Mont-Saint-Michel

Before it was an island the rock stood on dry land, and as the sea rose it became one of several granite outcrops in the bay, known as Mont Tombe. According to legend the archangel Michael appeared in 708 to Aubert, bishop of Avranches, and told him to build a church on it. In 933 William Longsword annexed the Cotentin and the Avranchin, making the Mount Norman for good, and in 966 Benedictine monks settled on the rock. In the 11th century the Italian builder William of Volpiano designed a Romanesque church with its crossing set on the very summit; after Breton troops burned the village and the abbey in 1204, Philip Augustus paid for Gothic rebuilding, the origin of the Merveille.

During the Hundred Years' War the English besieged the Mount twice, in 1423–24 and 1433–34, and failed both times; the small garrison kept two of their bombards as trophies. Louis XI made the abbey a prison, a role it held again from the Revolution, when it took clerical opponents of the republic and then political prisoners. Victor Hugo campaigned for its restoration; the prison closed in 1863 and the Mount became a historic monument in 1874.

A raised causeway of 1879, polders and the canalised Couesnon let silt build up around the rock. After the German occupation and the liberation in August 1944, the Mount and its bay were listed by UNESCO in 1979. A dam on the Couesnon began work in 2009, the causeway and its car park were removed, and in 2014 a light bridge by Dietmar Feichtinger opened so that the sea could flow freely around the island again.

The Mount has been a pilgrimage site since at least the 9th century. Medieval pilgrims, called Miquelots, walked from Italy, Germany and England as well as across France, bought lead flasks filled with sand from the shore and later pilgrim badges, and found board and lodging in the village at the foot of the abbey. Ten long-distance walking routes now retrace their paths, and the annual September pilgrimage still draws thousands. Benedictine monks returned in 1966; since 2001 a community of the Monastic Fraternities of Jerusalem has lived on the rock and prays in the abbey church, or in the crypt of Notre-Dame des Trente Cierges in winter.

The rock has a strong hold on the imagination. It appears in the Bayeux Tapestry, where Harold rescues Norman knights from the quicksand, and it was the model for St Michael's Mount in Cornwall, a priory given to the abbey after the Conquest. Its silhouette is said to have inspired the city of Minas Tirith in The Lord of the Rings films and the kingdom of Corona in Disney's Tangled.

Daily custom here is shaped by the tide and the crowds. Visitors watch the water come in from the ramparts, barefoot walkers come back across the sands with muddy legs, and the Grande Rue's shopkeepers have long competed for trade; a handful of families have dominated the village's businesses and its administration for generations.

Only 23 people lived in the commune in 2023, and about 25 people, monks included, sleep on the rock on an ordinary night apart from hotel guests. Most of the commune's 400 hectares are on the mainland, among the salt meadows of the shore. The population has been falling since the prison closed in 1863: the old houses on the rock are small, damp and unreachable by car, and residents have moved to more comfortable homes inland.

Tourism is almost the only source of income. There are about 50 shops and 132 hotel rooms within the walls, and a few groups own most of the businesses inside and outside them, including half of the restaurants and three of the museums. On peak summer days up to 20,000 people arrive, most of them day-trippers who crowd the village between late morning and late afternoon. The average visit lasts two to three hours.

Managing those numbers is the standing local issue. Free parking after the evening rush outside July and August is meant to spread visits through the day, while the higher parking charges, the long walk from the car park and shuttles that stop short of the gate have been blamed for a fall in visitor numbers since the early 2000s. In summer, dolphins follow the currents into the bay, where they are often seen near the small fishing boats known as barquettes.

The Mount is best known for its omelette, whipped until frothy and light. Its best-known version was created by Anne Boutiaut Poulard, who came to the Mount as the maid of the architect Édouard Corroyer, restorer of the abbey, and the omelette has drawn wide attention ever since. Inside the walls the Grande Rue and its side lanes are lined with restaurants, crêperies, cafés and snack bars, and their prices reflect the crowds.

The other great local dish comes from the shore. The polders and salt marshes around the bay are grazed by sheep, and agneau de pré-salé, salt-meadow lamb, comes from animals grazed on the salt-tolerant grasses of these pastures. It appears on the menus of restaurants that depend on the visitors, and sheep grazing beneath the rock are part of the view from the bridge.

The bay also supplies seafood: Cancale, on its Breton side, is known as the oyster capital of Brittany and sells oysters straight from the producers at its harbour market, and the wider Normandy table brings cider, calvados, butter and cream. Outside the walls, Pontorson and the villages around the bay have simpler restaurants where locals eat.