HAPPY BIRTHDAY LINDA!!!!!!

You are more beautiful than the day I met you!

I love you... always and forever.

Bill

Monday, June 23, 2014

As planned, today we began our day by traveling to Caen and without any trouble found he correct shopping mall, proper parking, the right store (FNAP is its name) and a proper replacement for my broken lens. No problem that cannot easily be solved by throwing money at it!

Then we continued to Omaha beach, to see the sights and have lunch. 

Then we moved on to Point du Hoc where   Reagan famously said about the veterans being honored there in 1984, the fortieth anniversary of D Day, "These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war."

We then stopped at a nearby war museum which featured tanks and guns salvaged and put on display before stopping for dinner at what turned out to be a roadside French restaurant featuring German food!

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

So after managing our way through half of France, innumerable French restaurants  and French menus, Linda decide to have breakfast at McDonalds today. No, not because we were hungry for McDonald’s food (we don’t even eat that at home), but because we were desperate for WiFi with a reasonable speed (the one at the house is soooo slow) and had heard that all of the McDonalds restaurants offer fast Wifi as well as fast food. You would think ordering at McDonalds would be a snap, even if the menu was only in French, but…

People working at McDonalds are friendly and helpful, but not necessarily highly educated or bilingual. In fact, less English was spoken there than at any restaurant we had been to so far. So when I placed our order for two McWraps, and two coffees, the girl at the counter said something that I interpreted as “would you like fries with that?” to which I smiled and nodded yes. So when our order came up this is what we got…

1 Mc Wrap instead of two, 2 Coffees, (as requested), No fries, 2 Ice Cream Parfaits

So much for ordering at McDonalds. I think I will stick with French restaurants for the rest of the trip.

After spending a couple of hours working on this Blog at Mikey D’s, we drove to Sainte-Mere-Eglise, a tow that is famous for being the sight of a paratrooper battle (if you saw “The Longest Day”, this is where the paratrooper got hung up on the church steeple) and visited the phenomenal Airborne Museum completed only last year with the help of Roald Reagan’s son Michael Reagan.

ŷ

Then we went to Arromanches and toured a the best museum we have seen so far, containing fabulous exhibits which finally gave us a full appreciation of the artificial harbor built and brought there by the Allies.

After that we got a recommendation for a restaurant in a nearby village and had another memorable French dinner. 

Saturday, June 21, 2014

Drove back to Bayeux this morning and started the day by going shopping at the Saturday market as recommended by “Johnny”.

Our Health Department would have a field day!!!!

 Linda did a little Christmas shopping and Bill found some outrageous bread for about 10E. We then walked the town a bit and settled on a place for brunch.

Since it was lunchtime after all, we had the obligatory glass of wine, then Linda had Fish and chips, and Bill enjoyed “Crepes Normand”. We shared some more crepes filled with Nutella for “desert”, had one more glass of wine (coffee for Linda) and we took off touring the town some more.

One thing we decided was we could not leave without seeing was the 1000 year old Norman Tapestry known as the Tapestry of Bayeux (google it, I will not even try to do it justice with a description here).

We then proceeded from Bayeux to Omaha Beach and the American Cemetery. No pictures and certainly no words can do the cemetery justice.

It is a place to visit and to remember, and to give thanks. We were fortunate enough to arrive just as a choir group from Pennsylvania was placing flowers on the monument. About thirty of them, mostly teenage girls, all dressed in black, each placing a single flower, on by one, many crying as they did so. They were in the company of a group of Royal Marines and, after placing the flowers they assembled in front of the monument, the Marines assemble facing them, and the choir sang a song of thanks to the soldiers. After the song was completed, the groups applauded each other and then the choir director asked her group if they had done all they had come to do. After only a brief hesitation, the choir group broke ranks and ran to the soldiers and began exchanging tearful hugs all around thanking them for their service. This went on until each soldier had been hugged by every member of the choir.

It was said by Winston Churchill about a different time and place, but it is just as true about the men who landed on the beaches on D Day, “Never before have so many owed so much to so few”

After leaving the American Cemetery, we drove to the only remaining German Battery. 

Unfortunately, I dropped my camera while getting out of the car and broke the lens I bought especially for this trip.

 It was working wonderfully and had replace all of my other lenses (which I deliberately did not bring), so on Monday the first order of the day is to repair or replace it.

After the visit to the German gun emplacements, we hemmed and hawed about where to have dinner and finally decided to head back to Granville so we would have only a short drive home after dinner. However, someone had neglected to warn us that Granville was having a music festival starting today and when I tell you that between the people and the cars, there was not a square inch left in town, I am only exaggerating a little. We got trapped in traffic and it took us a couple of hours to find our way back out of town. Tom Tom kept taking us in circles!!! Later when we looked at a map of are we found we were on a peninsula with only one way out!!!

Having dinner, in fact even parking the car was a complete impossibility. Linda made spaghetti at home.

Sunday, June 22, 2014

Today we decided to take a day off from vacationing, do some laundry, and finally catch up on this Blog so we can publish it.]

Thankfully we did not have to do laundry at the drive up!!!!!!!

I did manage to fill up my wallet at the ATM, gas up the car and even wash it, so we are off to a fresh start tomorrow and are headed back to the D Day beaches again. There is still much more to see and do there.

Thursday, June 19, 2014 (St. Pair-Au-Sur, Normandy, France)

Today we are making our first trip to the D Day beaches, a trip that I have been anticipating for months. We drove to Arromanches and started by watching a very entertaining  and enlightening 360 degree movie made up entirely of Allied and Axis films taken during and around June 6, 1944. We then proceeded to the cliffs overlooking the beaches for our first look at where it all happened. As you will see in our pictures, some of the artificial breakwater built by the Allies still remains. 

You only have to close your eyes and remember scenes from the movie “The Longest Day” or much more recently “Saving Private Ryan” and you can imagine with us the carnage that took place down below us.

After spending time viewing the beaches, we decided to drive to nearby Bayeau and got there in time to walk through the town for a bit before deciding on a restaurant for dinner. 

Lots of american flags in this town, actually lots in this whole area!

Typical village street...whats not typical is the speeds they fly down them!!

Bill's favorite shops...well maybe a toss up with the ice cream shops!

                                     

Lots and Lots and Lots of shoe stores for Nicole!

During dinner we had the pleasure to meet and share a couple of drinks with Brigadier Johnny Rickett, CBE. A veteran of the British military, he now comes frequently to France and especially to this area and gives guided tours of the beaches and the memorials. Since he was returning home the following day, he had to decline my request to guide us, but he spent several hours regaling us with WWII history and offered numerous tips and suggestions for our trip. We exchanged cards and promises to look each other up whenever in the other area in the future.

Friday, June 20, 2014

Drove to Sables-or-les-Pins, in Brittany. Then drove back up via the coast road, through Cap Frehel, stopping to photograph the lighthouse. 

Then on to Ft Lalatte, a fabulous restored castle once used in a Hollywood movie. Bill climbed to the top up a rope ladder.

 Then on to Dinan for more sightseeing, picture taking and dinner.