It was exactly a millennium ago that the first stone of the abbey church of Mont Saint-Michel, in French Normandy, was laid. The monument that the poet Victor Hugo called the “Khéops of the West” has ...

The historic—and fragile—island abbey is France’s most visited site outside of Paris. As it heads into its millennium year, a new sustainable development plan aims to protect it for the future. This ...

Exactly 1,000 years ago this month, construction started on a magnificent island building off the coast of France that, as it rose improbably from the choppy waters of the Atlantic Ocean, would become ...

Perched on a rocky islet in the midst of vast sandbanks exposed to powerful tides between Normandy and Brittany stand the 'Wonder of the West', a Gothic-style Benedictine abbey dedicated to the ...

A monk surrounded by tourists rings the bell for Mass in the abbey at Mont-Saint-Michel. Maciek Nabrdalik Tourists pose in the abbey courtyard. Maciek Nabrdalik A chapel perched precariously beside ...

The thing about Mont Saint-Michel is that there are only two ways to get around: you either walk up or you walk down. However, thankfully once you’re on the island everything is pretty much within ...

"A fairy castle set in the sea. A grey shadow set against the misty sky. The craggy abbey, pushed out there, far from land, like a mansion in a fantasy, remained almost black in the crimson of the ...