After getting back from our amazing trip to France, I wanted to share with you all those things I wish I had know before visiting.

Not overrated

            When I travel, I always wonder if the particular tourist destination is over-hyped and overrated.  Well, I was pleasantly surprised that Mont St Michel was not overrated.  It really is as beautiful, as awe-inspiring as the pictures make it out to be, and it is truly unlike anything I have ever seen before.

            I remember as my husband and I were first driving and were getting closer to Mont St Michel.  We were driving along, and then there, seemingly out of nowhere, Mont St Michel appeared on the horizon out of the landscape of a field.  It will be a moment I will always remember. 

Don’t need a ton of time to see it

            Ironically, while Mont St. Michel is a place that I would without a doubt say you shouldn’t miss on your trip to France, I was surprised that I feel like it is a place that you don’t need a ton of time to see which seems like a crazy contradiction. With most places I have visited, I have always felt that a person misses so much when they don’t spend much time in a place or when they take a daytrip; however, Mont St Michel could be done as a daytrip bus trip from Paris, and if that is the only way you can see it, definitely do that as you will get much of this amazing experience just from taking a bus trip from Paris. That being said while taking a daytrip there wouldn’t ruin the place, while it is worth it to stay overnight as you

Don’t need to stay in on the island

            When I was looking for lodging accommodations, I initially thought that it might be a really amazing experience to stay on Mont St Michel island, but after researching the lodging accommodations on the island, what I found wasn’t that promising.  First off, the lodging accommodations were, in my opinion, ridiculously overpriced.  (I’m talking like $300 a night for a motel-like room.) In addition to that, from what I read of the reviews of these hotels, they are not that fantastic to say the least.   The reviews I read of the hotels really didn’t have anything positive to say about them. No kidding.  These were some of the worst reviews I have ever read of a hotel that is priced at $300-$400 a night. 

            Upon arriving at Mont St Michel, I did not regret my decision to stay off the island.  I observed these other poor people getting off the shuttle with their luggage and plodding uphill through the narrow cobblestone streets with their luggage.  I did not envy them.  Luggage and cobblestones are not a good combination to begin with, but then luggage and hills are also not a good combination. Add all three together, and what a terrible combination!

            In addition to the overly priced hotels with subpar quality rooms and trek to get to the hotel, there isn’t that much to do on the inside of Mont St Michel.  The restaurants and shops close down relatively early.  In addition, I would say that while the town in fun to explore and it is super cute and quaint, Mont St Michel is really the most awe-inspiring from afar.  

The area

One of the things that surprised me the most was that the surrounding area around to Mont St Michel wasn’t completely built up and congested.   My husband and I were actually surprised that the area was rural as it was.  My husband commented that it reminded him a lot of how it feels when you are around a national park in the US.  Like at the National Parks in the US, there are a few hotels nearby the entrance, but other than that you are mostly out in the middle of nowhere. 

One of the spots that tripped my husband and I up on our trip was the access road surrounding Mont St Michel.  Honestly, I’ve never seen something quite like it, but in retrospect it actually makes a lot of sense.  In order to limit the car traffic in the road leading up to Mont St Michel, they have put up traffic barriers that will only open for cars if you enter the access code.  The hotels that are closer to Mont St Michel on the other side of barrier have parking lots but they only want to allow their customers to park there, so they should send you an email with the access code 24 hours before you check in. Unfortunately for us, we had never gotten this email so we had no idea what the access code was and couldn’t get to our hotel at first.  My husband ended up parking outside the access area and then walking in and getting the code, so all was well in the end.

Accommodations

            One of the things that I noticed when I was looking at hotels was that there weren’t really that many cheap hotel options that were close to Mont St Michel which is always a bummer, but again, think of the National Parks in the US.  The hotels by them are always more expensive than you think they should be.  It’s not such a big deal for Mont St Michel though because you are probably only going to be staying there one night, so I would recommend staying close and just paying a little extra for that one night of the trip. 

            My second recommendation would be to stay inside the access road area.  If you do this, you can just park your car at your hotel parking and stay there with no more worries.  There is a shuttle bus that comes quite frequently and will take your to Mont St Michel, so you won’t have to worry about anything else once you get there.  The other reason I liked staying so close was I like to be able to snap great pictures at all times of the day, so staying inside the access road allowed me to take a 5 minute walk and see Mont St Michel at sunset and sunrise which I highly recommend. 

Stay at the Mercure

            After considering all the accommodation options and after deciding that I just couldn’t justify paying that much to stay directly on Mont St Michel given the poor reviews and the exorbitant prices, I started to look for other possible accommodations near Mt St Michel.  I ended up settling on one that seemed like it would offer the best combinations of affordability, comfort, and convenience.  For that, I landed with the Mercure Mt St Michel.  My husband and I were familiar with the Mercure chain of hotels because we had stayed at one in London, and we knew they offered a great buffet-style breakfast, a super helpful staff, and an overall quality for cleanliness and bedding.  It was a chain that we had been pleased with in the past, so we figured we would give it a try. 

            This hotel said that it was only 1.1 miles away from Mt St Michelle and that there was a free shuttle that stopped right outside of the hotel that would take you to Mt St Michel.  Since my husband and I went right when France opened up after covid, we were not entirely sure that the shuttle would be running.  We have definitely found that hotels and tourist attractions had reduced services during the pandemic, understandably so, but because of that we never fully trust what we see on the website as to the services provided by a hotel. Planning for the worse case scenario, I figured even if the shuttle was not running, we could still walk to Mt St Michel as it was only a mile away.  (There is no parking up close.)  Sure enough though, the shuttle was running, and it runs super often (like every 10 minutes or so) so if you miss one shuttle, you won’t have to wait long for the next one.  

            When we got to the The Mercure Mont St Michel we were definitely pleasantly surprised by how nice and up-to-date the hotel was.  (It’s always really had to determine these things from the pictures, and to be honest, when I booked this hotel, I thought it looked pretty blah. It didn’t strike me as having much character at all. In the pictures online, the walls have the cliché Mont St Michelle backdrop and look like they are trying just a little too hard.) 

            Upon arrival though, we found this two-story hotel reminded us a lot of those old 1970 roadside motels which I’m sure it was at one time.  However, the Mercure chain did a fantastic job of renovating the lobby and the interiors of the rooms and so the hotel felt brand new when you were in your room or in the lobby.  That being said, our room had a wall-length window that opened completely to the outside and we had a pleasant view of a grassy field with a tree that was lovely and definitely unexpected.  All in all, we felt it to be a relaxing place where we felt connected with nature.                   

To all of that though, one of my all-time favorite parts of staying at the Mercure is the buffet-style breakfasts they offer. I just love hotel breakfast so much, and the Mercure does them so well! They have an espresso machine were you can make yourself cappuccinos, lattes, etc., and they offer a wide area of pastries (of course, this is France!), breakfast meats, and one of my favorite parts the scrambled eggs -French style.  (The French cook their scrambled eggs on a much lower heat than in the US and sometimes add things like cream or milk, so their eggs turn out unimaginably light and fluffy and soft.  I love them so much.  Another reason why I was glad that we had breakfast provided for us at the hotel was that inside the access road, there are not a ton of early morning food options if you like to start your day out early before the crowds like my husband and I do.

And if all of that was not enough to recommend the Mercure, to all of this they also allow you to purchase your tickets to Mt St Michel right there at the hotel desk for no additional fee.  Since my husband and I went to Mont St Michel right when France was opening up after Covid, this wasn’t such a big deal as the ticket lines were not that long for the Abbey up at the top of the mountain (It is free to walk around the town, so the Abbey tour is the only thing you need tickets for.) but in a normal, high-tourist time, I would imagine that the lines to buy tickets are decently long, and buying your tickets in advance allows you to enter the abbey in a separate line.  

Do the Abbey Tour

Mont St Michel is such an oddity when it comes to tourist sites, because I would tell everyone that you shouldn’t miss seeing this incredible place.  It truly is amazing, but ironically, it is also one of those places where there isn’t a ton to see. Doing the abbey tour and wandering around the town is all there is to do.  That being said, don’t miss the abbey tour.  The abbey is built at the highest point of the mountain, and it truly offers some amazing views of the surrounding landscape.   

For Dining

My only last recommendation would be to try out dinner at La Ferme Saint Michel. If you are staying at the Mercure, it is probably a 5 min walk and the food it fantastic.  It is definitely fine quality food and the atmosphere is lovely.  In the busy season, you would probably want to call ahead for reservations, and while it’s not cheap (no dinner in France is very cheap) you get a great value if you order the Menu. 

If you’re looking for something quick and maybe a fun novelty, we also noticed that there were Pizza and Panini vending machines in a little alcove on Mont St. Michel. They were already closed for the day when we found them, but if you are there earlier in the day, they might be a fun lunch option if you’re looking for something on the go.