Normandy, France
Trip Start
Feb 27, 2008
1
30
31
Trip End
May 28, 2008
Normandy,
France
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Boat on Utah beach
. Though delayed several times, we finally made it to Paris, but it was now too late to get to Normandy in time to pick up the rental car. So we picked it up in Paris Gare du Nord instead. Getting the car early was good, but driving through Paris was stressful. I luckily had my GPS with me and Karla ran the laptop and navigated us out of the city and up to Normandy. I found a deal online and rented a little Fiat diesel. It was fun to drive, but I had to constantly do the conversion between kilometers and miles because the car didn't have MPH on the speedometer. French highways are similar to German highways. There is a maximum speed limit posted but nobody follows it. The French equivalent of the Interstate has frequent toll stations though. We spent about $20 just to get three hours down the road, not to mention the ridiculous price for gas. We arrived in a small little town named St. Marcan just minutes from Mont St. Michel. The hostel was run by a lovely British couple who had remade an old farmhouse into a hostel. The place was kept neat and included a great breakfast. The town was very small, maybe a few hundred people at most. But there was a neat looking bar across the street and an English pub up the street called the Oystercatcher pub. "Pool and Darts! Special....Curry Chicken" it said on the sign as we walked in. I walked up to the bar to ask for a menu but the bar owner gave me a confused look when I asked if he had a menu "Bonjour, miseur". Great, I thought, nobody's going to speak English up here
church
. I waved my hands making the international sign for big and I said "beer" looking to see if the guy understood me. There was an awkward silence for a moment before laughter erupted from the table behind me. The bartender had a huge grin on his face, "let's just do it in English," he said. To my relief, everyone in the bar actually spoke English. The barman with the sense of humor was a transplant from England, just like the hotel owners. The people at the back table were also travelers staying at our hostel that night. It was too late for food but the bartender cooked us up some fries and chicken strips anyway. Staying in a small town has its perks. Getting after hours food in Paris would never happen. We found out that tomorrow there was a marathon that would be ending in Mont St. Michel. The travelers advised to stay away from there tomorrow if we had the option. Remembering the crowded streets during the Copenhagen marathon we decided to do the D-Day beaches first, then visit Mont St. Michel the following day. Day 86 - It was a less than ideal day today. The rain threatened as we enjoyed our breakfast and I wondered if going to the beaches was going to be a bad idea. When you look at the map, the Normandy beaches aren't that far from Mont St. Michel. But trying to drive through all the small back roads makes it a lot longer
D-day boat
. It took us nearly two hours to get there. The Normandy beaches hold a special significance to me because my grandpa was one of the thousands of men who landed in 1944 and went through France in the Battle of Normandy. Our first stop was Utah beach. A museum and memorial sits now on the location of a German stronghold. I was surprised by how much of the beach still has evidence of the invasion. Steel pilings, barbed wire, concrete bunkers, and even rusting guns are still present all along the beaches. We explored the beaches and when it began to rain, we went inside the museum and looked at the old pictures and maps. There were even 2 of the "ducks" transport vans that were used to bring men onto the beach. After lunch we continued south along the beach. The next stop was a graveyard between Utah and Omaha beaches. This used to be a graveyard for all solders but the French, and British removed their dead after the war making it an all-German graveyard. I wondered how the French felt about having a German graveyard on their beaches. We were actually looking for the American Graveyard in the area so we didn't stay that long in before heading further south to Point Du Hoc on Omaha Beach. If you've never heard of Point Du Hoc before, you should look it up online because I can't believe anyone was able to capture this stronghold. The largest and most dangerous German guns were located on this cliff and though the allies bombed it mercilessly before the invasion, several of the guns were still in operation when the invasion started
Fiat
. A special group was sent at the beginning of the raid to scale the 250-foot vertical wall and take out the guns so the Navy boats could pull close into the beach without taking fire from the large and dangerous guns. This has to be the most amazing feat I've ever seen from the second war. The ground looks like the surface of the moon with grass stretched over it. The destroyed piles of rubble mark where the guns used to be located. This must have seemed like a suicide mission to the men who had to scale the 250 foot cliff and THEN get shot at. We drove back through more back roads. Normandy looks exactly like all the movies make it out to look. Fields divided by fences and tall hedges. Most of the towns are very small, rural, and non-commercial. I was surprised how much new development has not effected this area. I'm not sure if French law now protects it, but this is one area where new home development has not exploded. When we returned to out hostel we headed back to the Oystercatcher bar for dinner. The bartender was in rare form, as always. Giving everyone a hard time. The other guests from the hostel came in after a few minutes and we compared notes on our days experience. They had gotten rained on pretty hard at Mont St. Michel, I was glad we waited a day to experience that. We decided to play darts to pass the time. Neither Karla nor I are very good at darts. Later that night, to our surprise the local dart club was meeting tonight and after we hacked through a few games they got up and drilled the bulls eye time and time again
German Graveyard
. To me, being really good at darts is like being really good at hackey sack. It begs the question of where you found enough time to develop the skill and could you not have done something better with your time than learn to kick a sack with great precision? Good times were had by all and after several good English beers we returned to our hostel for good sleep.Day 87 - Today I woke up early and drove down to Mont St. Michel to take some pictures and check out the situation. Evidence of the Marathon the day before was still scattered about everywhere but there were significantly less people. I retuned to fetch Karla and we made our way back. Inside the walls if the city there are tiny medieval streets lined with shops and café's. The cathedral and abbey tower over the town menacingly and I'm sure that the city around it was only built to support the church perched on top. The intertidal area stretches for miles toward the coast. Mont St. Michel and two other uninhabited granite islands stick out of the sediments like icebergs on the open ocean. There is a road that now connects the island city to the mainland and because this road was built. Water no longer completely surrounds it when the tide comes in like it once did. This is causing a lot of sediments to be dropped off near the man made road. I did overhear people talking about plans that the French government have to remove the road so that the island will return to its original state
German Graveyard center
. I happened to think that it was pretty handy to drive right up to it. We bought tickets for a guided tour later that afternoon and had lunch in a restaurant while we waited for our tour time. Apparently the Mont was a place of religious pilgrimage in earlier centuries. There was an exposition of art on religious pilgrimages on display in the abbey. The exposition was apparently comparing Mont St. Michel to other famous pilgrimage sites like Crogh Patrick, Mecca, Babylon and others. Personally I wouldn't put it in the same category, but for those who had to walk across 8 miles of sand and muck before the tide came in around them, I'm sure it was a religious experience. The tour was informational and educational, we actually had a real live tour guide for this one. Which is rare now days. Audio guides are the wave of the future, and the ability to go at any speed and in almost any language is phasing out the need for the live guide. But I always enjoy having a real person because you hear about stories and can ask questions rather than just hear the facts. If I just wanted the facts, I'd watch the discovery channel. There is still a religious community in place in the abbey of Mont St. Michel. I read that there is at least one person constantly praying around the clock to provide a spiritual air to the location. I didn't feel this until after I learned that piece of information. I'm not sure if it's totally true but it makes for a good story to tell tourists. The guide also told us that approximately 4 million people come to Mont St
Gun on Utah beach
. Michel every year, but only a quarter of them actually take the time to go on a tour of the abbey. This is a shame because it's the majority of the island and is, in my opinion, the most interesting part. Plus the best views of the surrounding area are obviously from the top. We walked back though the shops on our way out and then returned to our hostel for a nap and to reorganize before going to the Oystercatcher bar again for dinner. I decided to try the Curry chicken that was on special and it was great. (for those of you who read my Copenhagen entry about the Indians cooking burritos, this now means that the two Mexicans will be cooking wicked fish and chips). The bartenders antics were hilarious and the whole experience was better than any dinner and a show. We retired to our room early to repack our things and get ready for the long drive back to Paris the next day. I reflected on our experiences a little and I enjoyed being out in this rural backwoods area almost as much as any major city we've been to so far. It's all about going out and finding the things that interest you rather than waiting for a tour bus to drop you off at them. There are probably hundreds of little rural areas just like Normandy that we've missed but we'll have to leave something for next time I suppose.
