For its spectacular architecture and its bay, Mont Saint-Michel has become a tourist reference for Normandyas well as one of the earliest of France. Its name is due to the exceptional abbey, dedicated to the archangel Saint Michel, located on a rocky rock of an island, in the estuary that forms the river Couesnon at its mouth.
Since 1979, the Mont Saint-Michel and its bay are part of the Unesco World Heritage. Also, the numerous buildings of the place that have been classified as historical monuments.
Another element that contributes to the spectacular of the set are tides, that in other times turned the mountain into an impregnable fortress. Currently access to the abbey is ensured by a road that reaches the base of the rock, since for centuries it was only accessible on foot, when the tide was low and by sea, when it was high.
The origins of the current abbey date between the 8th and 9th centuries, although the area's past dates back to Celtic times, when some tribes approached the mountain to worship druidic. During the Middle Ages, like Rome and Santiago de Compostela, it was one of the centers of pilgrimage most important in the West. At the time of the Revolution it was used as a prison and at the end of the 19th century restoration works began.
In the small medieval town that makes up Mont Saint-Michel, we can find houses and shops from the 15th and 16th centuries, a drawbridge, the church dedicated to Saint Peter from the 15th century and the grand staircase that leads to the abbey, called du Grand I degraded.
For some reason, this emblematic place receives more than 3 millions of visitors between pilgrims and tourists.
Mont St Michel, the wonder of the west (April 2024)
- World Heritage
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