This place is basically a spiral shell-like structure crawling up the island.
The ancient monastic parking lot!
Yah, that's pretty insanely cool.
Caution: Your vehicle will be buried in water if you don't get it ..... well, it USED to be ... tide doesn't come in that far any more.
Oooh, where the bikes park.
Basically, everything points up.
Unfortunately, the pouring rain started right away, so we just sat around ...
... and killed time ...
...
And then it got mostly nice again and we continued on our way.
There's always the huge monastery above you.
Everywhere you walk, there's something else to explore and see.
And there are tonnes of places to eat.
And lots of samurai swords to buy ( ?? ).
The town is extremely narrow and it can be challenging to get up the "main strip"
Cool old church.
St. Michael!
Still up there.
Getting closer to the top, here's a cemetery.
Almost at the top!
Holy crap, that thing is tall!
The entrance to the monastery.
American girl
Japanese girls.
Uuuuh. This looks vaguely unwholesome.
First, you go to the entrance.
to the door from which you just came.
And then you go up again.
It was pouring rain again.
The main church inside the monastery was spartan, but well done.
This dude here was giving these schoolkids a lesson in French monastic history and ...Zzzzzzzz .....
Top of the mountain garden area.
Next, the dining room where they ate and chanted and prayed and otherwise did church-y like stuff.
These windows were visible from the ground below.
This is how the roof is held up.
We just started following the signs telling us where to go. The place is so unbelievably huge, it's overwhelming.
Here is what the view UP the fireplace chimney looks like.
Looking back at the fireplaces.
This is the Chapelle Saint Madelene.
This kid was doing some weird stuff on the floor.
This is how you load stuff in and out of the place.
And this was powered by prisoners who were sent here to uhh ... think on things for a while.
This is where books were copied and written.
More Saint Michael.
Back outside, we started working our way back down the hill, an adventure it and of itself.
More St. Michael.
Lookout point!
Shoes! and a cool look of the huge drop down.
Surprisingly, as the clock approached 6pm, the island emptied out completely.
All those restaurants, and almost nobody was staying for food ....
The front gate we didn't use the last time around.
This is the door we used to enter the place.
One last look and ....
... we started heading home ...
But you can't escape it no matter where you go ...
