Le Mont Saint-Michel: février 2009Le Mont Saint-Michel, regards d'artistes

mercredi 25 février 2009

Détails d'architecture

L'architecture du Mont Saint-Michel: détails des remparts et photographie de la Tour de Garde.

lundi 23 février 2009

Le Mont Saint-Michel vu du ciel

surtout un lever de soleil extraordinaire

La nature offre parfois de précieuses lumières

ou le Mont Saint Michel devient une île céleste

TIDES

The tides in the area change quickly, and have been described by Victor Hugo as "à la vitesse d'un cheval au galop" or "as swiftly as a galloping horse".
The tides can vary greatly, at roughly 14 metres between high and low water marks. Popularly nicknamed "St. Michael in peril of the sea" by medieval pilgrims making their way across the flats, the mount can still pose dangers for visitors who avoid the causeway and attempt the hazardous walk across the sands from the neighbouring coast.
Polderisation and occasional flooding created salt marsh meadows that were found to be ideally suited to grazing sheep. The well-flavoured meat that results from the diet of the sheep in the pré salé (salt meadow) makes agneau de pré-salé (salt meadow lamb), a local specialty that may be found on the menus of restaurants that depend on income from the many visitors to the mount.

http://images.google.fr/imgres?imgurl=http://laroutesansfin.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/mont-saint-michel2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://laroutesansfin.wordpress.com/2009/04/01/paris/&usg=__kZ6WGPFoxHsAwk9z-oZIiClQUG4=&h=768&w=1024&sz=65&hl=fr&start=1&sig2=d8KjbBnU9UqP7ngT0bz6IA&um=1&tbnid=1v1BoBjRSHzG8M:&tbnh=113&tbnw=150&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmont%2Bsaint%2Bmichel%26ndsp%3D20%26hl%3Dfr%26rlz%3D1T4GGLL_fr%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1&ei=cY0KSob5Lc-rjAeJ6K3_Cg

Montgolfières, pays de la baie du Mont Saint-Michel

Le Pays de la Baie du Mont Saint-Michel, Vivez-le Autrement !!!

Pour un petit tour:

http://selunair.eu/

A ne pas manquer le film:
http://selunair.eu/10ans.php

et le blog:

http://selunair.blogspot.com/

" Fais de ta vie un rêve, et d'un rêve, une réalité "

(Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)

dimanche 22 février 2009

Le Mont Saint Michel, couleur

ADMINISTRATION

The islet belongs to the French commune of Le Mont-Saint-Michel,
of the Manche département, in the Basse-Normandie région. Population (1999): 50.
The nearest major town, with an SNCF train station, is Pontorson.
Mont-Saint-Michel belongs to the Organization of World Heritage Cities.
The Mont-Saint-Michel has also been the subject of traditional, but nowadays good-humoured, rivalry between Normans and Bretons. Bretons claim that, since the Couesnon River marks the traditional boundary between Normandy and Brittany, it is only because the river has altered its course over the centuries that the mount is on the Norman side of the frontier. This legend amuses the frontier inhabitants who know that the border is not located on the Couesnon river itself but on the mainland at 4 km in the west, at the foot of the solid mass of Saint-Brelade.

Le Mont Saint Michel

Le Mont Saint Michel de toutes les couleurs

Au pays de la Baie, le Mont Saint-Michel revêt une multitude de couleurs. A marée haute ou a marée basse, vu des polders ou des airs. Coté ombre ou coté lumière. A la tombée de la nuit, à l'aube ou dans la brume. Facade Est, Ouest, Nord, Sud. D'un coté ou de l'autre du Couesnon, ce majestueux edifice n'a jamais fini de nous surprendre avec ses infini variations de lumières.

Pour voir plus d'images, découvrez la galerie photographique de Vincent M

HISTORY
of
The Mont-Saint Michel

Mont-Saint-Michel was used in the sixth and seventh centuries as an Armorican stronghold of Romano-Breton culture and power, until it was ransacked by the Franks, thus ending the trans-channel culture that had stood since the departure of the Romans in AD 460.
Before the construction of the first monastic establishment in the 8th century, the island was called "monte tombe". According to legend, St. Michael the Archangel appeared to St. Aubert, bishop of Avranches, in 708 and instructed him to build a church on the rocky islet. Aubert repeatedly ignored the angel's instruction, until St. Michael burned a hole in the bishop's skull with his finger.[3]
The mount gained strategic significance in 933 when William "Long Sword", William I, Duke of Normandy, annexed the Cotentin Peninsula, definitively placing the mount in Normandy. It is depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry, which commemorates the 1066 Norman conquest of England. Ducal patronage financed the spectacular Norman architecture of the abbey in subsequent centuries.
In 1067, the monastery of Mont-Saint-Michel gave its support to duke William of Normandy in his claim to the throne of England. It was rewarded with properties and grounds on the English side of the Channel, including a small island located at the west of Cornwall, which, modelled after the Mount, became a Norman priory named St Michael's Mount of Penzance.
During the Hundred Years' War the English made repeated assaults on the island but were unable to seize it, partly because of the abbey's improved fortifications. Les Michelettes, two wrought-iron bombards left by the English in their failed 1423–24 siege of Mont-Saint-Michel, are still displayed near the outer defense wall.

The wealth and influence of the abbey extended to many daughter foundations, including St Michael's Mount in Cornwall. However, its popularity and prestige as a centre of pilgrimage waned with the Reformation, and by the time of the French Revolution there were scarcely any monks in residence. The abbey was closed and converted into a prison, initially to hold clerical opponents of the republican régime. High-profile political prisoners followed, but by 1836 influential figures, including Victor Hugo, had launched a campaign to restore what was seen as a national architectural treasure. The prison was finally closed in 1863, and the mount was declared a historic monument in 1874. The Mont-Saint-Michel and its bay were added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites in 1979, as they rank very high on such World Heritage Site criteria as cultural, historical, and architectural significance, as well as human-created and natural beauty.[4]

http://laroutesansfin.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/mont-saint-michel2.jpg

Le Mont Saint-Michel et les marées

Pour voir plus de photographies, découvrez la galerie d'images de

photographies aériennes de Vincent M

et le site de l'Agence Altitude

Le rocher qui s'élève, majestueux, au milieu de l'immense estuaire s'étendant des côtes de la Normandie, au nord, à celles de la Bretagne, au sud et jusqu'à la mer au nord-ouest, fut nommé le Mont Saint-Michel dès le VIIIe siècle.

Retirée à marée basse à plus de 12 kilomètres du Mont, la mer arrive au moment du flot, s'annonçant par un bruissement, confus d'abord et qui devient bientôt un bruit effrayant, en formant une barre formidable, un mascaret, dans les rivières qui s'écoulent sur les grèves et dans toute l'étendue du vaste estuaire qu'elle couvre bientôt entièrement. Cette immense nappe d'eau inondant les grèves, non pas avec la rapidité d'un cheval lancé au galop, comme on l'a dit hyperboliquement, mais s'avançant par un mouvement continu, avec une force implacable, produit un effet extraordinaire.

Si les phénomènes des marées sont toujours intéressants à étudier et curieux à voir partout ailleurs, ils sont particulièrement étonnants sur les grèves du Mont Saint-Michel, où ils se manifestent, surtout aux époques des équinoxes, dans des conditions spéciales et sous des aspects grandioses qui laissent dans l'esprit les impressions les plus vives.

TIDAL ISLAND

Le Mont-Saint-Michel was previously connected to the mainland via a thin natural land bridge, which before modernization was covered at high tide and revealed at low tide. This has been compromised by several developments. Over the centuries, the coastal flats have been polderised to create pasture. Thus the distance between the shore and the south coast of Mont-Saint-Michel has decreased. The Couesnon River has been canalised, reducing the flow of water and thereby encouraging a silting-up of the bay. In 1879, the land bridge was fortified into a true causeway. This prevented the tide from scouring the silt round the mount.

Victor Hugo et le Mont Saint-Michel

Comment parler du Mont Saint Michel sans évoquer le passage de Victor Hugo?

Le Mont-Saint-Michel apparaît (...) comme une chose sublime, une pyramide merveilleuse."Victor Hugo, 1865

Cette évocation du nom de Victor Hugo nous fournit l'occasion de redire l'appel enthousiaste qu'il lançait le 14 janvier 1884, pour la sauvegarde du lieu :

"Le Mont Saint Michel est pour la France ce que la grande Pyramide est pour l'Egypte.

Il faut le préserver de toute mutilation.Il faut que le Mont Saint Michel reste une île. Il faut conserver à tout prix cette double oeuvre de la nature et de l'art"

"Mont-Saint-Michel comes into view like a sublime thing, a marvelous pyramid," declared Victor Hugo, France's famous novelist.