Mere Poulard hotel: The challenge of the Mont

My daughter, granddaughter and I are doing the girls’ tour of France. Stop two was Mont San Michel, in my opinion, the most amazing place in the world. But it comes at a price!

I decided we should stay on the Mont to get the maximum benefits of not only the Abbey, but the quiet time in the morning and the amazing tidal events. So we stayed at the best hotel on the Mont: Le Mere Poulard. It’s a three star hotel. Whoever gave the stars was extremely generous.

To get there we took a train from Paris. Then we had to transfer to a bus taking us to the visitor’s center where we took a tram to the site. The tram drops you off about 1/3 of a mile through hardened sand and packed rock to the entrance.

We dragged our luggage into the site and found Mere Poulard. Whew! We checked in. Our room was on the third floor. This was a bit of a misnomer because it was on the third floor of the building up the side of the Mont, accessible by three flights of stairs, one of which was an outside narrow rock stairway. Then we went up two more flights of stairs. There is no elevator and the hotel does not have bell service. The kind desk clerk carried the two heavy pieces while we carried the rest to our room.

The room was sparse, but clean. There was very little light in the bathroom, no washcloths, and they took our dirty towels but did not leave new ones. The worst part was there was no air conditioning and it was in the low 90s. So window open! It cooled down at night to probably 75 and we listened to the noisiest seagulls you ever heard.

Undaunted we spent the next full day on a great tour of the abbey and nearby Bayeux.

I decided a taxi was in order to avoid the long trek with bags to the shuttle and bus to the train station. It was about $75 more than the bus. Well, unfortunately we were told we would have to go back via the tram and meet the taxi in the parking lot and there was nobody at the front desk in the morning to help us.

I asked, “So there is no way we can have a taxi pick us up here as we have lots of luggage and I’m elderly.” (Yup, I pulled the old card.) He replied, “No, only if you are a very special guest.” I wasn’t feeling special.

We cancelled the taxi, made it to Lyon where we stayed in a five-star hotel, Cour de Loges. This amazing place deserved 10 stars! Guess what: We didn’t have to schlep our luggage.