Normandy Barriere Deauville

... steep to get down to the shore, it&#8217;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&amp;B and had dinner at a nice restaurant, too bad I ordered my steak too rare&#8230;<br>

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. <br> 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. <br>Town has spectacular cliffs beautiful old building full of character.<br>

... by works car parks and on the other by a busy road hence a noisy night and not much sleep. Went round the museum - mainly nautical - and though it had the edge on ****-pots it wasn't particularly interesting. French museums in our experience tend to be a touch boring. I got ripped-off - I felt - at an internet cafe where I was charged 7.50eu for two coffees and half an hour on a computer which wouldn't accept my memory-stick. 18.09.09 Saint Brice-En-Cogles N48.24'40" W1 ...

... and not wanting to feed five of us, we regretted the company as we did not want to stop.<br>We dropped them off at the entrace to another motorway and wished them on their way. We promptly stopped for lunch and a coffee!<br>Another experience ticked off our list at least.<br>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.<br>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.<br>I've been here before when i did some sailing in my youth so i know it well.<br>It seemed safe enough as there must have been 50 motorhomes but there was a broken window overnight for someone! <br>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

... joy and admiration from myself and many others on this trip of the men who jumped and served.<br><br>Some folks that did not have the opportunity to go into Deauville yesterday went ahead into town a few minutes ago, but I wanted to get this written and now I think I am going to pop a DVD in the computer and try to relax a bit. <br><br>On a side note, I spoke to Paddy, one of the guys that is on the tour with us, and he was in contact with the US Army and it is ...

... times during the day. It was besieged for over 30 years during the 100 years war and never gave up. The city now is kind of a tourist trap. Well, that's not to imply that it's not worth seeing, because it is fantastically beautiful and I can't fathom how they built this place. The view from the city is the best part, as it looks over the tidal basin which has all these wonderful swirling designs in the mud. While we were there, several teams of French paratroopers made ...