This last weekend, I had the great pleasure of making it to one of the most magical places on earth: Mont-Saint-Michel.

The ancient fortress-like abbey built up on a 265-foot rock mound in the middle of the English channel is truly the stuff of legends. Originally a church first built in the 12th century, it was said to have been inspired by a dream the Bishop of Avranches had of Archangel Michael. Since then, Mont-Saint-Michel has born witness to the great tumults of French history – wars, revolutions, wars, and more revolutions. Though an abbey, intended as a place of prayer and people of the cloth, it was inevitably a symbol of great power and was therefore the object of many a conquest. For various times during its history its battlements were adapted to defend against siege and at one point during the French revolution it was turned into a prison.

Yet today it stands restored as an abbey and one of the wonders of the Western world. Thousands may once again make the pilgrimage to the island off the coast of Normandy as they have done for over 800 years to seek God atop the rock in the ocean.

An agnostic on a school-sponsored excursion, I cannot count myself among those believers and brave souls, many of whom make their way to the island by wading through the water. For my visit, I was actually amidst a horde of tourists.

Regardless, I was touched and left speechless. Mont-St-Michel is an incredible, incredible place.

After making my way across the land bridge and up no less than 900 steps to the top, there is a wide open yard and the kind of view that makes a person forget about everything: how they might live in a city with traffic and sirens and people rushing past each other, how they woke up at six to drive four hours, and maybe even how they are a tourist amongst hundreds of strangers snapping pictures.

I can only imagine what it would be like to live as a brother or a sister living on the island, as people still do, and have the chance to pray every morning in silence when the tourists are not yet around. With the ocean and the stillness, it seems impossible not to feel some kind of presence.

Then there is the actual abbey, a Gothic masterpiece in and of itself. Immediately upon walking into the chapel, I could feel the weight of the millions of prayers that had been uttered there from millions of hopeful souls. The combination of the stained glass and the stone gave everything a subtle greenish glow, giving the air that this was a place out of time, where even those who normally struggle to do so could be quiet with their thoughts and with God. Again, I am not religious and as a tourist I had my camera with me, but everything seemed to point to the fact that this was a special place and that I was blessed to be there: I put my name and my prayers in the prayer book.

My visit to the port town of Saint Malo where I indulged in the region’s specialities – seafood and crêpes – was also well worth the trip north to Brittany. Yet nothing was quite as memorable as Mont-Saint-Michel.