Felicity Cloake - One More Croissant for the Road

As it sinks lower in the sky, almost bouncing against the horizon, we force our protesting legs into a final dash through the botanic gardens, tripping over bits of ancient stonework in our hurry, and just manage to catch a glimpse of the celebrity island across the bay before it disappears into the darkness. The sea is silvery under an apricot sky, and from here, on the edge of Normandy, we can see the Breton coast stretching away westwards in the sunset.

Give or take the odd farmhouse, it’s a landscape that doesn’t look much like it’s changed in centuries. ‘Nice and flat anyway,’ says Matt with some satisfaction as we turn for home.

The omelette is an ancient dish, known and loved long before Mont-Saint-Michel was even a twinkle in a monkish eye, but the island has been famous for ‘the exquisite lightness and beauty’ of its version for over a century. These are not the creamy baveuse omelettes of classical French cookery, but puffy soufflés, whipped until they rear from the pan like sea foam, and finished over a wood fire with copious amounts of Norman butter.

One of the benefits of staying at the top of a huge hill, of course, becomes evident the next morning, when we speed out of town like racing demons, Matt shooting past too fast for me to see the smile on his face. We’ve already learnt one valuable lesson today: many things in France, including, incredibly, boulangeries that even open on Christmas morning, are closed on Mondays (see here, Pause-Café – French Opening Hours ). How I’ve never realised this before is unclear, but after wandering disconsolately around the shuttered streets for half an hour, we finally spot a man with a baguette under his arm and sprint to catch up. My reward for accosting a complete stranger in a foreign language before I’ve had so much as a coffee: a pretty decent, very flaky 8/10 croissant. Coffee, however, remains a distant dream.

After crossing the handsome stone bridge at Pontaubault where we finally wave goodbye to the Cotentin Peninsula, the road swings right and climbs briefly out of town before dropping abruptly down into the bay of Mont-Saint-Michel. Suddenly we find ourselves pedalling into a sea mist; the only sounds the plaintive bleating of sheep somewhere to our left and, briefly, the hullabaloo of a convoy of Americans on hire bikes too busy complaining about their ‘sore asses’ to greet us as they pass. As the sound of their protests recedes into the gloom, and I shrug on my jacket for the first time, things begin to feel a little bit creepy.

On the plus side, when the Mont does finally show itself to us, it seems gratifyingly close – until we notice the cycle route sign: 17km. ‘Hang on a minute,’ Matt calls to me. ‘Didn’t that last road say it was only 9km?’ I check my phone, still wobbling slightly every time I take my hands from the bars of my poor, overladen steed. ‘Yeah … I think possibly the cycle one takes the scenic route.’ There’s a short but loaded silence from behind, then, ‘How scenic?’

He has a point: for all the Dutch caravans and British estate cars, these are hardly superhighways winding us through the polders, and I’ve made our lunch reservation on the Mont stupidly early for reasons I can’t now remember, so we’re easily persuaded off the bike route and on to the main road, which takes us past an enormous fragrant biscuiterie churning out delicious buttery galettes. Sadly, there’s no time to stop and investigate the factory gift shop; I content myself with breathing in deeply instead.

Several kilometres from the island itself the road comes to an abrupt end in north-west France’s largest car park. Once upon a time you could drive right up to the foot of the rock at low tide, and chance your vehicle being washed into the great beyond if you lingered too long over the postcards (indeed, as we discover later, there’s still some very entertaining footage of exactly this online). These days, you have to park on the mainland and take a shuttle bus across the sands: visitors are allowed to cycle the 800-metre causeway before 10 a.m., but as you can’t leave your bike at the other end it’s a largely pointless exercise unless you’re desperate to add another couple of kilometres to the day’s total, and we’re too late anyway, so we ditch them in the parking area, lugging our bags with us as the lockers are out of action ‘due to high security level’.

Though the bike racks may be quiet, the bus is busy, and we cram on behind a great muscular man with a shih tzu in a rucksack, who tuts every time anyone inadvertently brushes against the dog, which, thanks to the density of humanity on board, is fairly often. I stack my mysteriously weighty panniers on my foot, hold on and pray that the bus moves swiftly, which of course it doesn’t, stopping almost immediately at the row of rapacious gift shops a few hundred metres from the visitor centre, where more people attempt to squash in. It’s amazing, I think, how quickly even a regular passenger on the Northern Line can get used to the glorious space and solitude of the open road.

The shuttle doesn’t take us all the whole way to the Mont; it stops some distance from it, allowing everyone to rush over to the railings for snaps with the most famous island in France, a fortress that repelled every invasion attempt during the Hundred Years War with England. How things change; outside Paris, Mont-Saint-Michel is the most-visited site in the country.

Much as I love watching people pose for selfies, we’re in a hurry, surging forward through the great stone arch at the vanguard of this particular wave of heathen marauders. The restaurant, La Mère Poulard, is easy to spot, thanks to the crowd standing outside with cameras, snapping the action in the open kitchen, where huge numbers of eggs are being beaten in copper bowls ready for the lunchtime rush.

This place has been known for its omelettes for over a century: the eponymous Mère Poulard set up shop cooking for pilgrims and tourists in the late 1800s, and gained a reputation for her omelettes in particular – an easy thing to put together on an island with no grazing or agricultural land. The hotel she ran with her husband, in a prime position just inside the gates, was perfectly placed to take advantage of the tourist boom, and her dining room was soon mentioned as a must-visit in contemporary travel guides (as, in fact, was the rival establishment run by her brother-in-law, though clearly he was less good at marketing).

Poulard is said to have ruled her establishment with an iron whisk: when King Leopold of Belgium demanded to eat outside, on a terrace reserved for the taking of coffee, he was apparently given short shrift by Madame. She must have been a tartar in the kitchen, too, because those omelettes look like bloody hard work. The recipe is a closely guarded secret; despite my best efforts in wheedling French, all I can get out of the wolfish young chef closest to me is that he has to beat the mixture for 15 minutes before it’s ready. He winks – I’d make a joke about his wrist action if only I could remember the vocab.

Hanging around for slightly longer than feels entirely polite, I watch the process with a keen eye, taking notes as the team beat out a syncopated rhythm with their whisks. Each long-handled pan is heated in front of the massive fireplace until the butter inside sizzles, before the well-whisked mixture is added and the pan stacked neatly on a shelf at the side of the hearth. Once the omelette is cooked, it’s briefly toasted in the flames, and then served immediately.