"Not Another Building!"

Ella was not amused.

It turns out that France is filled with churches, museums and stairs.

When we left this morning, my pitch was that we were going to see a cool building on a hill by the sea. Where we were really heading was Mont St. Michel, which is the most famous thing in all of France.

We set off for the hour drive this morning and headed southwest. At one point I got to go 130 kph, which seemed excessive given the shakiness of the steering wheel in our Opel Mariva.

This is our Opel. Diesel. Stick shift and reasonably peppy.

Mont St. Michel rises in the distance.

Ella is still in the dark.

Eventually we get into the place. Which is built on a rock in a bay. That's when you see that it's really pretty much a Disney World attraction, minus the cast members. The entire thing was designed to collect money from tourists.

Parking: 4 euros
Toilet admission: 40 cents
Admission to the Abby: 8 euros (beanie was free)

The streets are filled with tourists and junk shops and restaurants. And today, it had one very upset 5-year old, who was sick of stairs, buildings, and boring stuff in general.

"I am not walking up more stairs. I'm going home right now."

Never mind the fact that parts of the place were constructed in the 900's, or that the vista from the top is beautiful.

The spire is relatively recent, but the whole thing is a jumble of rooms and buildings.

"It's just an empty room," said Ella.

Instead of wringing Ella's neck, JJ points out the interesting architectural details of the vaulted ceilings.

But eventually, Ella perked up. I think it's because we started going down stairs instead of up them.

So that was that. This place in on the cover of a lot of books about France. It's kind of cool, but the overtly tourist-trap nature of it really takes away from the experience. I can't blame them for cashing in, but it could be done with free bathrooms.

So Ella made it through another building without actually dying of boredom. Then we headed back to the pigeon tower to rest our tired legs.