Called the 8^th Wonder of the Occident, the Mont Saint Michel is an island, locally called “le caillou” (the rock) drawn up in the heart of an immense bay invaded by the gigantic spring and fall tides of Europe. 

Following the request of the Archangel Michael (head of the celestial armies), Aubert, bishop of Avranches, built and devoted the first church here on October 16, 709.  In 966, during the reign of the Duke of Normandy, a community of Benedictine monks was established on the rock and developed an abbey on the top of the island. 

Over the course of eight centuries, they kept building, increasing, and embellishing their Abbey so that, in the beginning of the XIIIth century, people started to name it the Wonder.  Head of the religious architecture, it allows the modern man of the XXI^th century to meditate in the pre-roman crypt, to admire the power and the majesty of the Roman art, and to let himself get carried away by the magnificence of the early and late Gothic elements.  

This large spiritual and intellectual heart, along with Rome and Saint-Jacques de Compostelle, was one of the mandatory stops in the pilgrimages paths during the period of the medieval Occident.  for nearly a thousand years, men, women and children, came to the Mont Saint Michel on “les chemins du Paradis” (road of paradise) in search of peace for eternity and enlightement from the Archangel Michael.  

Becoming a prison under the French Revolution and the Empire, it needed significant restoration starting from the end of XIXth century.  In 1966, they celebrated the millennium of the monastic establishment, and to commemorate this event, some monks came to live in the abbey again, perpetuating the first vocation of this place:  Praying for the World and Greeting people in search of a retreat.  

Parallel to the development of the abbey, the village organized itself at the feet of the rock to welcome the pilgrims and visitors and became very prosperous. One of the famous historic personnage of this period is Annette Poulard whose Omelet is renown internationnally. Tightened to the southeast corner of the island, the city of the Mont St Michel has since affirmed its commercial vocation in the hospitality industry, souvenirs stores and museums.   

Registered as a protected environment by UNESCO, this high spot tourism activity receives today more than three million visitors per year.

One of the main attractions of the site is its gigantic tides.