Saturday, May 19, 2012 – Got things packed, had a quick breakfast and we were on the road by 9AM as planned. Today’s journey will take us all the way across France, over 800 km to near Bagnoles d’Orne, Normandy. We left Munster and the vineyards in the sunshine that made the drive more enjoyable. We drove south to Belfort, then instead of reversing our route from last week from Burgundy, we headed northwest to Langers. It was quite rural and not highly populated along this route – mostly farming.
Once in Langres, we joined up with the autoroute system. We found an autocafe along the route to grab a quick bite to eating before heading up near Paris and skirting around it. We continued down past Chartres and then north at Le Mans to Alencon. We made a stop in Alencon to pick up groceries for a number of days. We’re going to use up the rest of our supplies that we’ve kept on hand the last few months as we’re getting near the end of trip, and we give back our car on Saturday. Traffic was much less today than we anticipated compared to our prior drive along the autoroute in this part of France a few weeks ago. The rain began to fall near Alencon and continued on to our destination of La Colougne, a tiny hamlet outside of Haleine, about 6 km from Bagnoles de l’Orne.
Sunday, May 20, 2012 – Really raining today, so after our 800 km drive yesterday, we decided to hang out in our gite we’ve rented for the week. The owner is actually from Calgary, an interesting coincidence. It is large and very well equipped, fast Internet, British satellite TV, and a great quaint location! It’ll be a great week. We went for a walk to check out the rural roads around this little hamlet of about 5 houses. The rural road is fine, but once we met up with a more utilized road, we chose not to walk on it as there was no shoulder, its wet out, and the cars seemed to be going fast. Later we Skyped a number of people and caught up – it was great to chat.
Monday, May 21, 2012 – It’s still raining today – everything is very vibrant green. From reading the guest book, it does rain fairly frequently here, but it is beautiful – very much like Brittany. Finally stopped raining after lunch! We went for a drive to check out the spa town Bagnoles de l’Orne - a pretty town with thermal spas, quaint and well-maintained old buildings. There’s a nice park system where we went for a walk around the pond within it. We walked along some of the streets, enjoying the gardens and buildings. On the way back to our car, we came across a chocolatier where we purchased some yummy morsels to enjoy over the next few days. We also stopped at a bakery to pick up a fresh loaf of bread to enjoy back at the gite.
We went for a drive out in the rural areas and through some villages nearby. One thing we will remember about France is the quaint villages we have come across. We return back to the gite where we have a great dinner and enjoy some TV.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012 – Today we decided to head north up to the Canadian DDay landing beach, Juno Beach, as well as the Canadian Museum. It is about 130 km of here. We drove from our little hamlet through Domfront, another medieval city. We passed a fortress, William the Conqueror era, that overlooked parts of the town with some walls crumbling. There are also some narrow streets only accessible by foot.
We then drove through numerous towns until we reached Caen, a city destroyed by WW II bombing, and rebuilt since then, so now a modern city of 115 000 people. We talked how it looks bigger than the stated population. Our destination is to a little seaside town Courseulles sur Mer where Juno Beach and the Canadian built museum are located. We spent about 2.5 hours here and likely could have spent more, but the French lunch hour was nearing an end.
The museum was built by donations to commemorate Canada’s contribution to France’s eventual liberation from Germany. When veterans came to DDay commemorative ceremonies and noticed that Canada’s story wasn’t being told, they took it upon themselves to present it. It’s a great museum as well as park that locals and tourists can enjoy and learn from. There was a wealth of information that all three of us found interesting and informative. It was well worth the drive and J had just learned about these events in his social studies curriculum this year.
After the museum, we headed for lunch at an outdoor café near the marina. After a delicious leisure lunch, we headed north to the city of Honfleur, located across the harbor from Le Havre.
We found a parking spot right down by the picturesque harbor. It is here that we found the commemorative plaque of the site/building where Samuel de Champlain left to discover Quebec in 1603. The harbor is lined with tall slim buildings, built this way because long ago, buildings were taxed based on width on the street front. So, the buildings were slim but built with 5 or 6 stories. The harbor has all sorts of cafes lining it on three sides. We walk by artists painting the scenes and all sorts of tourists sitting at a table enjoying the view, sunshine and some libation.
How's that for a low bridge? I wonder how all the sail boats get under it?
We chose a different return route through Liseaux, with a great looking cathedral, as well as some little villages that led us to our quick stop in Camembert. This town, the namesake of that wonderful creamy cheese is about 10 buildings, including the maison du fromage. We read about the history of the cheese, introduced to the farmers by a monk who left Brittany and taught them a new cheese making. We bought a small wheel of Camembert as well as a small bottle of VSOP Calvados, apple brandy, another specialty of this region.
Our short detour led us along narrow roads alongside individual farmyards. We traveled through several towns including Argentan, for about an hour before we arrived back at our place. We had a quick dinner and enjoyed some TV while catching up on some emails.
Wednesday, May 23, 2012 – Today, we enjoyed the sunshine and warmth, it was 25C. J and T played paddleball outside, and enjoyed a rousing game. After lunch, we went for a ride along one of the many countryside roads with a stop at a Super U to pick up some groceries for the remainder of the week. There are many farms raising cattle mainly dairy - no wonder Normandy is known for its cream and cheese!
We drove through the town of La Ferté – Macé with and detoured along a street to take a picture of its cool church, the use of bricks on the exterior was something that we hadn’t seen anything like this. Actually we have seen some wonderful churches and especially in northern France. It seems that almost every village, town, or city has a church with a towering spire.
Thursday, May 24, 2012 – Today, we were up early and on the road by 8am for our road trip to go to Le Mont-St- Michel, another pilgrimage site like several other places we have visited on this leg of our journey. It’s one of the most visited landmarks of France. According to our tourist book it’s crawling with tourists between 11 and 4 pm, so we’re up early. Even though it’s only 100 km away it takes about an hour and half because we’re traveling on roads that go through many towns.
We have no trouble finding the parking area. However, it’s somewhat foggy, so we can’t see the top of the spire with Archangel St. Michael. We’re dressed in shorts, and we hope it’ll get warmer later. Mont St Michel is an abbey, still inhabited with monks. It’s currently attached to the mainland by a causeway. However, the French are doing extensive work to re-establish the island. When we arrived around 9:30 the parking lot was near empty. We walk about a km, crossing the causeway, to arrive at the entrance. While walking, we noticed there were shuttle buses running to the village city. Oh well, we can use the exercise.
With our trusty Rick Steeve’s book we plotted out our trek up to the abbey entrance avoiding crowds of the people. We walked along the ramparts climbing stairs in relative isolation. There were some wonderful views of Bay St. Michel. Tide is going out, apparently it’s second to the Fundy tides in strength and size. Once we reached the entrance, the singles line was empty while the groups line had many people in it, likely 4 or 5 buses. We bought our tickets and picked up an audioguide and bypassed the line of “group” tourists and headed in.
The first place we passed through had models of the Abbey. The original, a modest sanctuary built atop of the rock around 708 AD, eventually morphed over the centuries into the huge edifice it is today. The architecture and engineering are amazing. Typical of an abbey, everything is plain inside. We spent a couple of hours here. When finished the tour, we walked down through the one narrow street into the village below. It was busy with tourists walking up to the abbey or browsing in the myriad of tourist souvenir shops, restaurants. There are a few little hotels on the island as well. We were pleased with our decision to skirt around the village on the way up.
We noticed the crowds of people arriving as we were leaving. We did take advantage of the shuttle bus as it pulled up just as we were getting ready to leave. J was very happy about that. The parking lot was filling up now – with more people arriving. It must be insane during the summer!
We decided to drive over to Cancale, Brittany to have lunch. It’s along the “Emerald Coast” and known for its oyster and mussel farming. We had a wonderful lunch with cooked oysters as well as fish mains. It was wonderful sitting in the sunshine, 22 C, along the coast and enjoyed the atmosphere. The tide continued to go out while we were eating. On the way back to the car park, we could see the local fisherman checking their oyster/mussel farms.
The drive back to our place was enjoyable and enjoyed the beauty of the flowering shrubs as well as the sights. When we returned inland to our place, it was 25 C, so we chilled until dinner and then watched TV for the evening.
Friday, May 25, 2012 – Today’s another beautiful day in Normandy, it’s again 25 C. We’re getting organized to head to Paris tomorrow to drop off our trusty Peugeot that’s kept us company for almost 4 months now. We did a few errands and went for one final drive along the Normandy country roads – we have enjoyed doing these drives. Certainly the Normandy area reminds M of eastern Canada, with many many roads, farmland, and quaint villages. We decide to go out for dinner at the Café du Paris in Bagnoles de l’Orne which overlookeds the lake. It was a nice evening out and we did a little tour of the town looking for ice-cream, but everything was closed except for restaurants – oh well, we’ll survive. We head back to the apartment to catch another episode of NCIS before heading off to bed.
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