Since today was a strike day for the railroads in France, we took advantage of an extra quiet day to check out the town.  Pontorson is a lovely little town that typically is used by tourists who want to visit Mont Saint-Michel.  They use the train station and shuttle bus, but never really see much of the town.

Unfortunately, being Monday, many places were closed.  With the Medieval Festival or “Pontorsonnades” being wrapped up, there was a lot of cleaning up going on.  Temporary structures being taken down, streets being washed and a total lack of people.  If you’re a Sci-Fi fan, it was like we stepped into the town with no people.  We kept expecting to see Rod Serling on a street corner.

The town of Pontorson lies on the Couesnon River and is home to about 4,300 people.  It was founded in the 12th century by William the Conqueror.  Our hotel, ‘The Hotel Montgomery’ was the residence of the aristocratic Counts of Montgomery and dates back to the 1500’s.  The main church – Norte Dame de la Paix was built between 1050 and 1120.   And that’s today’s history lesson…  Otherwise, the town is small but cute.  The people were all very friendly and seemed to enjoy being asked questions about their town.

Hopefully the pictures give you an idea of what the town was like.  A misty rain started as we were walking around, so we ducked into a Creperie for a bite of lunch.  So there are two types of crepes that they have.  The first is a buckwheat crepe known as a galette.  It is typically served as a savory item with meat, cheese, eggs and vegetables.  Mine had ham, cheese, onions and an over-easy egg on top.  Sue’s had ham, leeks and gruyere cheese.  Then comes the second type, which is the sweet version.  I had one with apple and salt caramel.  Sue’s had chocolate and banana.  Both were really good.  And, of course, we did manage to find a bottle of Rose wine to wash it all down.

Afterwards, we went back to the hotel and relaxed for the rest of the afternoon – Sue reading and me writing.

Since most of the restaurants were closed, we tried a hotel restaurant called Relais Montois for dinner.  They feature a Mediterranean cuisine, which for us meant Couscous  served with vegetables, broth and grilled meats.  The meats included lamb, chicken, sausage and beef.  Really good and really reasonably priced.  It was a pleasant surprise and different.

We took a stroll back to the hotel to relax and got to bed early.  Tomorrow we leave for Paris.