Mont Saint-Michel

• If you decide to visit Mont-Saint-Michel in the summer, give preference to July: it’s much quieter than in August (except for the 14th July weekend).

• The last week of July would be a great option. Being between the 14th July and August it’s usually relatively calm.

• The last week of August is particularly overcrowded, the flow of visitors remains very high until the last day of the holidays before the start of the school term.

• Weekends in May are also very crowded, especially avoid the one during the Harbor’s Marathon (around the 13th of May), a huge number of local visitors come to Mont-Saint-Michel for that weekend.

• During the 3-day-weekends (in case of bank holidays) Saturday is the busiest day. If the public holiday falls on a Monday - there will be significantly less crowds on the Monday compared to Saturday or Sunday.

• As the views and the overall experience is more impressive on days of high tide - you should expect bigger crowds on these days.

• September is a good option for visiting the Mount, as it’s relatively quiet whilst the weather is usually still agreeable.

• However, the best time to see Mont-Saint-Michel without crowds is between All Saints Day and the February holidays (with the exception of the Christmas holiday period, of course).

• Even if you come in high season, you can avoid crowds by visiting before 10am or after 4pm. There will be considerably less people.

• Keep in mind that the place looks magical in the evening. It’s illuminated from the hour it gets dark until midnight all year round. The number of visitors remaining on Mont Saint-Michel at these hours is always low.

• On the days marked red in our table, expect about an hour of queuing.

• Don’t forget to buy your skip-the-line tickets in advance, you will save lots of time.

Photo credits to Chris Sampson via Flickr

• Mont-Saint-Michel is open to public all year round, except for the 1st of January, 1st of May and 25th of December.
• From the 2nd of May until the 31st of August the Abbey is open from 9am to 7pm (with the last admission at 6pm).
• From the 1st of September until the 30th of April it remains open from 9:30am to 6pm (with the last admission at 5pm).

This page will give you many tips to avoid crowds in Normandy as well as crowd schedules for top tourist attractions in order to plan your visits.