Premiere Classe Lisieux

... steep to get down to the shore, it’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&B and had dinner at a nice restaurant, too bad I ordered my steak too rare…

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.

... and of course washed down with a few glasses of rose!

Next morning we went for a run through the village and along the beach. It was a glorious morning! Afterwards Kim went to have another potter through the village, take some photos and buy groceries while I was able to have my long awaited fiddle with Scooby ...

... 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 a lack of battery power. We replaced one of our ...

... see memorials, flags and plaques for the brave men and women of other countries. I really enjoyed learning the history of this drop zone as everything I have read or seen always focuses on the American landing at Omaha…what a nice segway.

Next beach is Omaha. Again it is great to hear the history, see the memorials and walk through the various bunkers. This as well as the various ramparts and guns on display give a tiny insight into the virtually insurmountable ...

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

... the building. Maybe it's from studying all this World War II context, but I feel like we're all whispering, scooting around and trying to get the tokens on the black market. "Psst, do you have laundry tokens? Whatever you paid I'll give you double." I don't understand why they only have a limited amount like that. The woman at the front desk fortunately had some yesterday but was trying to convince me that I don't need a dryer token, that I could hang my clothes up in my bathroom ...

... We opted out of Bayeux's WWII memorial and went to the TI to book a tour of the D-Day beaches. We met a nice American woman there, Karen, and after much thought and consideration, we picked a tour for the next day. Karen was in Paris on business and decided to come to Normandy for a few days in between meetings. She used her Blackberry to book all three of us for the following day and we gave her some touring points of interest Bayeux. Turned out she was also from New York ...