{"id":25,"date":"2026-06-12T06:41:32","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T20:41:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/john-grattos-normandy-bicycle-trip\/?p=25"},"modified":"2026-06-12T06:41:44","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T20:41:44","slug":"june-11-2026-dinard-to-mont-st-michel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/john-grattos-normandy-bicycle-trip\/2026\/06\/12\/june-11-2026-dinard-to-mont-st-michel\/","title":{"rendered":"June 11, 2026 Dinard to Mont St. Michel"},"content":{"rendered":"

June 11, 2026 Day 2: Dinard to Mont St Michel \u2013 Distance: 47 miles, 1450 elevation gain. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Today started with a 15 minute ferry ride from Dinard across a bay to St. Malo. It took us about 20 minutes of riding to get through that city. Sometimes we were in the road, sometimes we were on bike paths.<\/p>\n

At one point, I attempted to leave the road and get on a bike path. It didn\u2019t work out so well. There was about a 2\u201d lip separating the road from the bike path and I didn\u2019t cross that lip perpendicular enough to overcome it. The result was that my momentum was going to the right but my front wheel never got over the 2\u201d lip and continued straight, sending me tumbling onto the bike path.<\/p>\n

I scraped my knee and ankle and wounded my pride. But to quote Monty Python, \u201cit was a mere flesh wound.\u201d Fortunately, I was wearing a helmet, which scraped along the pavement. Had I not been wearing a helmet, it might have been a head injury instead of a mere flesh wound.<\/p>\n

Once we got out of the city, the riding was wonderful. There was very little traffic and oftentimes, the roads were not even equal to the width of one lane in the U.S.<\/p>\n

Highlight # 1 of the day consisted of going to the German cemetery. This cemetery was started by a French teacher who lived nearby. Even though the Germans conquered France, terrorized its civilians, and fought against the Allies, around 150,000 of them died at Normandy and the subsequent battles across France as the Allies drove the Germans out of France. This kind-hearted teacher reasoned that German mothers and wives were like other mothers and wives and grieved for the men they lost.<\/p>\n

She led efforts to identify the German men who had been buried in the area and wrote letters to their loved ones to tell them that their men had been found a were being relocated into a common cemetery. Today, this cemetery contains nearly 12,000 burials of German military personnel of WWII, plus some women and children. The names of the soldiers were clearly displayed in a dignified manner throughout the cemetery.<\/p>\n

The second highlight of the day was arriving at Mont Saint-Michel. Along the way we passed a windmill. But what was truly impressive was Mont Saint-Michel itself. It is incredibly impressive in its unique rising from the seabed and its history.<\/p>\n

Construction of it is said to have begun as a devotional chapel on the summit of the island in 708, following a command from the Archangel Michael. \u00a0St. Michael\u2019s gilded figure, perched on the vanquished dragon, crowns the tip of the abbey\u2019s spire.<\/p>\n

Our route description for today states, \u201cin 966, Richard I, Duke of Normandy, gave Mont St-Michel to the Benedictines, who turned it into a center of learning and, in the 11th century, into something of an ecclesiastical fortress, with a military garrison at the disposal of both abbot and king.<\/p>\n

In the 15th century, during the Hundred Years War, the English blockaded and besieged Mont St-Michel three times. The fortified abbey withstood these assaults and was the only place in western and northern France not to fall into English hands. After the Revolution, Mont St-Michel was turned into a prison. In 1966 the abbey was symbolically returned to the Benedictines as part of the celebrations marking its millennium. Mont St-Michel and the bay became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Germans also occupied it during WWII but apparently thought enough of it not to damage it.<\/p>\n

Tonight, I am staying in a hotel about halfway up this impressive island. It is quite a unique pleasure to do so. We also had a guided tour which was okay. I could hear about a third of what the guide said because it was often noisy due to passerbys. She could have used a microphone.<\/p>\n

A low point of the day was dinner. Last night, we had warm sea bass over rice. That was good. Tonight, we had some kind of cold fish served over cold corn. I ate the cold fish since I was famished and dinner did not start until 7:30 p.m. after the guided tour. The next course was cod in some type of brown butter sauce. I only took one bite of it. It wasn\u2019t good enough to take in any more of what would have been distasteful calories. Unimpressed, I even left before dessert to work on this blog.<\/p>\n

Despite the minor fall and disappointing dinner, today was a fine day and I\u2019m looking forward to tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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Sometimes we were in the road, sometimes we were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nJune 11, 2026 Dinard to Mont St. Michel - John Gratto\u2019s Normandy bicycle trip<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/bikeodyssey.cc\/john-grattos-normandy-bicycle-trip\/2026\/06\/12\/june-11-2026-dinard-to-mont-st-michel\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"June 11, 2026 Dinard to Mont St. Michel - John Gratto\u2019s Normandy bicycle trip\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"June 11, 2026 Day 2: Dinard to Mont St Michel \u2013 Distance: 47 miles, 1450 elevation gain. 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