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After leaving Portugal we are heading directly northeast to Paris, France. They have yet to put in a high speed rail link connecting Spain/Portugal and France because we left at 7:45 PM and it will take twenty hours to reach Paris. Over the last twenty hours we have eaten four sandwiches, two bags of chips, two sodas, two waters, and one bag of mini chocolate croissants. We are spending all of our spare change from Portugal and Spain on junk food. We finished reading a Vanity Fair from cover to cover even the ads, a Newsweek, and I tried to sleep in our first couchette of the trip -- couldn't take another night in a chair. Karen had no problem sleeping but for me it was difficult and I tossed and turned with the stopping and starting of the train. At least we didn't have to deal with a customs official barging in every couple of hours. Karen has become a solitaire expert/fanatic and plays countless games for hours. She is even working on her shuffling techniques to increase the odds that she will be victorious. It really sucks when she gets on a loosing streak because she will play until she wins. I get sick of listening to her shuffle.
It is time to get up and we have no idea if we must change trains but the train steward wants our pillows and blankets. Our morning ride will be through the northwestern coastal section of France and we are excited to look out the window. We are not disappointed. The French may have a bad reputation for being somewhat rude, nationalistic, and prone to strike if you want tomorrow off but they sure do know how to keep things green and clean. After each passing mile the rolling hills and cute little towns keep getting more and more picturesque. Unlike Spain and Portugal, you cannot find a piece of trash, plastic bag, or coke can on the side of the road. It is amazing what using a garbage can do for the overall impression of a country. The more trash you find on the side of the road the more likely you will not enjoy your visit. If a person can't take the time to stick their trash into a garbage can or their pocket then they probably are experiencing a few other cultural shortcomings. I think the main reason I did not like India was because of all the trash. I also did not like eating in any of the traditional restaurants in Spain or Portugal because the floors are covered with used napkins, discarded food and cigarette butts. I tried not to think what the kitchen would be like. We were looking forward to France with no trash in sight.
The train takes us close to the Atlantic Ocean and Karen wants to get off the train when she spots a cute little farm house surrounded by green rolling hills and a view of the ocean. We pass through the wealthy coastal towns of San Sebastian, Biarritz, and the vineyards of Bordeaux. We will have to return in the future to this part of France with more money in our pockets and more time to eat and drink. Based on how tired I am all I can think about is getting to Paris checking into a hotel and sleeping. We arrived in Paris at 3:00 PM but our final destination was not Paris but Rennes only a short two hour TGV train ride to the northwest. We decide to continue on and caught another train from Paris to Rennes which would be closer to our goal of Mont St. Michel another world wonder. We had no idea why Mount St. Michele was a world wonder but that is why we are going. We arrived in Rennes at 7:00 PM and somehow I slept sitting up the entire way. After 24 hours on a train I was ready for food and sleep.
The little town of Rennes is home to two universities and a business/manufacturing district. It was also cold and these warm weather travelers do not have the proper gear. We find that all the hotels are full and no one speaks English. There are numerous hotel options all on the expensive side and with most of the hotels being sold out we knew we would not be able to negotiate. It didn't really matter because Karen and I are the worst bargainers we know. After knocking on doors for an hour we end up at the Aux Voyageurs Hotel for the bargain rate of 260 F or $52 a night with shower and toilet in the room. For some reason if you want a bathtub then it costs more. This may be because of the additional floor space required or maybe the French prefer to take a bath. The thought of taking a bath in a hotel is enough to make my skin crawl. We discover that there are many options available when getting a hotel room in France; with toilet or without, with bath or without, with shower or without, with breakfast or without and all the multiple combinations of the above.
It was 9:00 PM and with a developing cold, runny nose and lack of sleep I went straight to bed skipping dinner. Karen was very surprised because I never skip a meal. The prime mission for the following day was laundry. I had only one pair of brand new/clean underwear left and the rest of our wardrobe was beginning to take on a life of its own. Karen gave me "a get out of laundry free" card and she set off on her own in search of a laundry. What luck, she found one across the street and amazingly enough you could do it yourself. I am working on a theory to measure how developed a nation or a town is based on the availability and ease in which you can do laundry. To do laundry you need power, water, space, and a working population who has enough disposable income to pay for a washer and a dryer. We have been to many countries where using a river or sink is the primary washing method and hanging on a clothesline or tree is the dryer. The major exception to this is Singapore and they ship all their laundry to Malaysia for washing and drying. Doing laundry is dirty work and Singapore will have nothing to do with being dirty.
Karen returned at 11:30 armed with a new set of clean clothes we ventured out into the cold looking for another world wonder. Our first stop was the train station where we were informed you cannot go to Mount St. Michele by train you have to take a bus. This seemed a little odd because the map clearly showed train tracks heading in that direction. We took the advice and headed to the bus station and we learned that only one bus a day at 11:00 AM leaves to St. Michele at a round trip cost of $25 a person. We were at a big disadvantage because no one spoke English and we found it hard to believe that we would have to wait another day to get to Mount St. Michele when we were so close.
With time on our hand we decided to walk to the tourist office in the center of town. During our walk we stumbled upon the Franco-American institute which, at first, we thought was an English bookstore. It turned out to be a library-Internet hangout for American students(30) studying French and French students studying English(1700). It was filled with travel books, magazines, newspapers we stayed for five hours, what a perfect day. I seized the opportunity to ask questions about watching the Florida-FSU football game in Paris. I began with simple questions like, "Are there any sports bars in Paris?" Two of the guys who ran the place are from America so they appreciated the seriousness of the question. I however, do not think these two guys watch sports because they have been running the Franco-American institute for the last fifteen years. They tried to be helpful but provided no answers. I turned to the all mighty, all knowing Internet for an answer. Knowing that a satellite would be required to watch the game I used Yahoo to search for "satellite Paris." I found a satellite company that specializes in installing satellites in Paris for Americans and they had a complete listings of the available channels and schedules. You can watch an NFL game on special replay in Europe but picking up ABC-NBC-CBS-ESPN was impossible. I decided to search for a Gator booster club in Paris via the University of Florida web site. No Gator booster club in Paris but I found that I could listen to the Gator Sports Radio Network over the Internet at www.broadcast.com. It would have to do and I hoped Paris had an Internet Cafe ready for the task. A day of reading and a problem somewhat solved -- I call that a good day. We never made it to the tourist office and with the temperature dropping quickly we decided to make our way for food and the warmth of our hotel.
After our failure yesterday to reach Mount Saint Michele we tried again today. We grudgingly paid our $52 on the tourist bus and set off for our 45 minute ride to the coast. We didn't mind the bus ride but we could travel the train for free with our Eurail Pass. Wouldn't you know it, each little town we passed through had a set of train tracks and a small train station. It turns out that you can take a train very close to Mount St. Michele within 5 km but not all the way. So yesterday we should have asked, "can we take a train close to Mount St. Michele?" Our big mistake was only asking two people. We violated our own 'ask three people rule' and see what kind of answers you get. The third person would have said, "You can't take the train all the way but you can either walk or take a taxi the remaining 5 km." Travel lesson reinforced at the expense of $52 for two 45 minute bus rides.
We arrived to find a small island/mountain in the middle of a bay covered with buildings. At the top was a church/monastery and this was the world wonder of Mount St. Michele. Mount St. Michele actually falls into the forgotten wonder list. We are not sure who actually put this list together or why it is a forgotten list. Mount St. Michele began as an island two kilometers off the coast in a 45,000 hectare area. The coastal area has a very major tide and a very shallow coast line. During twelve hours of the day you can walk the two kilometers on dry land to the island and the rest of the time it is surrounded by water. This sounds like a perfect place for a fort/castle. If the enemy decided to attack they would have to finish in twelve hours or learn to swim. The island has an inhabited history dating back to 3 BC and was always considered a mystical place and gets struck by lighting quite often. When the sun and moon line up a spring tide is created, the sea comes rushing in at a height of 15 meters and a speed of 62 meters per minute. With all these natural phenomena's it is still not the reason why this is a world wonder.
The monastery on top of the rock is the world wonder. If you want to build a building on top of a hill you first need to make the top of the hill flat then begin laying your foundation. Because the peak of this mountain/hill was considered sacred similar to Mt. Sinai the Benedictine monks decided to work a little harder to build their church. The plan for construction included the construction of four huge pillars which are placed on somewhat level ground surrounding the peak of Mount St. Michele. With these four pillars in place the rest of the church could be built on an artificial platform resting on the pillars in the shape of an immense cross completely encircling the top of the mountain. The collection of buildings is extremely complex having been rebuilt, repaired, extended and altered over the centuries. Mount St. Michele has served many purposes depending on the politics of the mainland. After spending a few years as a prison it became a tourist attraction in 1874 and a causeway/road from the mainland was constructed. In 1910 100,000 people came to this unique place, today 2.5 million people visit making it the most visited historical monument in France outside of Paris.
We wondered around the place accompanied by a handful of occasional tourists trying to imagine what the place was like before tourism-when the reason for being here was devotion to God or protection from your enemies. Mount St. Michele has a few monks still engaged in religious services and the church is an excellent place for prayer but today all the shops and restaurants cater at high prices to the passing tourist. Maybe that is why Mount St. Michele is a forgotten wonder.
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| This page last changed on 19-Apr-2006 22:17:15 EDT by 70.171.24.221. |
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