Exclusive Hotel Augeval Deauville

This last weekend my program's group traveled to Normandy and Brittany. It was a very cool trip! On Saturday we drove from Paris to Caen, Normandy. We visited the Memorial de Caen, which is a museum/memorial from WWII. Caen was a city during WWII that was occupied by the Germans, and it was a major victory when the Allies were able to seize it. After Caen, we drove on to Omaha Beach to the American ...

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.

... cost us an extra 6eu (£5.40). 27.08.09 Thouars N46.58'34.6" W0.12'42.8" Great town, though small. The aire was free (including water), and quiet with a wonderful view of the 13th Cent. Tour du Prince de Galle, one minutes walk from where we were parked. Most surprising, when we ventured into what we thought was an empty building, was to find we had a guide all to ourselves. Much less interesting, indeed boring, was the Henri Barre museum. Even at 1eu per person it's a ...

We started this morning planning to visit Honfleur and spend a couple of days here as it is so beautiful. But today it rains, so today it loses!
As the battery is flat too, we simply cast off and drove south west.
On the way out of Cite Europe where we took on some diesel we say a couple of hitchers, and as we were feeling in good spirits we picked them up.
They were quite chatty but after a while we were ...

TomTom is great, expect when you don't have the maps for the country you're in!
We have the full european DVD but loading all the maps onto the phone was one item that did not make it onto my big list of jobs to do before we left.
I still have the DVD with my but no DVD drive!
We have been navigating with googlemaps since ...

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

... on our bus had dinner with him last night and Jim and told them that he had even told others at home before he left that he may not come back since he was so ill. In fact, I had him sign the Airborne Book that I bought only yesterday afternoon. And now he was gone. Sad, very sad but in a way a fitting tribute to a man who 65 years ago jumped in to liberate Europe and returned, which we understand was something he really wanted to do, only to pass away where ...

... and dusting off their headstones. Just to left of the cemetery is the part of Omaha Beach and what's left of the fortifications that were waiting for the men coming ashore that day. After seeing the hills and cliffs that they had to climb through barbed wire and machine gun fire, it's a miracle that anyone made it ashore at all, let alone knocked out the Germans. They were ready for an invasion and gave our guys hell. Again I felt compelled to climb through all of the ...