Back in mid August, with the temperature forecast for 25C, it was time to put the shorts on for a guided tour of the shore of Mont St Michel Bay. This time, it’s not me doing the guiding, but I am noting the actions of our local guide to explore the bay and hoping to import some of the better points into my future tours – spoiler alert; there were no bad points to comment on as Ludovic was uniformly excellent.

For those who are not aware, with 3 million visitors each year, the Mont St Michel is, deservedly, one of the most visited tourist site in France (after Paris attractions and Versailles). Seen out of season the old town and the Abbey that crowns the mount are both splendid and peaceful. In summer, it is often difficult to move inside the town walls and the queue to reach the serenity of the old cloisters is several hours for those without advance reservation and still unacceptably long for those who have booked. This was mid-season, so we had no intention of entering the town. Instead, Ghislaine had booked a guided tour of the marshes and the estuary below “the Mont”.

Mont St Michel seen from the picnic area near Saint Leonard, Normandy

We arrived early at the rendezvous where we bought a coffee from the back of an old Citroen van run by an ex-pat Australian to go with our lunch and settled in to wait. A group of around 20 young, French pilgrims singing religious chants on the picnic area near the parking were a little disconcerting. Fortunately, they were doing a similar tour with a different guide and headed of ahead of us leaving a group of 23 people registered with Ludovic.

Ludo is a local who had grown up in the area and, after completing his college studies, had returned to offer his services as a professional, single site guide for the marshes and the bay around “the Mont”. Tall and slim, with shoulder length hair, he had the appearance of a surfer, except there are few waves to surf in the area. He told me that, although there is no formal qualification for being a guide on this site, there are only about 20 registered guides operating from the Eco-museum at Vains. One member of the tour was lost and running late so we had the introduction and health and safety announcements twice, which was helpful as there was a lot to take in in preparation for a 6 hour walk. To be a successful guide on a site like this it is necessary to be a polymath. Ludovic started with prehistory and the formation of the bay followed by the history of the foundation of the Abbey and the mediaeval pilgrims (tourists) that walked there 1,000 years before us, not all of them successfully. During the course of the walk, he also covered French history; the 100 years war against England; the geography and geology of the Bay; the flora; the fauna; the physics behind the tides and thixotropic solutions; and his obvious love of the bay and its fantastic monument. But before all that we had to cross “le Slic”.

The Slick is an area of mud between the shoreline proper and the tidal estuary that we would be crossing at low tide. It gets its name from being very gelatinous and slippery. This is not a problem when it is flat as in the photograph, but becomes positively hazardous on even the lightest slope. We had not started from the Eco-museum as crossing 200 yards of sloping Slick would have left us looking like mud wrestlers at the start of our 6 hour tour of the Bay.

“Le Slic” on the fringe of the Baie Mont St Michel.

After 10 minutes sliding and squelching through the mud we reached the sands of the bay and had the opportunity to wash our feet in the sea. The Bay is fed by 3 rivers, the Couesnon, which separates Normandy from Brittany, the Selune and the Sée. I learned a Breton response to the French rhyme:

Le Couesnon dans sa folie, a mit le Mont en Normandie.

Which goes:

Il le rendra aux Bretons des qu’il retrouvera la raison.

The border between Brittany and Normandy runs along the middle of the river with the Mont sitting on the east (Normande) bank.

Although superficially solid there are areas of quicksand throughout the bay and it is easy to form an area by jumping up and down on the wet sand, particularly close to the areas where we forded the other two rivers. An experienced guide is necessary to avoid areas where one may get trapped. One does not sink deep into quicksand like in the movies, but the rising tide will drown you if you are stuck when it comes in. This is a sudden phenomenon called the Mascaret, which issimilar to the Severn Bore in Britain. That evening, as the sun set over the Bay, we watched canoeists profiting from the wave from the safety of the bank. Meanwhile, Ludovic demonstrated to the group how to escape the quicksand when in too deep to simply walk out and talked about the nature of thixotropic liquids.

3 km north of the Mont St Michel, lies the smaller granite island of Tombelaine. This was a stronghold of the Gauls, the Vikings and, during the 100 years war, the English. The remains of their fort can be seen on the west side of the island. Despite attempts to build a tourist complex there, it is now state owned and maintained as a bird reserve. We did not visit the island on this walk, but we did see several of the many species of bird that nest there. Some walks visit the island, but we turned south towards St Michel and an hour later, after fording the Selune, reached dry land.

East side of Tombelaine seen from the Normandy coast

There was a 40 minute stop – not enough to see the town – and then we were off on the return leg following the eastern margin of the Bay. The rivers have recently been recolonised by salmon and these have been followed by a colony of shy seals that we saw in the distance, but who swam off before we could get close enough for a photograph. Ludovic also used some of the children to illustrate the relative positions of the sun, the moon and the earth at peak and neap tides.

He showed us some of the shells of the Crustacea that are found in the bay and finally led us across the samphire bes, the Slick and back onto solid ground near our car park. He had a barrel of water in the car to wash the mud of our feet. The Citroen selling coffee had long disappeared so we headed off to find some supper and to watch the kayaks riding the wave of the Mascaret before returning home, tired after a full day in the Bay.

Arrival at Mont St Michel

Reflecting on the guiding aspects Ludovic was impeccable. He covered Health and safety before the walk; by helping the more unsteady of us cross the Slick; by avoiding deep water and strong currents; and by demonstrating how to escape from quicksand. Although the group were often spread out over 200 yards he never lost sight of the stragglers and allowed everyone to catch up before talking about the features. These talks were comprehensive regarding the geography, the pre-histor, the history and the wildlife of the Bay. Our tour was in French, but he speaks good English and I would recommend him as a guide to anyone wishing to undertake this walk.