Mont St. Michel info
 

Hi! I would appreciate any current info that you might be able to supply regarding access to Mont St. Michel. I have been searching madly to find tide schedules for mid August. Have I missed the point and the incoming tides surround the entire Mont seasonally and not on a monthly basis?
Also, I will be taking my VERY elderly mother to see this fantastic sight. It's been something she's wanted to do as a tribute to her brother who served in France in WW II. He told her to see this magnificient sight some day. So, it's in his memory that she is making this trip.

I have heard horror stories about the lengthy time just to get out the road to the entrance. Does anyone know what time(s) the road to Le Mont can be accessed without having to endure endless waits? Is the road less crowded at night?

Any suggestions about a good spot to view Le Mont from across the bay......maybe a nice restaurant with a great view of Mont St. Michel?

Thanks for your feedback and information. It's a different travel experience with my 84-year-old mother and I am trying to do everything I can to minimize wear and tear on both of us. This ought to be quite a unique journey!

The area is quite heavily silted up around the hill. I don't know the area well, but I got the impression when I visited a couple of years ago, that it would take flood conditions (or a storm surge) to surround MSM with water these days. For other information, do a search here; there have been a number of threads in the past few months about MSM.

It's a steep road winding up the side of the hill (or lots of steps other ways). It might be easiest to stay in one of the hotels in the mainland side village for your mother, though staying on MSM could be a very different way to experience it.

On the assumption you're not intending to walk across the bay, you need not concern yourself with the tides.

If you go early in the morning- we went straight off the ferry in midsummer and were there by 9am or so- you shouldn't have crowds. You drive along the causeway and park at the foot of the Abey walls. It opens during the summer at 9am and in the winter at 9.30am. It closes at 5.30pm and 4.30pm respectively.

In summer it reopens late at night and you can go round the building with quiet music playing in each illumintaed room. You can lodge inside the walls and by all accounts you see a different place.

But don't underestimate the steepness of the climb for your mother

Thanks for your feedback. The suggestion about checking other FODOR'S postings is a good one. I went to MSM several years ago and remember the steep climb but it was off season so the crowds and backed-up traffic weren't issues at the time. The early AM timing helps. Thanks.

Here's a site that should give you tons of information, plus a chart of "Big Tides."

From the chart, it looks like the 29, 30, 31 have the highest tides at 11:18 am, noon and 12:34 pm (if I am reading it right), as well as high tides in the middle of the night. I assume because only a few days are listed for each month, those are the highest.

Thanks for checking the tidal info, LVSue. If you can send me the web address, I'll copy it and take it with me.

Does anyone know if the construction to replace the causeway with a bridge has been completed? I know that this was scheduled to be finished in 2002, but I haven't heard anything about it.

The causeway project has not yet begun. I'm told it's scheduled to start up in '04.