Mont-Saint-Michel

Arrive in the evening and stay overnight on Mont-Saint-Michel

The best way to visit Mont-Saint-Michel is to arrive late in the afternoon, stay the night on the island and see the abbey at opening the next morning. That avoids the coach crowds between 11am and 4pm. Walk in from La Caserne across the salt marsh, and walk the ramparts at sunset.

The worst way to see the Mount is between 11am and 4pm, when the coaches are in. The best is to turn the usual day trip inside out.

Late afternoon. Park at La Caserne or step off the coach from Rennes and skip the shuttle and walk the path across the salt marsh. The abbey grows larger with every minute, and the sheep on the meadows are the ones that end up on local menus. Check in on the Mount as the day visitors stream back to the car park.

Evening. Walk the ramparts at sunset, from the Tour du Nord round towards the bay side, while the tide either drains away or races in across the flats. Eat on the mainland if you want value, or on the Mount for the view. After dark, the Grande Rue is almost silent and the floodlit abbey above you is worth the extra cost of the night.

Next morning. Be at the abbey door when it opens. Climb through the church to the Merveille cloister before anyone else arrives, then go down through the refectory, the Knights' Hall and the old prison rooms with the great treadwheel. Leave by the Porte de l'Échauguette lane.

Midday. As the crowds arrive, leave for a barefoot bay walk with a guide from Genêts, or drive to Avranches for lunch and the view back across the bay.

La Mère Poulard omelettes and pré-salé lamb at Mont-Saint-Michel

The famous dish at Mont-Saint-Michel is the omelette at La Mère Poulard, whipped in copper bowls and cooked over a wood fire, and priced for the show. The better local food is agneau de pré-salé, lamb grazed on the salt marshes, and bouchot mussels from the bay, served in Beauvoir, Pontorson and Avranches.

The Mount's most famous dish is an omelette. At La Mère Poulard, near the main gate, eggs are whipped by hand in copper bowls, to a rhythm you can hear from the street, and cooked in long-handled pans over a wood fire until they puff into something closer to a soufflé. It is a show as much as a meal, and the bill reflects that; go once for the spectacle and expect to pay for it.

The better food on this coast comes off the salt meadows and the bay. Agneau de pré-salé is lamb from sheep grazed on the marsh grass that the tides cover, which gives the meat a delicate, faintly salty flavour; it has its own protected designation here. Restaurants in Beauvoir, Pontorson and Avranches serve it roasted or as a leg for two. Moules de bouchot from the bay, grown on wooden stakes in the tidal flats, come by the pot with cream or cider.

Across the bay in Brittany, Cancale farms oysters that you can eat at stalls by the harbour wall. Back on the Normandy side, finish with local cider or a glass of Calvados, and buy a tin of butter biscuits to take home; they keep far better than an omelette.

On the island itself, a crêpe or a sandwich from one of the Grande Rue counters is the sensible lunch. Keep your appetite for dinner on the mainland.

Mont-Saint-Michel tides, the Couesnon dam and Avranches

The sea surrounds Mont-Saint-Michel completely only on high spring tides, when the tidal coefficient goes above about 100, with peaks around the March and September equinoxes. Arrive an hour before high water and watch from the ramparts or the bridge. Avranches, about 30 minutes away, holds the abbey's manuscripts in the Scriptorial museum.

The bay has some of the largest tides in continental Europe, and they are the other reason to come. On most days the sea stays out on the flats. Only during the high spring tides, when the tidal coefficient climbs above about 100, does the water rush in fast enough and far enough to surround the Mount completely. These peak around the March and September equinoxes and a few days each month after the full and new moons. Tide calendars are posted online and at the visitor centre; arrive an hour before high water and watch from the ramparts or the bridge.

The dam on the Couesnon, just inland of the Mount, was built to flush silt out of the bay and keep the island an island. Its public platform is a good free viewpoint, and when the gates open after high tide the rush of water is worth seeing.

For a half day away, drive about 30 minutes to Avranches. The Scriptorial museum there holds the medieval manuscripts made by the abbey's monks, and the Jardin des Plantes looks straight across the bay to the Mount. Bishop Aubert, who founded the first church on the rock, came from Avranches. Further along the Normandy shore, Genêts is the starting point for guided walks across the sands, some of which detour to the islet of Tombelaine.

West into Brittany, Cancale and its oyster beds are about 45 minutes by car, and the walled port of Saint-Malo a little further.