Thursday April 16, 1998 Written Friday CET
Today we got up at the unearthly hour of 5:45am to catch the 7:10 train to Rennes. By some amazing feat, we manage to get to the train station and on the train with a minimum amount of fuss. Tensions are mounting, as we try to figure out what we are going to do about Budapest. Mom is the most agitated and by the time we reached Rennes, we decide to go ahead and cancel the reservation for the hotel. I called Roger and let him know how to cancel it. He is doing much better – and upon further checking, is able to cancel our reservation with no problems. We go ahead and pick up our rental car, a nice Opel Astra.
We surprised ourselves and managed to navigate our way out of Rennes and in to the countryside with little difficulty, After about an hour, Le Mont-Saint-Michel approaches in the distance. We stopped the car for a photo stop and were bombarded with a strong cold wind and light rain. BURR! Jacket Thermometer reads somewhere around 6 degrees C. We park the car and headed in to MSM. We just couldn’t get over how cold it was and the wind certainly was not helping. We went through the little village and climbed up in to the abbey picking up some post cards and biscuits along the way. The abbey tour was 40FF, but not worth it. There was a renovation going on and most of the abbey was barren and cold. However, the abbey and the views were still beautiful.
We then went down for a quick lunch at a local café. I had a waffle while the others had some form of quiche. I was quickly tiring and was getting testy. After a quick hike back to the car, we set off to Rennes and the train. In the car, we decided to go to either Switzerland or Western Germany so the train ride was not so long to Munich.
We manage to get an earlier train to Paris and made our way back to the hotel half-asleep. We never did manage to make it out again. Sort of a bummer to sleep most of the day away, but I feel that this allowed me to adjust to Europe time and be sharp for the rest of the trip. I think the cold took a lot out of us – and hopefully it doesn’t affect the rest of the trip.
