Hotel du Cygne Beauvais

... for ransom. But when they had a great many prisoners, Henry became fearful of a new movement from the last rank of still fresh French soldiers, that might have freed and rearmed the prisoners. He ordered the prisoners killed, all except the highest ranking nobles. The English protested, probably mostly for financial reasons: they wanted the ransoms. But many of the prisoners were massacred. From a military point of view the act is defensible, but from a humanitarian point ...

... a catch? We managed to ask a Polish guy who spoke English and he told us he had camped there all week for free! This had to be our number one lucky find, apparently you can park on most car parks in august for free, Paris largely takes August off, and in the words of the guide book hands it over to the tourists. So that was it, we raced back to the van to get our spot, which was just as well as we didn't realise the park we were going to camp by was a hooker magnet at night ...

... trop fatigué pour m'aimer, mais c'est pas grave... Anne Laure travaille à l'aéroport et me raconte tout le fonctionnement et les mésaventures que l'on peut rencontrer en temps que voyageur ou encore comme salarié de "Ryanair" (ou presque). Une mine d'informations partagées devant une bonne tartiflette... que du bonheur... surtout que j'ai été reçu comme un roi... une fois encore vive couchsurfing et merci à toi Anne Laure!

... the apartment and crashed. Sunny has a huge apartment, 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a kitchen, living room, and a balcony, from which you can see a tiny bit of the Mediterranean. She gets to stay there by herself because all the other girls in the program chose to live with host families. So we all had our own room, which I was not expecting. So overall it was a long long day of traveling, but it was good to be in Spain. Read the continuation in the next entry.....

... dined" us as if we were favorite old friends. They shared 20 year old wine with us! (In the US, we buy wine and drink it that night. The French buy wine and save it for a later date.) I was speechless that they were willing to share such a treasure with us. We enjoyed a very special afternoon with them. Before we left they shared some ...

... 2nd level and took some pics and then eventually made our way down, went and found some dinner, and headed back to STeph's place to rest our tired feet! On Sunday, we had learned that all of the Museums in Paris are free admission on the first sunday of every month, so we wanted to fit those into that day. WE started going to the Arc de Triumph, but found out that to go up for free it is only the 1st sunday of the months nov-mar ...

I have always been interested in France. Also in the most beautiful villages of France. One of them is Gerberoy. Close (300 km./180 miles) to my home we went to visit it. It was desolated and abandonned until Henri-Eugene le Sidaner decided to reside there. He was a painter and other artists came and restored the village to its beauty it is now.<br>

... finished: it only consists of a transept and choir with an apse.  This basically means that only about 40% of the cathedral was built, and even so, the vaulting collapsed a couple times in the 13th century and then again in the 16th century.  Either way, it is large enough to hold a decently populated congregation during mass ...

... the bus the wrong way the first time....) Church was such a blessing!!! It was so comforting to sit and feel the spirit. To be in a place where everyone was smiling. That's hard to come by in Paris. We all sat for a while after the meeting, not wanting to leave the familiarity of "home". Now I don't know if this is the rainy season for Paris, or if we just got lucky....it has rained every day that we've been here. A little tough ...

... He was traveling on his own for a few days from the air force base in Germany. He's been there two years teaching and has traveled all around now. We asked the waiter about an ATM and found we'd have to go back to Vernon. We drove down the main street and luckily came across one pretty quickly. After doing a little wash in the sink we made it to bed. (There was a heater in the bathroom which helped dry the clothes!) It was still light out when we went to bed - it ...