Saying that Mont St. Michel is a bucket list destination in France is no exaggeration.
The Mont is a fortified city made of stone and rock that from afar looks a lot like an island castle. It stands alone in the sand and water, and with nothing else in the surrounding area, it's essentially in the middle of nowhere.
It's man made of course but it looks very organic and natural and almost makes one wonder if it sprang up from the ground one day of its own accord. It's really no wonder that so many people are drawn to it.
My inlaws wanted to see the Mont during their visit to France so my wife and I obliged. We had visited the site previously during covid and we had a pretty incredible experience there, so we were happy to go again and were excited for them to experience the magic of the location.
We coordinated a trip to the site and drove the 4 hours from where we were living at the time and we arrived early in the morning.
During our first visit the country was essentially locked down to tourists and we also went in the off season during the month of May so it wasn't crowded or busy at all for us then.
This time around the country had long since opened up its doors to tourists and we were visiting during peak season, in the middle of August. There were already a lot of people there when we arrived in the early morning.
This time was much different to say the least. People were coming in droves and it was absolutely packed almost to the point of bursting. It seemed that overtourism had hit the site hard. But you don't have to take my word for it, you will see it for yourself in my photos.
If you want to compare the two trips free to view my original post Here.
Even just getting into the place was next to impossible. The front gates created a bottle neck so it took quite some time to inch forward in the sea of people. There were a few baby carriages in the crowd as well that really added to the chaos. They moved slowly and needed a lot of space to maneuver.
The few streets inside were packed to the gills as well. We sort of just made due with the situation and moved about as best we could.
It could be helpful to pull over to the side when things started to feel a little too claustrophobic.
Like to get ice cream for instance.
This particular spot (above) was like ants pouring out of an anthill. Too many humans in one place can be almost a little disgusting in way. I'm sure that you get what I mean.
One positive thing was that the abbey required a pre-bought ticket with a specific time slot to go inside to tour it.
That really helped keep numbers down in there and made the experience more enjoyable.
We had purchased tickets long in advance so we headed into the abbey and had a little reprieve from the crowds.
I actually felt like I could breath a little in there.
The Abbey was basically just a large gothic church cathedral, much like any other in the country of France. However, there was something impressive about it too. Maybe it was just knowing the context of where it was built?
The outer balcony was massive and had an incredible 180° view of the surroundings.
The inner courtyard was pretty neat as well.
I liked the architectural features there, surrounding the patch of grass in the center.
Aside from the main Abbey there was also a smaller chapel located on one of the streets.
It was dedicated to Saint Michael, which was very fitting considering the name of the place.
It would be pretty silly for it to be called Mont St Michel and not have a shrine dedicated to the Saint Michael - am I right?
For this trip we actually stayed in one of the hotels on the island and as the day progressed into the early evening the whole place quite quickly cleared out of all of the tourists.
Once that happened the location became way more enjoyable.
At that point we had the chance to wander around and explore more freely without any crowds getting in the way.
At that time, without all of the excess people around, we could really get a sense of the historic romance of the small town built on the water.
The town itself mostly caters to tourists and consist of just shops, hotels and restaurants at this point; but supposedly there are people who currently live there as well.
According to its tourist website, Mont St. Michel hosts 20 permanent residence and has a mayor, waste and police services, a priest and a postman.. Who knew!?!
To be honest, I can't even imagine living in a place like that with that many tourists around.
It would be my literal nightmare.
I'm guessing that the residents leave for the entire month of August to get away from all of the chaos.
August tends to be a pretty big travel month for French residents.
One thing that I recommend if you do happen to stay on the island or hang around in the evening is to find a spot to watch the sunset.
Alternatively you can do what we did and go to the opposite end of where the sun is setting and watch the Abbey cast a pyramid shadow on the landscape. You can see it in the photo.
It sounds kind of silly because it's just a shadow but the novelty of it was actually pretty cool in person.
Something else that we tried on this trip that I never thought we would do was eat the famous egg omelet at Madame Poulards. It's a souffled egg cooked over a wood fire.
My wifes grandfather had eaten at the restaurant and tried the omelet when he had visited the site decades before and he wanted us to have that experience as well so he very generously bought dinner for the family that night. The omelet was actually quite good too.
Conclusion
As you may have pieced together in reading this, my review of the location is somewhat of a mixed.
On the one hand the location is a sort of magical almost fairytale village located in a very impressive setting.
However, its such a small place with ridiculous amounts of tourists trying to see it around the same time and the crowds make the experience anything less than enjoyable.
There is no doubt that Mont St Michel suffers from over tourism in a very big way.
There really is a lot of good and bad about it.
If you do plan to visit the site and care to hear my advice, I would suggest visiting it in the off season and also plan to stay on the mont until later in the evening when all of the tourists have left for the day.
You can try staying in one of the hotels on site as well to really get that exclusive feeling of having the Mont to yourself at night. Whatever you decide, good luck in your travel adventures.
