of sand and silt around the island was about 15 meters high.
It will take a few more years until enough sand is removed from the bay so that the holy mountain becomes an island again washed by water on all sides - as it was until the 19th century.
“This fairytale castle set in the sea!” Enthused the French writer Guy de Maupassant at the time, comparing Mont-Saint-Michel with a symphony of colors: “The horizon was red, the whole immense bay was red;
only the towering abbey that grew there, far from the mainland, like a fantastic castle, incredibly strange and beautiful, almost black in the purple of twilight. Saint-Michel like a solid rock.
Source: WORLD infographic
Tips and information
Getting
there:
By train via Paris to Rennes (sncf.com/de), rental car companies are represented at the train station.
KLM usually flies from Frankfurt or Munich via Amsterdam to Rennes (klm.de).
France is currently a risk area, entry is only possible with a negative PCR test that is not older than 72 hours.
Accommodation:
On the mountain itself in the rustic "Hôtel du Guesclin", double rooms from 105 euros (hotelduguesclin.com).
Within walking distance of the bridge in the “Hôtel Gabriel”, double room with breakfast from 112 euros (hotels.le-mont-saint-michel.com/hotel-gabriel).
Island
location:
In 2021, too, the mountain will become an island on a few days.
Exact dates at ot-montsaintmichel.com/marees.
Mudflat
hiking:
François Lamotte d'Argy's three-hour tours cost from 15 euros per person (traversee-montsaintmichel.com).
Further information:
de.normandie-tourisme.fr;
de.france.fr
Participation in the trip was supported by Normandy Tourism. You can find our standards of transparency and journalistic independence at axelspringer.de/unabhaengigkeit.
That's how expensive the super fortress Château Gaillard was
The construction of Château Gaillard in Normandy began in 1196, commissioned by Richard I, known as Richard the Lionheart.
An unimaginable amount of money was invested in the 200 meter long and 80 meter wide bastion.
Source: WORLD