Mercure Deauville Pont l'Eveque Saint-Martin-aux-Chartrains

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.

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.

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

... and continued nonstop for the next 30 hours. So next day (Tues) we went to Caen, to visit art gallery and bank; the gallery was closed, but we managed to open a French bank account. Caen is no doubt a fine historic town but in the pouring rain its charms were considerably reduced so we drove back to the campsite, stopping en route at a supermarket . While queuing at the ...

... the night of June 5, 1944. We made a stop in the fashionable twin towns of Deauville-Trouville, where, for the first time on this trip, I felt under-dressed in my hiking pants and casual wear! This lovely - and slightly snobbish - town sees throngs of tourists invade it in summer months. Hopping back in the car, we continued towards Le Havre, where we planned to spend the night. Our next stop on the way was in the old, romantic town of Honfleur, from where Jacques ...

... for architects, engineers, and builders. What was meant to last only six days has lasted over fifty years; Winston Churchill should be a proud man. The museum also contained mementos behind separate glass displays from each country that fought in the name of liberation. We left the museum and walked out onto the boardwalk for a view of what remains of the harbor. As I stood on the sand of this beach and looked out at the remnants of the harbor sticking out above the water, it wasn ...