Best Western Hostellerie Du Vallon Trouville

... steep to get down to the shore, it’s hard to imagine how difficult the soldiers had it. Seeing the sight at Omaha Beach really made me feel proud to be an American. After the beach, we drove onward to Saint-Malo, which is on the coast, and is a walled city. We stayed at a cute little hotel, similar to a B&B and had dinner at a nice restaurant, too bad I ordered my steak too rare…

Arrived at Ouistreham just before dark and found an Aire de Service right on the beach and this time it was free! The downside was it was right next to the ferry terminal and the 6am ferry to Portmouth the next day was kill the tranquilo the next morning. Kim's Maison du Scooby cooked up a storm. Pork fajitas on rice - delicious. I gave it 5 stars.

... and of course washed down with a few glasses of rose!

Next morning we went for a run through the village and along the beach. It was a glorious morning! Afterwards Kim went to have another potter through the village, take some photos and buy groceries while I was able to have my long awaited fiddle with Scooby ...

Onwards to Etretat for our first overnight stay in an Aires de service. These are overnight parking areas for campers and moterhomes and supply fresh water, electricity and waste dumping facilities. All at a rock bottom price. This one was 5 Euro for the parking a and extra 2 euro for the water and electirc hookup.
Town has spectacular cliffs beautiful old building full of character.

... seeing the Tapestry went back to V-B for the night. The 70 metre long tapestry was not as I had imagined it, being only some 18 inches deep. We were handed a device each which gave us a commentary as we walked along. The embroiderers had thoughtfully numbered each scene so it made following the commentary quite easy though at quite a brisk pace. After seeing the tapestry and included in the admission price was a visit to a beautiful little cinema for a 16 minute long ...

... and not wanting to feed five of us, we regretted the company as we did not want to stop.
We dropped them off at the entrace to another motorway and wished them on their way. We promptly stopped for lunch and a coffee!
Another experience ticked off our list at least.
As things were going well we carried onto through to Noirmoutier to our latest "Aires" in the centre of Noirmoutier at 7 euros per night

... which works to a point but when you're paying two pound per Mb it get expensive. In the great scheme of things its not much when your running a 7 ton bus but its still stupid and it does not re-route if (when)you take a good turning.
On the way to Noirmoutier, it attempted to take us over the "alternative" crossing at high tide!!

The first night was spent in a nice stop on the edge of the old port in Calais.
I've been here before when i did some sailing in my youth so i know it well.
It seemed safe enough as there must have been 50 motorhomes but there was a broken window overnight for someone!
We moved onto honfleur and found a nice stop 2Km from honfleur which was free and had a large football/basketball court for jake to play in

... Before arriving we imagined a beach front much wider than is present. It is actually only a space of about 40 metres between the water and the German bunkers. Amazing that tens of thousands of troops packed this little space in such a short time. A site to both see and feel for certain. After overloading on all the history that we could squeeze into an afternoon, we headed back to our stable room to relax and let it all soak in. We stopped by the grocery store ...

... Beach. It was about a 30 minute ride to get there and the beach really was a beautiful place. Itīs hard to imagine all the carnage that took place there, but one could understand because of the high positions on the cliffs the Naziīs held. We walked on the beach and saw people collecting mussels and saw some remnants in the sand. There were some memorials along the long stretch of beach to different units. Had some lunch at a little place. We walked some ...