Mont St. Michel is one of those places where unique geography, weather conditions and man's architectural embellishments combine to produce a magical experience.

The abbey of Mont St. Michel, originally called Mont Tombe, was founded after the Archangel Michael appeared to a bishop in 708. The abbey subsequently came to own St. Michael's Mount, in Cornwall.
Many of the buildings date from the 1200s, but the façade of the abbey church was replaced after part of the nave was demolished in 1776, just before the abbey was closed due to the French revolution. It was used as a prison until the monks returned in 1969.

While only a small fortified city on the northern coast of France, St. Malo gave us the Spanish name for the Falkland Islands and the explorer Jacques Cartier, who discovered Canada.

Going to Caen is something of a pilgrimage when so much of English institutional history traces its roots to the Norman conquest. Even our castles and cathedrals are built of Caen stone (e.g. Canterbury).

There is a legend saying that if the towers of the Abbaye Aux Hommes should fall, then so shall the Kingdom Of England (much like the ravens in the Tower Of London). Although Caen was heavily bombed during the second world war, the towers survived, along with England.
As every Englishman knows, William, Duke Of Normandy, invaded England in 1066, to become king and conqueror. He died in Rouen in 1087, and was buried in the Abbaye Aux Hommes, while his wife Matilda was buried in the Abbaye Aux Dames.