Travel

Mont St. Michel and St. Malo

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Mont St. Michel

I promised part two of the Normandy trip post many, many weeks ago …  and I didn’t deliver.  Life’s been busy around here, and as much as my mind has wandered to travels and French villages, I haven’t had the time to pull out the photos or push up to the keyboard.  Today, I’m making the time- part of my determination to start making more time for the things that feed my spirit.  I think we all need that these days.  The news cycle, with floods, fires, earthquakes, evacuations, refugees, federal budget woes, and COVID deaths is overwhelming. We need to tell stories about beautiful places, people we love, and food that makes life worth living– things that, literally and figuratively, feed our souls.  

So here I am.  Stepping up to the microphone to sing a love song to St. Malo.  And Mont St. Michel too.  But, let’s be real, everyone ooohs and aaaahs over Mont St. Michel.  It’s great, it really is amazing, but it’s Mont St Michel of the million and one photos, so you expect it to be great.  St. Malo is lesser known and more rustic.  It’s not overrun with tourists.  You can wander into its ancient walls and believe that you are among the happy few to have discovered the enchanted city. You can believe that if you close your eyes for a catnap on a bench, you may open them to find yourself transported back in time and surrounded by buccaneers.  It feels tinged with the magic of a place less discovered by the world, more authentically itself. 

Mont St. Michel

I loved Mont St Michel, don’t get me wrong.  It was gorgeous and somehow both unbelievably majestic and vulnerable: set out on its solitary island, proud and alone. 

We went off-season, on a chilly day, but it was still quite peopled.  I can imagine that during tourist season it’s shoulder to shoulder, which is just no way to see a place.  No way to appreciate its charms or imagine what it might have been like to live there in times past.  I don’t hold this against Mont St Michel– it’s not her fault, after all.  However, it makes visiting less vibrant than it might be.  Kind of like wooing someone in a parlor peopled with a dozen nosy great-aunts.  There’s just no way to have an intimate relationship.  A wink, an appreciative nod, and a hope to come back someday and have the place to yourself, but that’s the best you can ask for.

St. Malo, on the other hand, seemed peopled only with locals when we were there. Although our visit was brief, it was lovely and we felt like we really got to speak with the place.

You say you know very little about Mont St Michel or Saint Malo?  Well let me back up and offer you a quick primer:

Mont St Michel sits on the southern coast of Normandy. The site was first built upon in 708, with a small sanctuary.  By 966, a settlement of Benedictine monks resided there, and the Abbey grew quickly. 

As Abbeys were centers of learning and scholarship, Mont St Michel was soon home to a vast number of manuscripts and it became a popular place of pilgrimage nicknamed “City of the Books.” 

The imposing structure that we recognize today seems to have taken shape starting in the 10th century. It’s no coincidence that the word “imposing” comes to mind, as Mont St Michel functioned as both an Abbey and a fortress over the ages.  Sitting on the border between Normandy and Brittany, this was a strategic spot.  Just as important is the position on the English Channel– the Mont functioned also as a fortress to fend off English attacks from land or sea during the Hundred Years War (beginning in the 14th century).

Under siege, the Mont suffered much destruction over the years, but was always rebuilt, perhaps more beautifully than before. 

After the French Revolution, Mont St M was briefly a prison for priests who had fallen out of favor, then a reformatory for common law and political prisoners. Perhaps it was the French version of Alcatraz. (The French do everything with more style.)

In the late 1800’s, in a somewhat delapidated state, the Abbey was designated a historical monument.  Soon, the causeway over the water was built, giving better access.  It wasn’t until the late 1960’s that a small monastic community returned to Mont St M, and by the 1980’s it had been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. 

If you know a little history, it’s even stranger to see this place as a crowded tourist hub– this solitary isle of monks, soldiers, prisoners.  If you are able to make a visit on a quiet day, jump at the chance! In the meantime, try a short video to whet your appetite: See a video view here:  abbaye-mont-saint-michel.fr/en/Explore/Video

Moving on down the road into Brittany and the port city of St. Malo:

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St. Malo

St. Malo’s history will carry you back to Roman times.  By the 4th century, a Roman garrison was well established there. By the time Roman influence waned, Celtic settlers had arrived, soon followed by a monastic community in the 6th century. A culture flourished that was proud and independent. By the 17th century, St Malo began to grow a reputation for corsairs and pirates (or the vaguely more gentlemanly “privateers”– but we all know those are just socially sanctioned pirates and plunderers).


St Malo was hard hit by WWII– German troops took the town as a garrison, and eventually set ruinous fires in the aftermath of D-Day. The Americans and Allies tried to help . . .but, in the logic of wartime, that help looked like bombing and shelling the area.  St. Malo was liberated, but also devastated.


The walled city was a hollow remnant of its former self following the war, but it was rebuilt in the decade following. The original defensive walls (the ramparts) still stand, and the interior rebuilding was done with a mission of “restoration,” allowing the ancient aesthetic to be recaptured and still rule the day.  If you walk the streets of St. Malo oblivious to its modern history, it’s easy to be . . . well. . . oblivious to its modern history.

But the exploits of earlier times are impossible to ignore. The old walled city juts out into the sea– it verily sings out its stories of pirates and adventurers.  I understand that it was a sanctuary city: from the mid 1100’s, the town gave asylum to all who requested it.  No doubt, thieves, buccaneers, and folk who hadn’t settled their debts flocked here.  It makes for a storied place.  Not sure if it made for a peaceful abode at the time, but it’s a lovely visit these days.

When we made a visit, back in 2006 or 2007, our children were small, so running around the walls or riding the carousel were the highlights of the day. And why not? It was a charming way to enjoy the city. I might have wished for a little more time to enjoy the churches and museums, but them’s the breaks. I’ll leave that for future goals on a return visit. For now, I’m happy with my memories of carousels and my own little pirates storming the ramparts.

I’ll leave you with a taste of St. Malo via a narrated video tour of the beaches, the ramparts, and a bit of the city. Enjoy! Bon Voyage!

Prague Winter

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A celebration of Prague:  my photo and Madeleine Albright’s words (from her book Prague Winter).

“On a hill in Prague there is a castle that has stood for a thousand years.  From its windows one can see a forest of gilded cupolas and baroque towers, slate roofs and sacred spires.  Visible too are the stone bridges spanning the broad and winding Vltava River as its waters flow northward at a leisurely pace.  Through the centuries, the beauty of Prague has been enriched by the labor of artisans from a plethora of nationalities and creeds; it is a Czech city with a variety of accents, at its best in spring when the fragrant blossoms of the lindens burst forth, the forsythia turns gold, and the skies seem an impossible blue.  The people, known for their diligence, resilience, and pragmatism, look forward each winter to when the days lengthen, the breezes soften, the trees regain their covering, and the river banks issue a silent summons to play.”   Madeleine Albright, Prague Winter.

 

Sunday on Rose Street

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Edinburgh, 2018

Rose Street, in Edinburgh’s New Town, is not particularly new.  New Town dates back to the reign of George III, which is an era many of you know for the American Revolution. In comparison to the Old Town of Edinburgh–a snarl of alleys and ginnels, a mess of hills and ridges– this New Town is bold and orderly in layout.

Layout of Edinburgh’s New Town

But orderly facades are always facades, and architectural symmetry always belies the messier lives there housed.  So consider New Town.  The main streets (Queen Street, George Street, and Princes Street) are wide and regal.  But tucked between are smaller streets– more like grand alleys– running through the blocks, like veins through flesh.  And here lies Rose Street.

Today, Rose Street is a pedestrian road peppered with bakeries, pubs, restaurants, and shops, but it still retains a “back alley” aura.  Not least because it has an outrageous number of pubs, and sometimes an outrageous number of people stumbling out of those pubs and weaving from wall to wall the length of the street.  All told, it’s reputation is generally respectable, if just a bit sodden, these days.  It’s cleaned up a bit from the red light reputation it had 60 years ago.  In fact, it’s home to many more-than-reputable restaurants — 1780 being one I can heartily vouch for.

I bring up Rose Street today, because I stumbled on the lead photo for this post the other day– a photo I took of some street art , part of a series on Rose Street.  It struck a chord, but I had no idea what the verses presented were all about.  Today, I sleuthed about the internet to find that they represent bits of a poem by Scotsman George Mackay Brown, who, as it happens, used to drink in a bar named Milne’s, sat on the corner of a street named Rose, running like a vein through the arm of New Town.

Bottoms Up, dear George!  Today I celebrate your poem, “Beachcomber,” and think about Edinburgh’s New Town, sat side by side with a very old town and perched on the edge of a cold North Sea, both harsh and beautiful.

Beachcomber

Monday I found a boot –
Rust and salt leather.
I gave it back to the sea, to dance in.

Tuesday a spar of timber worth thirty bob.
Next winter
It will be a chair, a coffin, a bed.

Wednesday a half can of Swedish spirits.
I tilted my head.
The shore was cold with mermaids and angels.

Thursday I got nothing, seaweed,
A whale bone,
Wet feet and a loud cough.

Friday I held a seaman’s skull,
Sand spilling from it
The way time is told on kirkyard stones.

Saturday a barrel of sodden oranges.
A Spanish ship
Was wrecked last month at The Kame.

Sunday, for fear of the elders,
I sit on my bum.
What’s heaven? A sea chest with a thousand gold coins.

George Mackay Brown

Platform 9 3/4 . . . or, Ways My Family Travels Diagon-Alley

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At Kings Cross Station, London, Platform 9 3/4, driving a baggage cart through the brick wall like true Harry Potter fans. 2007 maybe?

We try to be normal.  We really do.  But every straight line we draw canters just a little to the side–and so, in travel (as in everything else), our lives run a little diagonally.

This truth was on full display a few years ago in Mirabell Gardens, Salzburg:

The thing for Americans to do here, besides wander and take in the beauty, is to stage photos that resemble scenes from The Sound of Music.  (The song, Do Re Mi was partly filmed here.)  Ideally, these photos look a little like this:

do re mi

This is the top gate at Mirabell.    (Notice the fortress, Hohensalzburg, on the hill in the background–it’s really a fantastic shot of the gardens and the city behind.)  We spent some time here.  We took some photos here.  But none looked like this.

What did they look like?  Well, look to your right.  DSC_0125   This is my son, sleeping (while being serenaded by an accordion player) on those same steps at the Mirabell Gardens.  Why is he sleeping, you ask?  He’s tired from sightseeing, but especially from running through the gardens.  Singing Do-Re-Mi?  Oh no.  No.  This child was reinacting some “American Ninja in Salzburg” screenplay known only to him.  My favorite scene from that movie, below.  (Clearly the people around him are a little surprised and amused by the sight.)

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I’ve been thinking about our quirky travels this past weekend while in Chicago with my daughter.  In another year, she’ll be heading off to college.  And my son, the masked ninja, begins high school in August.  They’ve grown up fast, and our travel adventures with them are changing.  I already miss the visits to “knight schools” and castles, the nativity plays we attended with dishtowels  on their heads, and their absolute inability to stand still for photos.

 

Ein Konig und ein Hirte– a wise king and a shepherd at Ripon Cathedral some years ago (2008?)

Still, I imagine our “diagonal” travels will continue into the future.  After all, they started before our children were born.  In Turkey, we were just two people with little dog garnering stares as we drove by in an old Volvo wagon.  On it’s own, that doesn’t sound so strange, but we stuck out like a sore thumb.  In Turkey, it wasn’t unusual to count 7 people on a motorcycle and sidecar.  So when we made our way through the streets– streets that might find two lanes stuffed with five “lanes,” including cars, giant trucks, mopeds, buses, and donkeys– our long wagon, carrying only two people and a tiny dog, was the thing outside of the norm.  Why waste such a long vehicle on so few travelers?  Why bother with a dog too small to herd sheep?  And why crawl slowly through the melee of a Turkish traffic jam instead of throwing yourself into the mix full throttle while laying on the horn?  Clearly, we were the nuts who didn’t understand the rules of the game.

When you travel, people always tell you to try to fit in– obey the customs, don’t be too awkward or too obvious.  It’s safer and more respectful to conform to the norm as best you can.

They tell us to try to fit in, but who does that, honestly?

Sometimes you just have to embrace the diagonal.  What else can you do?

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In Germany, 2008.

 

Bronte Parsonage, Haworth

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Haworth, West Yorkshire

Bronte Parsonage and cemetery

Tonight, I’ll be tuning in for To Walk Invisible — the  BBC drama about the Bronte sisters that is featuring on PBS Masterpiece.  If your passing knowledge of the Bronte sisters is simply that they were successful writers, then you’ve missed a huge swath of their story– the entire furtive, formative swath.  The part that was hard, ugly, and, literally, doomed . . . but literarily resilient.  But then, could you have expected anything else from a family that lived on the atmospheric Yorkshire Moors and created such stories as Wuthering Heights and  Jane Eyre?

I think you could not.

It might be smart for me to watch tonight’s show and then write this post about the Brontes– both to refresh my memory about their story and to comment on the show itself.  But I’m at the computer now, and so I write.  Also– before the show has the opportunity to retouch my memory of a trip to the Bronte Parsonage at Haworth– I’d like to tell you what I remember about my trip there, because it had quite an impact on me.

Confession:  I was never a big Bronte fan.  My sister was the impetus behind our trip to the Bronte’s home.  I didn’t dislike the Brontes, I just hadn’t spent much time with them.  I probably thought their brand of gothic fiction was more outdated than classic.  I was wrong.

But I didn’t see that until I visited their home and learned more about their lives. The conventions of gothic had nothing on the actual lives of the Bronte sisters.  Dark, atmospheric tales weren’t just a hook for catching a reader, they were faithful incarnations of the harsh realities of life in Haworth (and at the Bronte home).

Their mother and two sisters died young.  Their brother died in young adulthood– of illness and addiction.   Emily died four months after her brother; Anne died the next year; Charlotte died six years later (but still only 38 years old).  Their father outlived them all, by many decades.

He was quite the exception for the village of Haworth.  In the 1800’s, the village was a gloomy place and the average life expectancy was less than 30 years old.  There was no real sewage system in Haworth.  Sewage often ran in the streets and tainted the water supply.  What water there was to start with– which wasn’t much and was of bad quality.  Finally– just to add some grim to the grime– the overcrowded city cemetery, which grew more overcrowded each year and had very bad drainage, sat (still sits) at the top of the city hill, further poisoning the town.  That is a recipe for death by death.

One more thing–possibly important if you are a Bronte– the village cemetery sits in front of the parsonage.  Death on your doorstep: a fine thing to wake up to each morning.

So, if you were a Bronte sister, you grew up in a village where infant mortality was sky high and people of every age had a tough go of it.  You lived at the edge of the wild and harsh Moors, quite a distance from any large, urban centers.  Your prospects in Haworth were not so very good, your childhood playground was a cemetery, the wind howled, your preacher father married and buried a revolving door of friends and neighbors, and nothing in life was easy, not even a kettle of water for your tea.

No wonder your brother became an addict; no wonder your relatives passed young.  No wonder your imagination turned to a rich inner world to pass your days . . . but a world of disquieting stories.

I’m sure tonight’s program will teach me a good many things about the Bronte family that I did not know.   I am eager to learn.  My first visit to Haworth was around 2006– so my memory is a little fuzzy on details, but not on the overall impression.  I’d already been living in Yorkshire for a year, and loved the environs, so it’s not surprising that what struck me most about the Bronte home was the town, the general environs in which this family lived.  It was the perfect setting for a gothic tale.

It was a grey, atmospheric day the first time I visited Haworth.  The town was picturesque and compact.  I remember winding up the cobbled street, passing a sweet shop, a tea room, a pub.  Passing tourists. Seeing the tidy parsonage, and its dreary graveyard, at the top of the hill.  All perfectly picturesque– especially as you stand at the crest of the hill and look down at the winding street of town, the stone shops and home fronts, and the rolling hills around it.

If you want to see a bit of what my eyes saw, here’s a short YouTube video that will give you a quick glance at Haworth and a view from the top of the town.  ( Be warned–the narrator does drone on at the end of the video, “blah blah, polar bears, blah blah”– just ignore that bit. He also says “Withering” Heights, repeatedly– hard to ignore, but try.)

BUT– for all of the beauty, as the grey clouds swarmed the day of my first visit and the air ran chill, I gathered up all I had learned about life in Haworth in the 1800’s, and what I remembered of some of the haunting elements of the Bronte sisters’ tales, and I saw the town differently.  I saw the graveyard at the pinnacle of the town, I saw the run off and sewage coursing through the streets below, I saw Branwell (the addled addict of a brother) watching death wash over the streets from the dark pub window.  The town itself seemed a little Jekyll and Hyde to me.

Haworth seems like a tale well told, but hard-lived.  An amazing place to visit, for certain.

I’ll leave you with two things, below.  The first, a portrait that I saw in the parsonage– rather famous– which Branwell painted of the three sisters who survived him.  I love (and loathe) it for the fact that Branwell had originally painted himself into the portrait, but (for what reason?) decided to erase himself out of it.  It is no subtle erasure.  What he leaves is worse than a gapping hole in the middle of the painting: it’s a spectral ghost of himself that (for me, at least) becomes almost more of a focal point than the remaining likenesses of his sisters!  I suspect that this will in some ways ring true with the Bronte family story I watch tonight.  The ghost of Branwell, the presence of death and despair in Haworth, is largely the energy that created the Bronte stories.

The second nugget I leave for you is a YouTube video that acts as a teaser for the production To Walk Invisible.  Enjoy!