Go for the full Mont

Overnight cross-Channel ferries attract an odd cross-section of customers in the winter, and the MV Bretagne (Portsmouth to St Malo) was no exception.

The car deck was awash with tough-looking fortysomething males wearing chinos and designer shirts, who were complimenting each other on their tasty motors. Was this the regional crime squad on a works outing? Customs and Excise planning a Normandy invasion? Or perhaps the SAS in civvies off to show the French the true meaning of British beef?

Actually, it turned out that they were a club of golfing roofers - or was that roofing golfers? - who'd prospered in the Nineties loft-conversion boom and were now on their way to mind their French on the greens of Brittany.

There weren't many of them in the ship's restaurant, though; crisp linen, fruits de mer, a sea view and a bottle of Chardonnay were all a bit too sweet-nothingy for goofing rolfers, who were by now well into Stella in the bar and muttering about gutters. We too had roofs in mind, but ours came with a famous silhouette attached, a dramatic tumble of tiles that adheres like a limpet to a rock just off the Normandy coastline while high-speed tides gallop hither and thither over quicksands all around.

Given that Mont-Saint-Michel is practically vertical and that it must have more roofage per acre than your average city centre, it makes a perfect place for a getaway weekend at this time of year. In this setting, a drop of rain has to make a Herculean effort to get down the back of one's neck. In the summer, the island is like a medieval walled labyrinth at rush hour. This is France's most popular attraction outside Paris, and three million visitors a year jostle to snatch a picture of the incoming tide, which was described by Victor Hugo as moving with the speed of galloping horses. If only they'd thought of returning in winter, they could have had the tides to themselves

The island is currently linked to the mainland by a causeway, although plans are afoot to replace it with a bridge and a cable car to stop the area silting up, and thereby restore the charisma of being entirely surrounded by water.

Within the walls, one main lane threads its way up through immaculate, beamed and gabled inns, restaurants and souvenir shops, to emerge eventually at the entrance to the abbey itself and a huge view of the draining bay covered in stripes of water. At its lowest, the tide retreats 14 kilometres across the sands, to return at 4kph - not quite the galloping horses of Victor Hugo, but enough to terrify a party of Belgian tourists, who had to be airlifted to safety last summer.

Occasionally it covers the car parks too, and this year it severely embarrassed a British coach driver who was too busy with one of the hotel girls to notice the water rising; the ramparts, however, were lined with interested spectators. Such shenanigans are hardly appropriate for what started out as a refuge of hermits and became one of France's most significant pilgrimage sites.

At its peak, 500 years ago, there were 60 Benedictine monks resident, and daily waves of pilgrims made the treacherous crossing of the sand; today there are only two monks left, and they are due to leave at Easter. The island's religious element has been swamped by commercial tourism, and only winter restores some of its original identity.

The huge fortified abbey - started in the 13th century and constantly enlarged - is impressive in any season, but more so with a wind whistling around and only gargoyles for company. It's a massive feat of engineering that would look like a medieval multi-storey car park if you removed its walls; the huge granite church has been perched on a peak of rock, and beneath its floor is stacked a labyrinth of crypts, scriptoriums and refectories.

Most visitors spend an hour in the abbey, buy the souvenirs and leave, but we had booked a room in a little auberge with leaded windows overhanging the main lane. The only noise was the occasional group of Japanese filing through below, twittering like migratory birds blown off course by winter-winds. At night the lane was deserted. The wind rocked the street lanterns and the only sign of life on the ramparts was four sparrows playing tug of war with a cracker. It's the sort of place where you expect to meet a hunchbacked Benedictine in a cassock, walking his Pekingese.

Mont-Saint-Michel is at its visual best from the causeway after dark, when the island is lit up from skirt to spire like a Gothic rocket straining at its earthly foundations in a vain attempt to get to heaven. Billows of rain swirl around its rooftops and the occasional seabird is blown in from the dark for a moment of celebrity in the harsh pool of light, before being swallowed up by obscurity again. It's a place to stand and stare, to think of birth, life and death and taxation - and to wonder whether there'll be any golfing roofers on the ferry home.

WAY TO GO

Andrew Eames travelled to St Malo with Brittany Ferries (08705 360 360), overnight crossings from Portsmouth from £222 for two adults and a car. He stayed at the Auberge St Pierre 0033 233601403; e-mail auberge.saint. pierre@ gofornet.com. Doubles £48 room-only, £42 per person half-board (including a four-course dinner with wine). For more information contact the French Government Tourist Office on 09068 244123.