Normandy

The Cathedral in Chartre

      
 Hmmm strange day, sorry I haven’t written for a while, we haven’t had any internet access recently. We’re in Normandy now, where the famous D-Day landings took place, and have been for a couple days. We left Paris two days ago and took the train to Chartre where we picked up our car and drove the 5 hours to Normandy (only getting slightly lost on the way). We drove through tiny town after tiny town, which all looked like they had been there forever, but had in fact only been built less then 60 years ago after most towns had been leveled by retreating German troops or advancing allied ones. And although some towns have chosen to go with a more modern layout, many have decided to rebuild the houses and castle walls exactly how they were, before it was all blow to bits.

        We rolled into our bed and breakfast around 7 and were greeted by an elderly mostly deaf English lady who ran the establishment. She made us some tea and told us that for some reason, the room we had booked was not available. And I would be sleeping in an old barn recently turned apartment that was across the road. I’ll admit I was a little creaped out the prospect of staying there for four or five nights. It could have easily fit all three of us and was much bigger then my parents room, so my dad decided to come over and try it out for a night and see how it would work. Not thinking it would be a problem, I slept on the couch. The next morning we all woke up, refreshed if a little bleary eyed and went down to breakfast in the kitchen. She asked how my night had been and I said it was really great and that I actually just slept on the couch because my dad was sleeping on the bed. (very  very bad move). She seriously started freaking out, asking us why we were so displeased, and we assured here that it was fine but the more we said that the worse she got until finally at the end of breakfast she moaned “ohhhh! I’m getting the sense that your displeased we everything”. She was a total Mrs. Richards (if any of you have seen the TV show “Faulty Towers” with John Cleese, you’ll know what I’m talking about). When she doesn’t understand you she say’s “Pardon!” in a shrill, high pitched voice and looks at you as if you had just uttered something obscene. She’s more then slightly lost her marbles.                

           We said goodbye to her for the day, (all dreading our return) and cruzed out along the coast to the town of Bayeux. We had intended to go further along the coast to what was said to be one of the best museums in Normandy, but got lost once again and ended up on the wrong side of town. So we decided to take a quick peek at one of the numerous D-Day museums which was nearby and looked

The local fire authoritys 

promising before heading north once again.  We had scarcely been in for half an our before we were all rushed out of the building and into the parking lot, when we asked an attendant what was happening he said “oh it iz joost a wittle fire” (that’s my attempt at a French accent by the way). Sure enough, before long, all the fire engines, police and paramedics came zooming in with their sirens blaring. We stay for a while, watching things unfold and by the time we left, there were at least 6 emergency vehicles crammed into the little parking lot.

         

          We drove north along the beaches and concrete bunkers that 60 years ago would have been filled with soldiers and stopped at the town of Auromonches. Since it was close to the 60th anniversary of the landings, American, Canadian and British flags were strung from rooftop to rooftop in honor of the troops who had died to liberate their country. Auromonches was a significant point in the D-Day landings code named “operation Overlord”, not because troops were deployed there but because it is one of the most amazing feet’s of engineering in the entire world. In less then a week they Allies were able to build a harbor strong enough to withstand the punishing Atlantic Ocean and large enough to supply millions of troops. In the 8 months that it was in service, it deployed 2.5 million men, 500,000 vehicles and 4 million tons of supplies. It was built using 600,000 tons of concrete and over a dozen giant cargo ships that they floated over the channel and then sank according to plan.

Port Winston (in the distance you can see a few remaining blocks of concrete that were part of the original harbor). 

          The rest of the day proved rather uneventful after the excitement of the morning until we finally returned to our B&B. We had decided to possibly find another place the next day since we were obviously causing this lady nothing but trouble and we needed to use the Internet. However, when we pulled into the driveway (rather late because we’d had a hard time finding somewhere to eat), there she was, waiting in the doorway. She had moved all of my stuff out of the apartment/barn and into a new “family room” (which is what we had asked for in the first place). It was a nice place and would have been great if we hadn’t felt like we were being watched every minute.