Pierre Lavilla Gardenia 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.

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

... day. 03.09.09 Carnac N47.35'06" W3.04'58" This aire is supposed to take 10 camping cars. We have counted more than 50. Collected a few more bites and it's rained a little. The bike has been useful and on Saturday night there was a jazz guitarist at one of the local bars. 06.09.09 Gueltas N48.05'47" W2.48'05" 07.09.09 Scaer N48.01'39" W3.41'46" 08.09.09 Chateaulin N48.11'54" 4.05'20" The Aire here is at an Intermarche and not very pleasant. We have gone off-site to a spot ...

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!<br>As the battery is flat too, we simply cast off and drove south west.<br>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.<br>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!<br>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.<br>I still have the DVD with my but no DVD drive!<br>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.<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

... Flu. Yes, I am not kidding. The Police, along with the local hospital and the French Government has quarantined about 80 Americans for a possible exposure to Swine Flu. <br><br>When we arrived at the ceremony, we were not allowed off the bus or to open any windows. We had to stay put and communicate with the police outside the bus with a cell phone. We sat for about half hour and finally, guess what? We were ordered to return to the hotel, do not stop along the ...

... had sustained direct hits and were blown to bits, but most were completely untouched. It was stunning to see the conditions under which these Rangers accomplished their mission that day. I wouldn't have wanted to be one of them. The next day we got up early and drove to Saint Marie Eglaise. This was a town that was liberated by paratroopers on the first day of the fighting. Kelly's Grandpa Kenny was in the 82nd airborne and came in on a glider around this town the night ...