The much long overdue entry about camping is here! Sigh. Why are all my entries overdue? Losing my motivation, my muse and all my mental faculties in this slow countryside. I used to be a gan cheong spider when I'm stressed. Now I'm a gan cheong spider trapped in a slow time zone. Spinning my web ever so slowly..

Ok! Enough of all the rubbish! Now camping proper shall start! We drove four hours to the camping site in Granville. Along the way we stopped at a historical site, Mont-St-Michel! (Mount St Michael) The architecture of Mont-St-Michel is awesome! It stood above the waters of the bay opening out towards the English Channel. The tide from the sea, the three rivers, namely, the Sée, the Sélune and the Couesnon which flows into the inlet, brought with them so much sand that without further intervention, Mont-St-Michel will lose its maritime status. Thus, works are in progress to control the flow of water for it not to lose its original beauty.

Saint Michael is the archangel that slays dragon and represents the good over evil. He weighs the good and evil deeds of human beings at the Last Judgement and conducts the good to heaven and the bad to hell. This abbey is built to commemorate him. I thought it was a palace for a princess initially before I read the guidebook but alas, it's an abbey for monks! Nevertheless, it's really beautiful and majestic and here's the proof!

Rock Solid, formed from granulite, a very hard crystalline mineral

Nice eh? Where in Singapore can we find anything like that? Well, I really like all this old buildings and love to explore all the crannies and nooks! It reeks of adventure isn't it? Let me take you on a tour around! On y va! (Let's go!)

Bro-in-law (Greg), His gf (Jess) and Kiba

The cylindrical tower in the back right is the Tour Gabriel (The Tower Gabriel)

This is the village in the Mount and it's full of shops and restaurants. I was miffed because of the mercantilistic atmosphere and thought it has become overly touristic. However, this kind of culture seems to have continued from the very beginning. Apparently, the owners of these shops are either the very descendents or the people who bought the stalls from the first merchants who set up stalls here to sell things to the pilgrims who visited the mount in the past. It makes me feel much better knowing the facts as nothing irks me more than modern businessmen breaking the charm of a place by making it disgustingly mercantile and touristic.

A beautiful romanesque restaurant in the Mount

Just a sidenote, the whole abbey's architecture is romanesque and kudos to the architect! Singaporean architects should take a leaf out of his book. Actually makes you wonder how the architects of yon can create such majestic masterpieces.

An array of swords and shield found in a shop. Macho factor 10/10!

First struck me as something from the witch armoire

Inside the abbey

Joan of Arc, the woman on the right popped up just when i went "click"

The Archangel St Michael (St Michel in French)

The abbey (How's the wow factor for you?)

Mysterious alley

Overlooking the sea (From the pic, it's very low tide at this moment)

A seagull pitched atop a cross

Totally random photo taken by kiba. Yes, I'm dressed for camping and didn't know I'll be dropping in for a historical tour. The main point of this pic is the stairs leading to the different halls

Kiba posing

The knight in shining armour

Trying to pull the swords out of the knights' hands

"Cachots" means prisons. The prisons were used to lock up monks of unlawful behaviour. Don't really want to think what atrocities they committed. They were also for secular criminals who came under the jurisdiction of the abbot. Two prison cells were constructed for these criminals way before as early as the 12th century.

In 1793, the whole abbey was turned into a huge penientiary and more than 14,000 prisoners did time on the rock by 1863. The abbot's lodgings were also used for political detainees, those of note were the republican agitators Armand barbés and Louis Auguste Blanqui.