Mud and Cookies: Introduction

Not a good idea.

October 25: "Stay away from the mud!" Our driver, Sabrina warned. "There's quicksand and the tide can come in too fast for you. All French schoolkids learn that and yet they had to rescue two French tourists last month because they were trapped there."

Even the Bayeux tapestry showed hapless horses and knights trapped in the mud almost 2,000 years ago.

Sabrina was taking us to Mont Saint Michel via the Hotel Churchill shuttle van. Though she offered color commentary on the sights, she did not have official tourist training, so could only be called a driver, not a guide. She used to work in her husband's architecture office but was laid-off when the French economy soured.

The round-trip cost 55 Euros per person. It saved a lot of time and aggravation in taking public transportation, which was now intolerable because of the French strike against raising the pension age. Because we were the only two on the eight-person van, it felt like a private tour.  The hotel had earlier asked to move our trip to a different day, since it was not cost effective to drive just two people because of the gas prices and strike shortages. When we couldn't, they went on with the trip since we had reserved so far in advance.