Mercure Yacht Club Deauville

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.

... looking the canal. 09.09.09 Saint-Pol-de-Leon N48.40'49" W3.58'58" The Aire closed 31st August. Parked up near the town centre. 10.09.09 Roscoff Laber N48.42'44" W3.59'56" Sea Breezes! Also, Radio 4 on Longwave. 11.09.09 Rostrenen N48.14'00" W3.19'09" We're meeting up with friends John and Jackie on the 13th.. 12.09.09 Pontivy N48.04'28" W2.57'48" Parked by the canal 20 metres frm the campsite we stayed at with the kids 20 years ago. 13.09.09 Rostrenen again. Went ...

... 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

... and we will have a police escort the whole way. So much for our visit to Omaha and Point du Hoc.

So back to the hotel we headed escort and all. We asked about the tolls along the way and the police told us that he will escort us through the tolls. Disappointment was very obvious to all of us. These were some of the places we were looking forward to seeing all week long, And now the possibilities are real that we may not have the opportunity to see ...

... June 5th 1944. We went to the Airborne Museum and this Tome it was Kelly who was reading every sign. We looked at group photos of the 82nd and tried to spot her grandpa, we thought there were a few that looked like him but we can't be sure. There was a reconstruction of a glider on site. I can't tell you just how fragile these things were. They were made up of wood, a little metal, and a whole bunch of canvas. Suffice it to say that they didn't look too safe. After the ...