Ibis Le Havre Centre

... 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.

... and of course washed down with a few glasses of rose!

Next morning we went for a run through the village and along the beach. It was a glorious morning! Afterwards Kim went to have another potter through the village, take some photos and buy groceries while I was able to have my long awaited fiddle with Scooby ...

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

... the many sea days on the cruise. Now at the end of the cruise, we wonder what we will do with not enough sea days. Sea days had become a friend; they allowed us to prepare for the next port, rest from the last port and to have time to just enjoy the ship. But today we would stay aboard the White Lady to rest and prepare for the upcoming ports of call. We came back to our cabin and researched our next port. A short nap and a movie ...

... name to Omaha. Because the Nazis had conquered France, many of its citizens were forced to work for the regime either directly or indirectly. Rene told us many people sabotaged their work as a resistance to who they were working for. Sugar was slipped into the concrete mix so when it was set and dry, the concrete would flake and crumble apart. When assembling bombs, parts would intentionally be left out ...

August 25 I woke up and left my bags looking for food and it started to rain a little but with some thunder. Caen is a town in which its more difficult to orientate myself but I still like to walk all around it. There is a castle in the middle of with which is more high and give an impressive view on the rest of the city. There is also plenty of ruin from WWII left in the city as ...