Etap Hotel Honfleur

... 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.

... The gear box was in need of some TLC. Kim came back to find me covered in grease and waste deep in Scooby. I am certainly learning my way around a car engine.
A quick pit stop via McDonalds for free internet to upload our blog and photos and then onto Ouistreham code name Sword Beach - the first of the D-Day beaches.

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.

... Hello' as one is supposed to do, we were presented with a price list of available products. We left with tins of Rillettes pur Canard and Pate de Campagne for 8eu - £6.80 for the nights halt. 19.08.09 Aire Sarliac-Sur-L'Isle N45.14.155'E0.52.448' Nothing here. We had tried stopping in Periguex but failed as it was market day and I'd forgotten to change the Tom Tom from walking to driving mode hence finding ourselves all but immoveable in the busiest part of town. 20.08 ...

... 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

... and industrial land as well as forest tracts. There were a lot of old houses that you can immediately spot that dates back to the 16th and 17th centuries and would be pretty to live in in the summer but I kept wondering how warm it would be in the cold North sea wind winters if it wasn't properly insulated. It was my first time riding in a Lexus hybrid SUV that was equipped with all the modern gadgets you can think of to design into a car for a fab driving ...

... there. A slice of pizza was selling about $6. If you bought inside the restaurant, it would have cost $9! We decided to eat the baguette that we picked up before we left the little town where we are staying at. We came back to hotel around 4PM and decided to drive ...