Park Hotel 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.

... just rubbish. As in Les A the town was closed to traffic but had we been desperate to buy we couldn't have found a single thing. Not that the French weren't buying!. The aire had filled up with camping cars and people were ferrying bag after bag of junk to them. One mans junk ..... 21.09.09 Mayenne N48.18'11" W0.36'56" No official aire here but a good spot next to the river and the Tourist Info. 22.09.09 Vire N48.50'27" W0.53'20" For some time now we have been noticing ...

... 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

... to Deauville, which was our final destination for the day. We stopped at the beach for a little bit to walk around. The casino was right across the street and it is the 3rd largest in France. Deauville is basically known for its beach and casino. We were taken to our hotel which was a lot like the first in size. We had about 45 minutes in our room before ...

... campsite. After setting up we went back into to town and got our pictures developed, some ice cream and decent pizza. At the pizza place we met some more Canadians, who were teachers touring the area to learn more about the history of D-Day. They were kind of weinerish, but very nice. One dude was a Seahawks fan though, so props to him. That was our night. Next day we wandered before having a nice bus driver take us to the bus stop that would get us to ...