Le Marly Le Havre

... there. It was beautiful, haunting, and eerie to see the sight of where the troupes landed on D-Day. When I was in the museum, I was listening to an interactive audio recording of soldier’s experiences from D-Day, and the first button I happened to push was of a soldier from Mt. Vernon, IL! What a small world. To climb down to the actual beach part of Omaha Beach took awhile. It’s ...

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.

From Rouen we drove to Honfleur, which is a tiny harbour town on the Normandy coast. So so cute!!!! We wandered around checking out the wee boutique shops and eating galeti - yum! Nothing for dinner and as it was Sunday only one little grocery shop was open with not much selection so we opted for a fillet of freshly caught ...

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.

... a taxi and were very glad that we did. It was miles away. It turned out to be the anniversary of the freedom from German occupation for France (65 years). Went inside the cathedral which is magnificent and has beautiful stained glass windows. We then walked across the Seine (on a bridge) and had a beer and pizza 20 euros. We found that most things are about double what they are in Australia. We then headed back to the bus but were a bit further away than we ...

... 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

We couldn't leave Le Havre without finding out what this modern city, slightly clinical looking, was all about... We set off on foot after breakfast, and followed an easy way I had plotted along the map. The more I read about Le Havre, the more I liked it. The city was essentially destroyed during World War II. Very little remained after it was bombed to bits ...

... the intellectual: "In Tunizia we saw this fella who was a transvestite taking a pee in the mens urinal in a g-string, hey! do you know how to use the stove?" Aoife pronounced Eefa the matriarch(18):"I would have bashed her head in if she came at me one more time with that hurling stick and she'd deserve it!" This family is the Irish equivalent to the Osbournes, I am fascinated and entertained with this family, but not in a "Sy the Photo Guy"(Robin Williams in One ...