Road Trip! (Part I)

I have been looking forward to (and slightly dreading) the road trip I planned for Marcy and I to Mont Saint Michel and Saint-Malo.

While I am loving Paris because there is always something to do, I definitely miss the small town feel of home. Here, I take a bus to the RER and sometimes have to transfer one or more times on the Metro before reaching my destination. And though my Kindle has helped ease the commuter pain, there's nothing like natural beauty, the ocean, and being able to park your car for a day and just walk around.

However, driving in France scares the CRAP out of me (or, it did - I made it through alive, so I feel better now than I did).

First, I don't drive manual.

Second, they have this rule here called "Priorite a droite" that seems counter-intuitive and scary. Basically, anyone joining the road you are on from the right has the right of way - they don't have to stop (unless there's a stop sign for them) and you have to yield to them. Philippe advised that I just drive looking only ahead and to my right and not worrying about other places.  Though I understand the concept of this law (it is just an accident, or several accidents, waiting to happen), I don't think I can put it into practice perfectly yet. Thankfully, we were visiting towns that appeared to have lots of stop signs and we returned to Paris around 10 pm, so I didn't have to put my abilities to the test too much.

Third, I have no sense of direction and our destination is over 4 hours away.

But, I called AutoEurope and booked an automatic rental for two days leaving from Gare de Lyon in Paris (and I got a slight discount since I was a former employee). And, I asked Emeline if we could borrow her GPS so we'd know where we were going.

Even more importantly, my best friend was coming to France to visit me and celebrate our 30th birthdays. I wanted to do something special and memorable with her and thought this little trip would be the perfect thing!

So, now there were no excuses - I had the will and the ways - we were going!

It was a bit of a rough morning - I sliced my finger on my disposable razor by accident and couldn't get the bleeding to stop. My body also choose that moment to decide to dislike the sight of blood and I got lightheaded, woozy, and broke into a cold sweat. Thanks to Marcy and a glass of OJ, I managed not to pass out and we left the house about 45 minutes later than we originally planned.

However, we arrived at Gare de Lyon at about 10:15 am Tuesday morning, grabbed coffee and a pain au chocolat (my eating this week is starting to take its toll on my stomach - I am honestly getting sick of chocolate, can you believe it?!??!?) to get on the road around 11:30ish. And, we had a sweet ride, at least by French standards - a Peugeot 308 with a moon roof, built-in GPS, and smart windshield wipers that automatically turned on and off and adjusted speed.  Can I just say that I hate parking garages? Despite this, we got out without any damage to the vehicle and after about 15 rough minutes of navigating Paris and getting on the Peripherique, we were on our way.

Unfortunately, because my credit card was the one that provided the insurance for the car and adding another driver would be 39 Euros, I did all of the driving - but, Marcy was a competent navigator and was already ready to hand me a piece of gum or change the radio station when we heard Lana del Rey's Video Games for the 100th time (it is a good song, but waaaaay overplayed here).

The ride was rainy, but beautiful. We made a few bathroom and coffee stops along the way, grabbed salads to eat in the car (we were both in need of some veggies) and just took our time getting there. Traffic wasn't bad, the clouds cleared, and the bright blue sky and shining sun emerged. We arrived at Mont Saint Michel around 4, about 2 hours before closing and before high tide was scheduled. It was stunning!

Getting there in the afternoon meant we had avoided many of the crowds but we also had less time to see things. As we entered the town, a sign said cars needed to be moved from certain lots by 5 pm in anticipation of the rising tide. Apparently, sometimes the tide floods the parking lots adjacent to the city/island. And, apparently beginning in April all parking lots except for the one 2km from Mont Saint Michel will be closed to the public.  Not sure which lot we were in, I briefly worried our rental car might fall victim to the rising tide, but after inspecting where we were from high up, I was confident we were going to be just fine (and we were).

We opted to tour the abbey (there are also several museums there, but we didn't have time for them all) and we took our time wandering through and appreciating the scenery and the sun.

The Abbey was also used as a prison after the Revolution and this is a replica of a wheel used to haul goods to the prisoners.

On our way back down the mountain, we stopped at the local church which was also beautiful and wandered through the streets and tourist shops - and had a free samples of cookies.  The tide definitely rose, but not to the point where it flooded any of the parking lots.

A little after 6, we got back in our Peugeot and made our way to the walled city of Saint Malo...