janisj

OK -- are you two attached at the hip? Not being snarky at all -- I've take several trips where one or another site is a MUST/bucket list item for one of us, and meh for another. Could your friend take the overnight trip and visit MSM while you go someplace you'd rather see, and then meet up again in Paris.

Would be a win win IME

victoriainwanderland

I have no issue going our separate ways where need be (ie since I’ve been before, I will go to Fontainebleau the day she goes to Versailles) but I don’t really know what I would do if she insisted as I would likely either stay put or head up to Paris earlier. Hmm.

tomboy

My two cents: MSM is famous because it's quite unique, and photogenic.
But, if you spent 20 minutes looking at videos and photos of MSM, you'd see about all I found memorable about the place.
Yes, I climbed to the top, and had a meal there. I remember the car park area quite vividly. No memories of the M itself other than the steepness of the path. Any other memory of it is how it looked from a distance, as in a photo. Never missed not going back.

Coquelicot

Whether you go to MSM or not, you'll have plenty of wonderful memories from your trip. My best memories are usually not the specific tourist sights that I went to France to see, but places or meals or people we came across just in the course of a day.

And places that everybody tells you you've got to see can be the most disappointing!

At the campsite near Mont Saint Michel, an English woman next to us offered some of her English sandwich bread because "you can't get good bread in France." A French woman told us to buy bars of Savon de Marseille for doing laundry by hand, presumably at the lavoirs along the road. And the next day at Josselin we did see women doing their wash at the town lavoir. That tells you how long ago we first saw Mont Saint-Michel.

janisj

An extra day in Paris is never a bad thing

I don't know either one of you of course -- but would it place a cloud over the trip if one of you 'loses' and the other one 'wins'? Is your friend comfortable being on her own for a couple of days (and are you for that matter) ?

If MSM is a biggie/bucket list item for her, and the extra travel hassle doesn't appeal to you -- you could both be happy. She could spend the night on MSM and you could do some special/off the beaten path things in Paris. Plus a little time apart can improve a lot of trips.

bilboburgler

Lavoirs were closed by de Gaulle in the late 60s I think. I first went to Normandy in 73 and I never saw one used.

Am I right or was it earlier?

victoriainwanderland

I do also want to go to MSM but I agree with others that it will undoubtedly require trekking quite far out of the way. I may return to France in mid-late 2024 with my sister (I'd love to see the Alsace region on that trip as well as more of Northern France) so I personally feel like I'd be more inclined to keep MSM for that trip but I am not entirely sure yet whether that trip will happen as my sister is rather reckless with her savings. Assuming that I may not see MSM on that trip (if we do in fact visit France) I feel like if my friend insisted on MSM, I would fear missing out if I didn't go with her.

The perils of living so far away, it is so time consuming and expensive to visit Europe that I just don't know when I will be back

Coquelicot

Victoria, it appears to me that you've been doing a lot of the detailed planning of the trip. If your friend really wants to go to Mont Saint-Michel, maybe she can do the research for this and see how and when to fit it in to the trip. You've already planned your time pretty thoroughly so it may not be possible to add it. Just tell yourselves that you'll be back and start a list for the next trip.

Bilbo, you sent me looking for my trip diary. Our day at Josselin was in September 1969. It was our first time in France. That day we were surprised to see women using a lavoir, but it became such a common sight for us that I don't think I continued to note it in my diary. I do remember once getting a lesson in washing our sheets at a lavoir. It gives you a workout!

mjs

I am with everyone else and would not do MSM on this trip. I believe there are a full day bus tours from Paris to MSM and your friend can do that if she wishes with one of her days in Paris. Save MSM for another trip along with Normandy and Brittany.

kerouac

I drove two American friends to Mont Saint Michel and to the American military cemetery on a day trip once. It was a long day, starting early and finishing late, but none of us regretted it. After being in cities for a long time, a road trip to anywhere can be a treat. Obviously people have a different appeal or tolerance for such a trip. I took a day trip once from Alice Springs to Uluru -- about six hours in each direction, leaving well before dawn. And we only spent about two hours at Uluru. I loved the trip, partly because it was so irrational and yet there was a full busload of people willing to do it.

Sue_xx_yy

If you are headed to Paris anyway, and this is still an issue by your trip in May/June 2023, you can make up your minds when you get to Paris or perhaps a short time beforehand.

I would not normally recommend one of those 1 day commercial bus tour trips Paris-MSM-Paris but this seems to be an occasion when that sort of thing might work.

They aren't especially cheap, and I see one has to get to the rendezvous point at 06:45 in time for a 07:15 departure, but at least once on board the bus, someone else does the driving and all the organizing thereafter. You spend about 3 hours doing guided tours of the MSM and arrive back in Paris by 20:45 or 21:00 (which means not back at your hotel until even later, but there it is...your friend's bucket list is complete.

I know nothing about this particular tour company (nor have I ever taken any 1 day tour to MSM or similar, e.g. Omaha Beach, etc. etc.) but it is just an example for you to study and think about. .

https://www.viator.com/en-CA/tours/P...ch/d479-2050MS