Hotel le Green 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.

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

... was beautiful. It is one of the few towns in Normandy that wasn't heavily damaged during World War II.

From Bayeux, we drove to Omaha beach and the US Memorial cemetary there. It is a nice memorial, but so sad to see those 9,733 white crosses...

We left the D-Day beach area, drove through some beautiful Normandy countryside, and sampled the local apple cider liquor... called Calvados on our way back to the ship.

This was a wonderful day.

... Jon & Debra, Rob & Jeannette, Peter & Dawn, Roy & Diane. Our private tour was conducted by Rene of A Paris Travel. He is a dual French/US citizen and speaks excellent English. Three vans led by Rene took us first to the village of Bayeux to see the Tapestry. It just so happened that the village was celebrating a festival (memoire du monde de l'unesco). Village people dressed in ...

... the 3rd floor and no elevator - paid the young wrestler to carry bags - life is good. We had the only 2 rooms on the 3 floor which was an added bonus. Dinner was stellar and I ordered a 1996 Moulis 'Maucaillou' - one of my favorite wines. We have had many, many, many nice wines on this trip. They matched the food and cheese along the way. Took a picture of their kitchen - happiness is just a menu away.