Mont-Saint-Michel
The abbey on the tidal rock in Normandy. Built and rebuilt from the eighth century, a fortress the English never took, a prison after the Revolution, and now one of the most visited places in France, plus the tides, the causeway and the restoration work.
Part of Saint Michael
36 moments in this segment.
- - Mont-Saint-Michel in 1944, Filmed After the Normandy Landings. Colour footage shot by American cameraman Jack Lieb at Mont-Saint-Michel just after the Normandy landings, with war correspondents visible on site.
- - Benedictines Return to Mont-Saint-Michel Abbey, 1965. Newsreel footage of Benedictine monks crossing the sands in 1965 to take up residence in the abbey for the first time in centuries.
- - Rick Steves at Mont-Saint-Michel. Travel history segment presenting Mont-Saint-Michel as one of the leading pilgrimage destinations in Christendom for over a thousand years.
- - France-001002 - Statue of Archangel Michael. The Archangel Michael statue crowning the abbey spire at Mont-Saint-Michel, modern photograph of the 1897 gilt figure.
- - Bay of Mont Saint-Michel - low tide - walking on the mud 01. Walkers crossing the exposed mudflats of the bay of Mont-Saint-Michel at low tide, 2014.
- - Baie Mont Saint-Michel, marée montante. The rising tide in the bay of Mont-Saint-Michel, 2015; pilgrims historically crossed the sands on foot between tides.
- - The Gilded Archangel Lifted From the Spire of Mont-Saint-Michel. BFMTV films the 520kg statue of Michael, 156 metres above sea level, removed by helicopter for restoration in 2016 for the first time since 1987.
- - The Regilded Archangel Returns to Normandy. AFP covers the statue's return to the abbey spire after restoration and regilding in a Dordogne workshop specialising in gold, bronze and mosaic.
- - The Archangel Returns to the Spire by Helicopter. France Televisions films the restored gilded statue of Michael suspended beneath a helicopter as it is replaced atop Mont-Saint-Michel in 2016.
- - 2017-04 Mont Saint-Michel Bay 01. The bay of Mont-Saint-Michel at low tide, 2017; the tidal flats that made the pilgrimage famously dangerous.
- - 2017-04 Statue Saint Michel abbaye. The gilded statue of Saint Michael and the dragon on the spire of Mont-Saint-Michel abbey, added in 1897; photographed 2017.
- - The Cloister Restoration: The First Since 1881. France 3 Normandie on the 2.2 million euro cloister works, the first major maintenance operation on it in 136 years, carried out with helicopter lifts.
- - Restoring the Gothic Cloister of Mont-Saint-Michel. French Heritage Society documents its grant toward restoring the 13th-century cloister suspended between sky and sea.
- - Buildings on St Michael's Mount - geograph.org.uk - 7412078. The castle and church on St Michael's Mount, Cornwall, photographed 2020; a tidal island shrine linked historically to Mont-Saint-Michel.
- - Mont-Saint-Michel Wrapped in Scaffolding for a Three-Year Restoration. AFP report on the seven-million-euro campaign to repair the abbey's north and west facades, damaged by rain, sand and sea spray.
- - Monte Sant'Angelo Featured on Rai's 'Meraviglie'. The town of Monte Sant'Angelo shares Alberto Angela's Rai1 segment on the Gargano shrine, noting that Mont-Saint-Michel was founded on a stone brought from this cave.
- - What You Might Not Know About Mont-Saint-Michel. Deutsche Welle travel report on the UNESCO-listed monastery, its tidal setting and the practicalities of reaching it across the bay's sands.
- - A Thousand Years of Pilgrimage at Mont-Saint-Michel. France 24 marks the abbey's millennium in 2023; the UNESCO-listed tidal island receives nearly three million visitors a year.
- - France 24 on the Millennium of Mont-Saint-Michel Abbey. French international news marks the thousandth anniversary of the abbey dedicated to the archangel, a UNESCO site drawing 2.5 million visitors a year.
- - Mont-Saint-Michel: Thirteen Centuries of History. A French documentary on the Norman island abbey, a sacred mount of Western Christendom contested by invaders, knights and sovereigns since the eighth century.
- - From Monk to Mayor: The Guardians of Mont Saint-Michel. France 24 report marking a thousand years since the first stone was laid in 1023, meeting the monks, officials and residents who keep the site.
- - Mont-Saint-Michel: Abbey and Fortress. A full documentary on the Norman abbey of the archangel, both masterwork of Gothic building and impregnable fortress, drawing nearly three million visitors a year.
- - A Thousand Years of Music at Mont-Saint-Michel. France Musique on the musical life of the abbey dedicated to the archangel, from Benedictine chant to contemporary work written for the site.
- - Stephane Bern on the Thousand-Year History of Mont-Saint-Michel. A French radio history of the abbey, fought over from the tenth century between the dukes of Brittany and Normandy.
- - Abbazia di Mont Saint-Michel (facciata). The abbey church of Mont-Saint-Michel, Normandy, photographed 2024; a Michael sanctuary founded in 708 after the archangel reportedly appeared to Bishop Aubert of Avranches.
- - The cloister at Mont-Saint-Michel. The Gothic cloister of Mont-Saint-Michel abbey, photographed 2024; the thirteenth-century Merveille complex built on the rock.
- - Inside the abbey at Mont-Saint-Michel. Interior of the abbey church at Mont-Saint-Michel, modern photograph of a Romanesque and Gothic building begun in the eleventh century.
- - The Timeless Beauty of Mont-Saint-Michel. Documentary on the Romanesque Benedictine abbey with its Gothic monastery and neo-Gothic spire, perched on a rocky islet off Normandy.
- - The Thirty Residents of Mont-Saint-Michel. France 24 report on daily life for the roughly thirty people who live on the tidal island that receives about three million visitors a year.
- - A Guided Tour of the Abbey and Museums of Mont-Saint-Michel. Museum guide Jessica walks through the island's abbey church, village and museum collections, explaining the layered building history.
- - Saint Michael, Archangel of the Lord. French Catholic broadcaster KTO on Michael's cult in France, ahead of the second national pilgrimage on foot from Saint-Malo to Mont-Saint-Michel.
- - Mont-Saint-Michel: How Medieval Builders Conquered the Impossible. Documentary on the engineering of Mont-Saint-Michel, built on a rock under a kilometre wide in a bay with Europe's greatest tidal range.
- - Restoring Mont Saint-Michel: A Monument in Need of Repair. France 24 report on the current restoration campaign at the Normandy abbey, whose walls have been eroded by storms, fires and centuries of weather.
- - Mont-Saint-Michel and the Strongest Tides in Europe. A documentary tracing the site from the founding of the first sanctuary in 708 through its medieval pilgrimage peak.
- - The Monks Leave Mont-Saint-Michel. France 3 Normandie reports the departure of the Monastic Fraternities of Jerusalem from the abbey after twenty-five years, ending an era of resident monastic life at the shrine.
- - Mont-Saint-Michel: Architecture and the Wars It Survived. Documentary on the abbey's construction, the 1204 fire and rebuilding, and the sieges the island withstood in the Middle Ages.
