Grand Hotel Parisien Le Havre

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.

... 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

Today we returned to Le Havre, France. We had planned on taking a train into Rouen, France the city in Normandy where Joan of Arc was executed. We did not awake early and instead slept in. When we went up to the Buffet for breakfast we were surprised to see that it was almost empty. All of tours had already departed for their various destinations and we had breakfast in relative calm. This did not bother us as we were taking a train ride ...

... connected with fine stitches. It is hung with a fabric strip marked off with 58 numbers so the story scenes can be identified. Three vegetable-based dyes were used to produce 10 different colors of wool thread: wasd, madder and weld. Embroidery stitches used were: stem stitch, split stitch with 2 threads, chain stitch and satin stitch or Bayeux stitch. On September 9, 1987, Prince Charles and Princess Diana ...

... for 2 weeks and Caen is a big city. We finally pull over and Tod and I get out to review the map. Look up, notice a street sign with the name of the hotel on it, drive down 2 blocks and there it is - luck beats skill once again. The hotel is at 51 Rue Gemere. We had stopped at 29 Rue Gemere. Hotel is Hotel Dophin and worthy of a return trip. Reasonable, clean and stellar in-house food. Rooms are ...