The abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel was built on a granite rock that rises 92 metres above sea level. For a thousand years, ever more beautiful and audacious buildings have followed one another. The monastery building, built from 1211 onwards on the north side of the abbey church, has earned the nickname “Wonder”. The 35-metre high Gothic building has three superimposed levels supported by sixteen powerful buttresses. In 1897, the abbey church was topped by a 40-metre high spire with a gilded copper statue of St Michael. Unbelievable dimensions and technological prowess on a rock of barely 4 km2.