A long weekend in Normandy... the verdict

Well, after 3 lovely days away in a country I would ordinarily have avoided at all costs, I can say one thing... leave Paris behind and take the rest of France by storm!  Paris?  Beurk!  Honfleur, on the other hand?  Magnifique!

Dave has been doing quite a lot of research for this trip and believe it or not, I was not the itinerary holder for this weekend.  He did everything and although he'd told me basically where we were going, I didn't have a clue what was coming next, it was great!  After going to Belgium 3 years ago via the Channel Tunnel, which meant that we had our own car for the weekend, we decided that it was the most comfortable way to travel in Western Europe - no flights, no check-in times, no luggage allowances, no liquid restrictions.  You can just throw all the last minute things in the back seat and off you go.

We took an overnight ferry from Portsmouth to Le Havre and had a private berth.  It was a lot more comfortable than expected and made the 8 hour crossing pretty bearable.  Although it wasn't the most restful night's sleep, it was certainly far better than we'd have had on a flight of that length.

We arrived in Le Havre at 8am and after about an hour spent disembarking, we were eventually on the road towards Memorial Pegasus, or the Pegasus Bridge museum, our first stop for the day.  We made our way over Normandy Bridge in the rain, but towards some sunshine, so we knew we were headed for better weather!  It wasn't all bad though, we saw 4 rainbows on our first day - and one where we could see BOTH ends at the same time!  Pity we didn't have lottery tickets for that day!

Memorial Pegasus is a museum in Caen, Normandy which houses the famous Pegasus Bridge, which was captured by British forces on the night of 5 June 1944 during World War II.  In history class in SA, we learnt the very basics about WWII and so this was a unique experience for both of us, but while Dave knew what to expect, I did not.  I had no idea what Pegasus Bridge was, nor what significance it held in the overall WWII story.  It was a typical museum, with amazing artifacts found in the area, as well as original guns, jackets, helmets and tanks found after the war, and preserved in the many museums of its kind in this part of France.  The one thing that stands out for me from this museum was finding out that Allied Forces (and presumably the baddies too) had escape maps made out of silk sewn into their jackets and there were a number of these on display.

Our next stop was Gold Beach, which was the main landing beach for British troops on the 6th June 1944.  Although today, this is just a beach with your usual array of surfers, dog walkers and children with their buckets and spades, the one thing that betrays the sense of this being a 'business as usual' beach are the massive concrete blocks dotted around the coastline - presumably broken off pieces of the remaining walls of Mulberry 'B', a harbour which was created in Britian, towed across the channel and assembled at Gold Beach for use by Canadian and British forces.  Mulberry 'A' was assembled at Omaha beach and they were collectively known as Mulberry Harbour.

Our next stop was a German gun graveyard (my own name for it!) at Longues-sur-Mer.  There are 4 guns remaining to this day, pointing out from bunkers towards 4 of the 5 landing beaches - Utah, Omaha, Juno and Gold beaches.  They are set in a massive expanse of brilliant green grass with absolutely nothing else around them.  The bunkers are carved into the hillside, so that from behind, you would never even know they were there.  I'm sure, during the invasion, this area was a flurry of machine gun fire and bodies, but the sense of calm the area now has is pretty unsettling.  Especially since you can go into the bunkers and position yourself behind these absolutely massive machine gun-type things and take in each landing beach from the SS forces' perspective.  Each of these launchers had a 12-mile range - well out to sea from where they're situated.  As I said, unsettling.

Next stop was Omaha Beach - a familiar name to me, because it was the one we learnt about in history classes at high school.  As we arrived, the heavens opened and we started on our way around the memorial grounds in the midst of a monkey's wedding.  For me, this place was, by far, the most humbling experience of the entire trip.  And this is why...

So many crosses.  So many lives lost.  At each of the beaches, Dave and I both remarked on the fact that it was hard to imagine that so many people had died on the very spot where we were walking, but this American Cemetery at Omaha Beach ensures that you never forget about each and every person who's final living moments were spent where we were just walking during the hour before.  And so it should be.  For the very same reason that Auschwitz remains standing to this day, this cemetery stands tribute to the fact that - certainly in my lifetime so far - we haven't had to experience a war on this scale, which means that some of us are never made aware of the sacrifices of the men and women who give their lives up for their country - willingly or not.  On my infertility forums, I have come across so many women who are 'military wives' and my heart breaks every time I read that their husbands are being deployed to Iraq or Afganistan in the war currently being waged over there, because I'm not sure I could be as brave as them.  The thought that any of my loved ones could end up as one of these crosses fills me with dread and makes me thank my lucky stars that I've got to the age of 32 without having to experience something like this.  I'm always incredibly humbled when I visit places like this - Ground Zero in New York, Auschwitz in Poland, Isandlwana in South Africa - because although I couldn't ever fully imagine it, the proof is right in front of your eyes when you're there.  I could go on and on, but it truly was the highlight (in a strange kind of way) of my weekend.

 

And special mention to people like this... heartbreaking that they were never able to be identified.  The inscription reads 'Here rests in honoured glory a Comrade in Arms known but to God'.

After that, it was onto Bayeux to see the famous Bayeux Tapestry - something I had never heard of, but Dave was very excited to see, after learning about it as a child.  This embroidered cloth, almost 70m long, depicts the story of the Norman invasion of Britain in 1066, otherwise known as the Battle of Hastings.  A visit here takes less than 15 minutes as you're given an audio commentary along each 'chapter' of the tapestry.  Given that it is nearly 1000 years old, it is actually an unbelievable work of art - my limited knowledge of embroidery notwithstanding!  Quite gory in its detail too - beheaded knights with bloodied axes held above the corpses, arrows in eyeballs - it is quite a sight!

We wandered around Bayeux for a little while afterwards and all we wanted was something to drink, but do you think that we could find a shop or cafe open at 5pm in the afternoon?  Not a chance.  Strike one for Normandy!

After Bayeux, it was time to head over to our hotel in a tiny village called Saint-Louet-sur-Seulles.  Look what greeted us!

We arrived at this gorgeous place - called Manoir de la Riviere - and were promptly given a drink on the house - strike for Normandy quickly revoked!  This hotel (or B&B, we're not quite sure!) is a 16th Century farmhouse, which has had a few of its buildings converted.  There is still an enormous expanse of building at the back, which hasn't yet been touched.  One of the first things we did when we arrived was take advantage of the jacuzzi in the spa room, where we relaxed with a drink and looked out onto the old stone buildings, even spotting a deer or two running past the window!  It is a charming little place - although 'little' is not quite the word because there are 37 acres of 'little' here!  The wooden staircase up to our room was so wobbly and crooked and the resident cat took up post on the ancient-looking wooden handrail on the stairs.  Gorgeous!  My hubby done good to find this place.  We took the owner's recommendation and went out to eat at a little Italian place in the nearest village where we both dined on veal (rose, thankfully!) and amazingly creamy ice cream.  Ahhh!  Then it was back to the hotel where we could both hardly keep our eyes open after such an eventful day.  I had to close the interleading door to the enfants chambre because it was a little too 'Woman In Black' for my liking, but apart from the creaks of the old wood, the wind howling outside and the rain pelting down in the early morning, we had a lovely night's sleep in the 500 year-old farmhouse.

The next morning, I woke up to some really sad news from my sister.  My brother-in-law's father had passed away a few hours before we woke up.  It was an incredibly sad way to start our second day and I just really wanted to make sure that he and his brother, sister, mother and nephew were okay.  It's times like this when I hate being so far away from family.  I had only been in Mike's company a handful of times, but he was a lovely man and will be sorely missed, I know.

We had a lovely continental breakfast with the best hot chocolate EVER!  I give hotels marks on exactly 2 things... whether or not they have conditioner in the bathroom and whether or not they have hot chocolate on offer.  It is the usual case that only one of these happens - the conditioner and not the hot chocolate - but on this occasion, it was the opposite.  But it was okay... I'd brought my own conditioner.  Okay, okay... I had also taken my own hot chocolate!

After breakfast we were off to Le Mont-Saint-Michel.

Again, as with the day before, I knew next to nothing about Mont-Saint-Michel, but just seeing it was enough to pique my interest.  I have to admit though... looking at it filled me with dread, because the only thing going through my mind was 'how on earth do you get up to the top of that without having to climb, like, a gazillion steps?!'  Well, it wasn't quite a gazillion, but it seemed close to that... but I made it.  Grumpy and tired, but after a minute or two to cool down, I was fine and ready to go.  The village itself is absolutely beautiful - really quaint and in a strange way, reminded me of Turkey or Morocco, only because of the narrowness of the streets with the stalls from each shop jutting out into the pathway of the hundreds of people trying to pass on the cobbled street that led up to the Abbey.

The Abbey itself is just a large empty stone building and each room we went to seemed to be another chapel.  There were no explanatory plaques anywhere, so unless you had the audio commentary, you didn't necessarily get the full story of each of the rooms you went through, but it was pretty anyway.  We even saw a monk, which - let's be honest - is all you really want to see when you go to a place like that anyway!
 

Once we'd finished at the Abbey, it was lunchtime and we went on the search for some sustinence.  We were preparing ourselves for the fact that the restaurants would be quite pricey, given the monopoly they have, but we were pleasantly surprised.  All of this arrived in front of Dave for less than 10 euros!  There must have been 100 plus mussels on his plate!

On the way back to the shuttle bus, our trip wouldn't have been complete without some delicious crème glacée.  Dave tried an apple calvados-flavoured one, which he wasn't too impressed with, but mine was amazing!  I had one which was just described to me as having 'biscwit' in it... Del.ic.ious!  Yum!  After a very frustrating wait in the freezing cold wind for a shuttle bus (whose driver decided that the BACK of the queue was the best place to stop to let people on, thereby making everyone who had been waiting the longest, wait even longer) we got back to our car and started on the drive back to our hotel.  We went to the same restaurant as the night before - mainly because we liked it so much and knew we'd be able to get something we liked (yes, we both acknowledged that we were pretty boring choosing the same place again!) but also because I wanted to try a dessert I'd seen the night before.  It's called an Iceberg and it is one of those desserts that just makes you want it because of the picture on the menu - regardless of what it actually contains.  It is so simple, so indulgent, but SO delicious!  So, here goes... take a sundae glass.  Put one scoop of mint chocolate chip ice cream in the bottom.  Then put one scoop of chocolate ice cream on top of that.  Take a triple (or so it seemed!) shot of creme de menthe and pour it on.  Now eat up.  YUMMM!  The only thing that would have made it any better would have been some lindt chocolate pieces broken up into it (but now I'm just getting carried away!).  Then it was back to the hotel for our last sleep in Normandy.

In the morning, we went down to breakfast - both continental and cooked this time - and I again enjoyed a really good mug or 4 of hot chocolate.  Bliss!  You know what they say... it's the small things.  Really good hot chocolate is my small thing.  After packing up and settling the bill, we were on the road again, this time towards Honfleur.  What a pretty little village!

It reminded me a lot of Copenhagen - for reasons I can't describe.  I think it must have been the boats moored up against the canal - each of those boats belonging to someone who lives there, possibly even having a drink right on the canal right next to their pride and joy.  I don't know what it was about this place, but it was quaint and sweet and really, really pretty.  Full of art shops too - not something that ordinarily excites me, but the couple that we went into were amazing.

We wandered around for an hour or two, weaving into and out of tiny shops of various descriptions.  It was a typical lazy Sunday, ambling along the cobbled streets in a tiny fishing village, with no set agenda.  It was lovely.

We settled on a place for lunch and grabbed a light bite to eat before heading back to a shop where Dave had cunningly spotted some Calvados and Cider on offer.  On the way there, we went past this really, really old church in the middle of small square - there was nothing to describe what it had once been or how old it was, which was a shame, but I just loved the building.  It looked like it was on its last legs and about to crumble to the ground.  I hope it doesn't though!

It was then back to the car for the short journey back to the ferry port for our crossing back to Porstmouth.

For Dave's full photo album, click here.

All in all, what a lovely weekend.  And my verdict?  As I mentioned at the beginning... if you really want to see France, give Paris a miss.  It's the quintessential tourist trap (for obvious reasons) and for that reason, is probably why it has the reputation it does for having such rude inhabitants - the more people who visit a place and encounter said rude inhabitants, the more bad press the place is going to get.  To be fair to ALL Parisians, I'm absolutely certain they're not all like that and some may have a tolerance for tourists, but those who don't should not be in the customer-facing positions they hold.  In Normandy, we encountered some idiotic people (the shuttle bus driver with no brain cells to rub together) and one rude lady (who I'm not absolutely certain wasn't actually German), so all in all, a refreshing change and one that I'm very glad I experienced.  So my massive thanks go to Dave on this one, because I didn't lift a finger.  He arranged the entire weekend and wanted to prove to me that France wasn't all bad and you know what?  He succeeded.  I'm reformed and now willing to experience all that France has to offer.... so long as what it has to offer in the future doesn't take me within 50 miles of Paris!