My Weekend in Brittany/Normandy

So I took my second and last overnight trip with NYU this past weekend. This time we went to Brittany and Normandy, which is in northwestern France. The trip was fun, but I think that I'm a bigger fan of Burgundy, where we went for the last trip. Anyways, here's what I saw...

Dinan, a cute little town in Brittany. View of the port from the wall surrounding part of Dinan.

View of the city.

Cute, but incredibly steep street.

Another view of the city from this really ridiculous hill that we climbed because there was a sign promising us a fountain at the top. There was no fountain though.

View of the river.

Then we ate crepes (which the region is known for) and mussels on the river. This is my roommate, Erin and she's eating her first mussel ever!

Next stop: St. Malo, a walled port city on the English Channel. The island behind me isn't reachable all the time, only when the tide goes out.

View of the city of St. Malo.

An island, that's not an island at this time of the day.

Another island that's unreachable at certain points of the day.

Sunset.

Kelsey and I in front of the double rainbow.

Sunset on the beach.

More of the St. Malo coastline.

A really old door that was constructed by shipbuilders.

More of the beach.

Kelsey and I pretended that were storming St. Malo.

Still storming.


View of the tide pool at sunset.
So one of the islands is only accessible by a bridge that is covered up most of the day. At about 7:30 pm it's not covered by water and Sara insisted on crossing the bridge. Unfortunately for us though we had dinner at 8 and didn't want to wait until 7:30, and it was pitch black when we tried crossing at around 6:30.

We made it to the island! Though our feet/pants were soaked with water because the middle of the bridge was still underwater and I got saltwater in my eye on the way back to the beach.

Mont St. Michel, an abbey built on a rock. It is an island 2 times a day at high tide and is also one of France's most popular monuments, though only 30% of it's 2 million visitors actually climb up to the abbey.

Me, in front of a small door in the abbey. It was raining a lot of the day, as you can tell from my umbrella.

View of the bridge to get to the island (though it's not an island in this picture)

Cloisters on top of the monk's study room at the abbey.

Rachel, me (being tickled by Sara's hair), Sara, and Sam on top of Mont St. Michel.

Rachel overlooking the land down below. Note the tide coming in on the left. The tides here are the strongest in Europe and at low tide, the sea disappears over the horizon. Apparently the tides come as fast as a galloping horse!

View of the Abbey.

Sam, Sara, Rachel, and Ferris walking on what will be water in a couple of hours. Apparently the island is surrounded by quicksand, but none of them got caught in it.

Mont St. Michel and me.

Pretty much the same picture but without me.

Finally, our last stop was Rennes, where we caught our train from. It's the capital of Brittany, the second-largest city in western France, and big student city because it houses 2 major universities. It has also been labeled as France's most livable city. And they have these really cool looking houses all over the place. We were only there for a little bit, so we didn't do much other than walk around, stop at a cafe, and then hop on the train.