Mont Saint Michel Reveals New Secrets | Hacker News Reader

Mont Saint Michel Reveals New Secrets

news.cnrs.fr

172 pointscurtis20 comments

Mont Saint Michel is certainly a fantastic place, however I must admit that I got a bit bored of walking around the cathedral after about the 20th empty room of pillars ;)

Unfortunately a lot of monuments/castles in France suffer from that feeling of emptiness; I assume they were cleared out during the revolution. Your best chance of seeing interesting things as well as interesting buildings seems to be to look for privately-owned/smaller castles that are open to the public. I went to a particularly nice one a couple of years ago where I believe the tour guide was a member of the family who owned it, and they had a fantastic collection of old furniture, art, weapons etc. And the biggest holly tree I have ever seen (we're talking castle-wall height).

It's something we kinda take for granted in the UK. We have a lot of ruined castles that are obviously pretty empty, but if it's got a roof it probably has lots of old stuff to see inside too.

I do like the number of castles in France though; there's always something to see nearby. It's fun to be in a place with so many historic buildings, like here in Wales (~600 castles)!

> Your best chance of seeing interesting things as well as interesting buildings seems to be to look for privately-owned/smaller castles that are open to the public.

Some very nice ones are the Chateau d'Abbadia (https://www.google.fr/search?q=chateau+d'abbadia+intérieur&t...) ; Dampierre-sur-Boutonne has some original stuff preserved too (https://www.google.fr/search?tbm=isch&q=dampierre+sur+bouton...)

Castels are nowhere close to the most interesting things to see in France.

"Le puy du fou" (https://www.puydufou.com/fr), "le palais idéal du factor cheval" (http://www.facteurcheval.com/histoire/palais.html), "le gouffre de padirac" (https://www.vallee-dordogne.com/grottes-et-gouffres/le-gouff...), la via ferrata de peille (http://peille.free.fr/index.php) or "la cité des sciences" (http://www.cite-sciences.fr/fr/accueil/) are exemples of much more exotic, fun, interesting and unique things to do in France.

Stop doing the things they tell you to do on TV.

Cheese and wine will only take you so far.

> Castels are nowhere close to the most interesting things to see in France.

Not everyone comes from a land with "boring" castles everywhere.

The great thing is that, since you have them everywhere, you can go on visiting one great castel and one great church. Then do something else.

See the giant mechanical elephant in Nantes, hire a guide for "la vallée des merveilles" in the Mercantour park, play petanque and try pastis with old persons in Marseilles, kayak in "les gorges du verdon", bath naked in Saint Selon or break a leg in a the snow of Auron.

It's a really cool country once you forget the stereotypes of food, sex and strikes. I mean, I do have food while having sex during strikes, but frankly you can do that anywhere.

> I mean, I do have food while having sex during strikes, but frankly you can do that anywhere.

Bonus points for irony! Of course, where I live the strikes happen almost never, not to mention my partner‘s apparent willingness for sex as „almost never“ too.

Actually I go to France for traditional music events and festivals in Berry/Auvergne (I play diatonic accordion), I just happen to particularly like going to castles and my partner is an archaeologist :)

Thank you for these examples. I visited the links but I am not entirely sure what I’m looking at (sorry, this may also have to do with being a non-French speaker). Would you be so kind as to provide your thoughts on what’s the interesting bit about these places?

That would take a lot more time that I'm willing to invest.

TripAdvisor? (or the more popular French equivalent?)

is there any website where we can get these kind of advices when visiting a country and want to skip on the "common" tourist attractions?

It there were, they would become the common tourist attractions. The best way to get to those things is to have drinks with locals.

Trip Advisor hasn't failed me, nor have the Lonely Planet region guides. You do see tourist traps high up in the list, but you also see high-rated, low-total-votes entries which can be gems. You'll have more luck if you focus the search as much as possible; "castles in france" won't be as good as "Renaissance France exhibits with disabled access in Aude"

> I assume they were cleared out during the revolution.

When you assume...

"It was under the reign of King Louis XI that Mont Saint-Michel became France’s version of Alcatraz. Transformed into a detention center, it took in prisoners until 1860." - https://www.pariscityvision.com/en/france/mont-saint-michel/...

Ah ha, thanks! I must admit that I always skip the guided tours where possible so I might have missed out on that info while actually there.

For anyone interested in going there, try to do so off season or even in the middle of winter when there's almost nobody there. It's an amazing place regardless, but it's even better when you can enjoy it without all the crowd.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8y4lttBvFM (headphones highly recommended)

Although i can't help but think he was thinking of the Cornish one, being Cornish: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Michael%27s_Mount

He was thinking about both! The track is 2 parts, the first is Mount St. Michel, second is St. Michael's Mount. I believe it was written in France, as he wrote the following on his site a few moths ago: "Been asked quite a few times about the bell at the beginning of Mt Saint Michel. Yes it is from the bell in the smaller chapel on the island, I was staying in a house very close to it with a lovely french girl, I sampled it while I was having my breakfast on a very lush sunny morning. Track was about half written by that point and fitted in just right at the beginning. Just recorded it with the internal mic on the laptop :)"

I highly recommend the Cornish Mont. At low tide the beach seems almost infinite and the island floats like a mirage. An amazing hike. Wear rubber boots.

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