Mont Saint Michel Transportation

The Mont is located 180 miles northwest of Paris. It can be reached by car (A11 & A81 west to Rennes, N175 Pontorson) Total driving time from Paris is about 4 1/2 hours.

There is no direct train route to Mont St. Michel; take the train from Montparnasse, if leaving from Paris, to the town of Pontorson, from it's station take bus #15 to Saint Michel.

Or

Take the TGV to Rennes, then take Les Couriers Bretons bus for the 75-minute transfer to Mont-St-Michel. Depending on the season, there are between two and five bus departures from Rennes a day, most of which are configured to correspond to the TGV's arrival times in Rennes.

Mont-Saint-Michel is 22 km south west to Avranches
67 km north to Rennes and 9 km north to Pontorson.

It is open for visits yearlong but the hours vary according to the season.
From May 2nd to August 31st : 9:00 AM to 7:00 PM (last entrance 6:00 PM)
From September 1st to April 30th: 9:30 AM to 6:00 PM (last entrance 5:00 PM)
It is closed on January 1st, May 1st and December 25th.

Unaccompagnied visit with a leaflet (available in french, english, german, italian, spanish, russian, chinese, dutch, japanese, polish, portugese), is free under 18, 5 € between 18 and 25 and 8.50 € for adults,.
For visit with audioguide (available in french, english, german, spanish, italian, Japanese), the supplement is 4 € single and 3€ couples.
Guided visits are available too.
No dogs allowed except blind’s.

Excellent transportation info here

In short: TGV (fast train) from Paris Montparnasse to Rennes (2 hours, cost between 25-51 EUR)
Then bus from Rennes to Pontorson (9 kms from M.St.M), then another bus to Mont St. Michel.

You need the following websites to work out your trip:
www.voyages-sncf.com (for train travel and remember to reserve for TGV in advance).
Then use bus services: http://www.lescourriersbretons.fr/english/accueil.htm

As one of its many excellent concessions to managing the tourist hoards, Mont St Michel offers an excellent navette (shuttle bus) service between the mainland and the Mont.

However, if it's a nice day and you're not in a rush - you really should consider walking to the Mont. It will only take you about 15 minutes extra, depending on how long you dawdle to admire the view and take photos, and (particularly in peak season), you will more than compensate for that with the time that you'd otherwise have spent queueing for a navette.

Quite apart from the saving in time, the chief attraction of walking is to approach the Mont in the same manner as the medieval pilgrims and experience the intimidating spectacle of the Mont rearing up from the coastal flats: utterly incomparable!

The walk from the parking areas to the navette (shuttle bus) station is at least 10 minutes - and considerably longer if you're visiting in peak period when you'll have to park in one of the more remote car parks.

One of the excellent tourist-friendly initiatives that has been undertaken at Mont St Michel is to plant shady trees along these walkways. Judging by the size of the saplings at the time of writing in July 2012, they were only a couple of years old, but it will only be a few years before this makes a major -and very positive - impact on visitors' comfort.

Bravo!!!

Mont St Michel experiences the most extreme tidal range in Europe, which has been both a challenge to access and a defensive advantage, particularly during in its early history.

Up until the 19th century, visitors to the Mont had to approach the island across the tidal flats and could only access the island during low tide. Imprudent travellers often paid for their carelessness with their lives, either being swept away by the galloping tide, or falling foul to quicksand.

In 1879, a permanent causeway was installed between the island and the mainland, which allowed round-the-clock access in all weathers. Whilst a superbly practical solution from an access point of view, this has had a significant impact on the marine environment, encouraging siltation on either side of the causeway, and causing damage to the sensitive salt marsh ecosystem. Yet another major improvement to this amazing location!

At the time of writing in July 2012, construction was underway to replace the causeway with a bridge that will go a considerable way towards reinstating natural flow conditions and assist in the reestblishment of the natural ecosystem. This project will not compromise access to Mont St Michel, but construction activity - with some attendant disruption and aesthetic impact - is not likely to be completed until 2015.

Driving is certainly the most efficient way of visiting Mont Saint Michel. By road (see road access instructions on the picture - see the website below for details +railway,...):

- A11 motorway, Chartres-Le Mans-Laval exit to Fougères, then, direction to Le Mont Saint-Michel
- A13 motorway to Rouen and Caen. From Caen, use the A84 motorway to Le Mont Saint-Michel.

From Paris the total driving time is about 3.5 hours (358km-Toll 21.60 €)

Parking: (per day and per vehicle)
Car 4 € Camping car 8 € (Autobus: Free)

Remember: when those car parks are covered by the sea (high tides periods), you can park your car upon the causeway (from approximately 2 hours before to 2 hours after the high tide hour).

...just be very mindful of the schedule of return times since they are not the same every day...if you are not careful you could find yourself facing a semi-pricey taxi fare back to Pontorson (as was our lot) so you can still make your train back to Bayeux or wherever it is you are staying that evening! Then again, if you drive your own or a rental car here, be mindful of the tides. During high tide, this lot becomes submerged, no kidding!