Mont Saint Michel – Launchpad for Allies – Normandy to The Rhine

Thanks everyone for the fantastic response to our new Allies – Normandy to The Rhine tour!

We are really looking forward to this one. We have been researching it in the background for 12 months and have been looking forward to the 100 year anniversary of the end of World War I to launch the tour. It such an interesting route for cycling, history and culture.

UNESCO listed Mont St Michel, our starting point for the tour is such an amazing place. We are looking forward to riding off the island on our Odyssey and we will need to ride fast (if we time it well!) for the tide travels at the speed of a galloping horse!

It was supposedly at the request of the Archangel Michel that Aubert, Bishop of Avranches built a small church here October 709. However, it was in 966 a community of Benedictines settled on the rock. The abbey developed from here with crypts, towers and extensions rising up over centuries.

In the 14th century and the Hundred Years War it was fortified and held out against an English siege lasting 30 years… supposedly this resistance inspired a young peasant girl called Joan…..

The Abbey was turned into a prison in the 19th century but was restored at the turn of that century. In WWII amazingly it avoided destruction. It was occupied by Nazis but only manned very lightly and not used as a fortress. With the celebration of the monastic’s 1000th anniversary, in the year 1966 a religious community moved back to what used to be the abbatial dwellings!

It is hugely popular and an epic place to launch an Odyssey!