We touched down in Paris at 6 am on Tuesday, October 15th, 2019. This was the culmination of over twenty year of dreaming about France and planning several trips that never worked out. In fact, a terrible car crash (not my fault) came sickeningly close to destroying my plans this time too. I made it though! Still banged up, but determined to enjoy the heck out of every minute.

Initially, I booked this as a solo trip, feeling like I would really never get there if I had to wait for someone to be able to go with me. So as not to actually be alone the whole trip, I enrolled in a 6-day street photography workshop with the amazing Valerie Jardin and planned to stay a few days on either side of the workshop to see everything I wanted to. Unexpectedly, my friend Erika Smith from Indie Pearl Photography decided to book her own seat in the workshop and join me. I couldn’t have been blessed with a better travel companion.

From Charles de Gaulle airport, we hopped a TGV to Rennes, the capital of Bretagne, where we rented a car and drove the couple of hours into Normandy to spend one night on Le Mont Saint-Michele (this fairytale place my first French teacher always talked about) before heading back to Paris.

When I planned this side trip, I didn’t think it sounded too grueling. I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep on the plane (I never can). But hey! I’m a birth photographer for crying out loud. I’m no stranger to powering thru the day after an overnight birth so that my sleep schedule doesn’t get totally messed up. I would be fine.

I quickly learned I had over-estimated what my almost-36-year-old, 4-months-post-major-car-accident body could handle.

By the time we were on the train, I wasn’t feeling great. Train travel always makes me feel rather queasy, so I was prepared to feel cruddy. But it went beyond that. My head was swimming with pressure and my ears would pop (so loudly that it startled me) every time we went through a tunnel (not even an underground tunnel!). I felt so foggy and like I was stuck underwater. I thought for sure I’d feel better once we were off the train though.

So I powered thru. We picked up the rental car in Rennes and Erika (who had slept) drove. I was still feeling fuzzy and dizzy, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me from enjoying the trip. I loved riding through Rennes and the French countryside. I had hoped we would be able to stop more places on the road, but with the way I was feeling and the constant drizzle of rain, we were pretty eager to get where we were going. I made do with my iPhone, snapping pictures through the rain-spattered windows.

Rolling up on Le Mont Saint-Michele was nothing short of spectacular. Watching it appear beyond the trees and rising above the mist as we drove thru the most bucolic storybook towns…It was magical.

Again I desperately wanted to stop for pictures with my real camera, but it was really starting to rain. We drove around in the rain a few times before we found the right parking lot, then quickly parked and rushed with our carry-ons to the shuttle from the parking area to the Mont. The shuttle dropped us not quite to the end of the causeway where we had to trek thru the rain and puddles to get checked into our hotel.

As soon as we changed into dry clothes, we noticed the sun was starting to peek out! With the forecast calling for rain the entire time we were there we decided we’d better take advantage of this gift of sunshine and run back out front for some pictures. We might not get another chance.

Mont St Michel is a tidal island with a 10th-century Benedictine abbey crowning the top. At high tide, the Mont becomes an island, completely surrounded by water, save for the raised causeway that was built in 1879 to provide continuous access to the site. When the tide is out, the vast sandbanks (or mudflats) can be traversed (with a tour guide to ensure you don’t fall into quicksand). We arrived at low tide and I really wanted to walk on the mudflats, but it was pretty blustery and FREEZING. Even though the clouds were clearing, wet feet (or pants) didn’t really sound appealing. So we walked back in to try and make our way up to the abbey.

Instead of walking up narrow, crowded cobblestone streets, we went back through our hotel where there was a door to access the ramparts right near our room.

I can’t say enough good things about our hotel, Auberge Saint-Pierre. I was told this is the only hotel on the island that is still privately owned and not falling apart. The rooms were CLEAN and, while still small by American standards, honestly larger than I expected. The staff was also extremely friendly and accommodating. Many people told me it wasn’t worth it to stay ON the island where hotels are small and expensive. I disagree though. The convenience was totally worth it and I would absolutely do it again.

The ramparts spit us out into a tangle of little terraced gardens connected by cobblestone alleys and treacherous looking stone stairs. It was absolutely beautiful and I was really grateful that the sun had come out for a while. I could have spent the rest of the day exploring all of the little nooks and crannies.

But this is where I reached my limit.

I’m hiding it well (anything for a cute photo right?), but I was pretty dizzy (and gripping that handrail for dear life until Erika told me my arm looked weird in the photo). It felt like my eyes were going to pop out of my head and my vision was going blurry off and on. I wanted to keep going but, reaching the point of ‘scared that I was going to fall down these hundreds of sets of steep, slippery stone steps’, I just felt like I had to call it. Realizing we hadn’t eaten since breakfast on the plane (almost 10 hours earlier) and hoping a meal might set me right, Erika walked with me back to the hotel pub for food.

Unfortunately, eating didn’t really help. I remember feeling like to floor of the restaurant was on at least a 45-degree incline and that my chair was going to topple over. My equilibrium was so off that I felt like I was on a boat in a storm. I chalked it up to a train ride after a long flight and too many hours without sleep and decided I should take a hot shower and lie down. Not wanting Erika to miss out because of me, I told her she should go on without me and make the most of the day.

Here’s where things took a frightening turn.

I felt a bit better after a steaming hot shower. But as soon as I laid down I felt like I was on a waterbed (with two people pushing on the sides to make waves…really big and scary, Perfect Storm caliber waves). Then my heart started beating rapidly. Like hummingbird wings fast. And we were on a tidal island in a remotely rural part of a foreign country. Was I having a heart attack? A stroke? Some other complication from my car accident injuries? How long would it even take to get to a hospital out here? Was I going to drop dead any minute?

Looking back this was probably a combination of severe sinus congestion (Google told me air travel can cause that), lack of rest, and a full-blown panic attack. But I wasn’t exactly a healthy young woman in her prime. My car accident a few months earlier had caused a vertebral artery dissection (a tear in the artery that supplies the brain) leaving me at risk of stroke. Even though I’d had an MRI two weeks before my trip and my neurosurgeon said the tear had remodeled, apparently, once you’ve had a VAD the rate of reoccurrence is high. And these symptoms were straight-up terrifying.

Feeling relatively certain my concerns were justified (and not as overly dramatic as they felt), I called the front desk and asked them to call a doctor…They said they could call the firemen. Ok cool. Anyone to come and just tell me I’m not going to die. Then I called Erika and asked her to come back so I wouldn’t be alone. Then I called my husband to talk to me so I wouldn’t FEEL alone…

And cliffhanger!

I mean, obviously, I didn’t die…but this is getting LONG. So check back next week for the rest of the story.

All of the images in this post were either taken with my iPhone and edited in Lightroom Mobile, or with my favorite travel camera, the Fuji XT-3. If you haven’t already read my review on this camera, you should check that out here.

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