" Ten years !
Ten years already since the improvements to restore the maritime character have given back to #MontSaintMichel its insularity.
It is with this simple tweet that the public establishment of Mont-Saint-Michel (EPMSM) has just celebrated the anniversary of one of the most important events for all lovers of the famous granite rock: its desilting and its return to island status.
In July 2013, a few months after the evacuation of the car park installed at the foot of the monument, hundreds of curious people flocked there during a high tide to see Mont-Saint-Michel completely surrounded by water.
What had not happened since 1879!
In order to mark the contrast between what tourists saw ten years ago and what they can admire today, the EPMSM played the before/after game.
🎂10 years!
10 years already that the facilities of the Restoration of Maritime Character have given back to #MontSaintMichel its insularity.
A small before / after more than evocative!
#Nature #Biodiversity #grandesmarees #Environment
📸©EPMSM and AFP pic.twitter.com/hg0LfKy9kp
— Public establishment of Mont-Saint-Michel (@EPMontStMichel) April 29, 2022
Before then: hundreds of vehicles clustered in the car park at the foot of the Mont.
After: the Mont and its famous abbey surrounded by the sea at rising tide.
Masterpiece under threat
The result of twenty years of study and work to restore all its luster to a threatened masterpiece.
“Over the centuries and human intervention, sedimentation had increased around the Mount, explains the mixed syndicate of the bay.
Little by little, the sea receded and the land and the salt meadows progressed.
A 15 ha car park at the foot of the ramparts distorted the maritime landscape.
The international experts were formal.
By 2040, if nothing had been done, Mont-Saint-Michel would have been surrounded by salt marshes.
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It was first necessary to destroy the old dyke-road which linked the site to the mainland and prevented the sand and water from circulating.
It has been replaced by a footbridge on stilts which ends on an esplanade that is submersible at high tide.
A new dam has also been designed to regenerate hydraulic current in the river that flows into the bay.
Objective: to erode the sediments and thus drive out the sand which tended to accumulate at the foot of the rock.
Last step and not the least: move 2.5 km further, inland, the car park which poured the 2.5 million annual visitors to the site by coachloads, now accessible by free shuttle, horse-drawn carriage or feet.
If France paid most of the cost of the work, estimated at 184 million euros, Europe has put its hand in the wallet for this project which the joint syndicate of the bay classifies among the "development operations the most original in Europe" because it combines "heritage preservation and management of tourist numbers".