June 2, 2018
Day 68: Mont St Michel to Mortain
Looking at the Mont St Michel area on Google Maps from back home, it wasn't 100% clear just where we could go with the bikes, find a place to stay, and then get to the site. We lucked out with Booking in finding a relatively affordable hotel really close in and across the street from the shuttle stop. But I was still curious about what the nearest town, Beauvoir - 3 km away, might really have to offer.
We set off on the road to Beauvoir, and soon saw why our hotel area had been so peaceful. Only drivers with a hotel given code could open a gate to use the road. Beyond the gate and down to Beauvoir the traffic was still light, but normal.
Beauvoir turned out to be a very little town, with a few hotels, one bakery, and one grocery in its business district. But it did have a bit of residential, making it truly a town and not just a cross roads. To stay in Beauvoir one would need a car, and then drive it to the expensive pay parking of the shuttle service. Beauvoir would not work for being on a bike, if you wanted to store it inside a hotel. One could of course stay at Beauvoir and then just bike ride right to Mont St Michel, locking up in front of the abbey and (appropriately) praying for the bike's preservation.
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Beyond Beauvoir we found ourselves in real Normandy countryside, with lots of trees, fields, and cows. Although there were still white Charollais the predominant ones were standard black and white Holstein. With the grass being so green right now, black and white really stood out. In the distance for the first little while there stood Mont St Michel. We had cycled hard to get it into sight the other day, now we couldn't shake it!
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Our map showed us that we would pass close to the major WWII German cemetery at Mont de Huisnes, so we took the turn. We found that the German War Graves Commission, between 1961 and 1963 had moved the graves of 11,956 soldiers from about 8 departments in France to this site. It is not a graveyard, per se, but an ossuary. That is, the remains are in above ground vaults. The hill that the cemetery is on gives a good view of Mont St Michel, though that holds little meaning here.
The site was deserted, but a photo showed a commemorative ceremony from 2011 in exactly the spot we were standing, making it feel a littl eless lonely.
The grave vaults are arranged on two levels, with 34 crypt rooms, 180 dead per room and six per vault. It was like an apartment building of the dead, and it made me wonder about the thinking behind it. All I can think of is that it is cheaper and easier to maintain a thing like this than to worry about mowing the grass in spots all over France. If so, it's a practical solution, but it seems a little harsh for the families. Does anyone know more about this?
In the foyer there were several books in German, describing the experience of the soldiers. One in particular was the publication of letters that had been written home, and containing some photos of the men, sometimes in uniform but often in normal times, with their families. It strikes us always as a shocking shame that people can be duped or forced into getting involved in something so atrocious as war. In the foyer too was a display from a project of the German Commission, called Work for Peace. In this, youths come to help maintain the grave sites. The Commission, for some reason, is not government funded and relies on donations and volunteers. We made a (self serve) donation in return for stickers we could put on our bikes.
Ever since Mont St Michel we have been on the "Veloscenie" as well as the Tour de Manche. The Veloscenie runs from Mont St Michel directly to Paris. We will stick with it until Mortain, our destination for the day. After Mortain we will had north to the beaches of Normandy while the Veloscenie heads east to the cafes of Paris.
We like cycling voie verte type routes, seeing no need to fight it out with traffic, hills, or anything else, unless necessary. However we will still duck into a town for a peek if the opportunity comes up. We did that at St Quentin and Ducey. Usually we head for the church, normally the most refined thing a town has to offer. In these two towns, the churches both had excellent stained glass - not so much or so elaborate, but casting excellent light in the altar area.
French business hours are often very inconvenient for travellers, but today's hotel was really pushing it by only opening reception at 6 p.m. So in a reversal of how we usually think, we watched with some dismay as the distance to Mortain steadily and quite quickly shrunk as we moved from direction sign to direction sign. It looked like we would arrive way early.
Fortunately at about 8 km things seemed to stall, and we felt we cycled a long time before the distance was listed at 3 km. At that point the road took a dive - way down into a gulley or ravine. Then it made to crawl back out again. Or at least, it made us crawl back out again! Mortain turns out to be up on a ridge. In the war, this was known as Hill 314 by the Americans, and was the scene of tough fighting.
We still arrived early, but we found some tables near the hotel and got a start on the blog while waiting.
Our hotel is the Hotel de la Poste, and it is directly across from the church. As we have seen at the landing beaches, there are flags of various nations around. We were tickled to have the Canadian flag in front of the church and just below our window.
The hotel seems reasonably old, but we know it can not be more than 74 years. A photo in the hall shows it almost totally destroyed, in 1944.
Today's ride: 73 km (45 miles)
Total: 4,432 km (2,752 miles)
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