21 & 22 May

 With our unexpected extra days in Paris, due to us leaving the Dordogne before originally planned, we decided to do a two day one night tour to Normandy and Brittany.  We particularly wanted to see Mont Saint Michel and San Malo, and we researched doing this ourselves, but the trains are still on strike so it’s just not possible. We did consider renting a car and driving out of Paris but very quickly came to our senses.  So we did the unthinkable and booked a tour with Paris Vision.  We were collected from our hotel at 6.25am on Saturday and driven to the headquarters in Les Pyramides.  Here we were corralled into yards and processed to the correct tour.  There were five tours leaving at that hour, all to different parts of France!  45 minutes later we were positioned in the 55 seater bus wearing headsets.  I had become one of the group tourists I have mocked for 60 years.  And I was not happy about it, but was at least seated next to my beloved and the seats were actually very comfortable.

There were two guides on board, CC for the Spanish and French commentary and Jean-Christof for the English.  His English was just a little better than my French, which admittedly has improved to almost 15 words now but I still consider a career as a tour guide unachievable at this time.  Added to his poor language skills, his accent was incredibly strong, slighting any hope of comprehension. It became evident very quickly that all the English speakers on the bus, oops coach, and that was the vast (and I mean vast) majority, felt the same way.  It also became quickly evident that CC’s English was excellent but J-C was the boss and she was only allowed to utter French and Spanish.  As we sped our way to Normandy’s capital, Rouen, J-C prattled on about who knows what whilst his group, one by one, mentally switched off and commenced their chatter.  What did provide great mirth, however, was his confusion between his right and left.  As he pointed something out on the right, he would point to the left. Of course, we were not sure what we were looking at, or why, because he was unintelligible.

We reached Rouen after two hours and were required to follow J-C, who cunningly held a furled fold up umbrella high so we wouldn’t miss him.  We had no idea where he was taking us or what he was saying, although we did glean that this was the city where Joan of Arc was tried for heresy and burned at the stake.  Cherrie and I escaped the group, as did others, and made our own way around town, which gave me time to open my pop up salon

The cathedral is pretty spectacular

 

and the market place and cobblestone streets lovely

 After 90 minutes our disparate group reassembled at the bus, sorry coach, and headed off to Hornfleur on the mouth of the Seine, where it meets the English Channel.  Once again we broke free and wandered yet another lovely 16^th Century town

We chose a waterside café for lunch where Cherrie had the district speciality, sea snails.  Silly girl.  Firstly she had to prize these rubbery creatures from their shells and then had to chew on them.  Which was no mean feat.  Like eating the sole of a Nike she said.  I’m not sure she had ever actually eaten the sole of a Nike but she has now.  I declined her offer to try one as I waded through a bowl of tiny and tasteless mussels.  All in all, not a good luncheon choice but this is the home of Calvados and I did enjoy a mug of cider!

Back on board, we are whisked to the D-Day beaches of Normandy which J-C reminded us happened on ‘6 June 19 and 4 and 4’.  First to Omaha Beach, the most heavily defended.  My recall of history, well my recall of anything really, these days is pretty poor and I wish I had known more about this invasion.  But, the beach is long and the cliffs high and an awful lot of Americans died.  It no doubt was a moving experience for the Americans on board our bus, sorry coach.  A sculpture at the beach, by a Frenchman, signifies the wings of hope and eternity and the rise to freedom.

 Next up was the American Cemetery at Colleville, quite near the beaches and on a plot of land which is officially American territory.

Then we went to a little village in the heart of the D-Day beaches, Arromanches-les-Bains and to a beach which had something to do with Winston Churchill but we didn’t have a clue what because those two words were the only two we understood.  Fortunately, the couple sitting in front of us on the bu-coach are from Frankston and he is obviously a keen amateur military historian, and filled in the gaps.  We were looking at the artificial port, which was the brainchild of Churchill, and consisted of huge floating concrete landing wharves, which were installed immediately after the 6 June 19 and 4 and 4 and allowed the unloading of massive land infrastructure, like troops, vehicles and supplies.  An amazing thing really.  Good old Winston.

 A popular grey nomad spot too

 This has been a long day.  At 7pm we are delivered to the very basic Novotel at Caen, conveniently positioned right on the motorway, and ordered to be at dinner at 7.45pm.  We were, and this is where we met some of our fellow travellers.  We were at a table of 8 with Ann and Louis from Omaha Nebraska, MJ and Crews from somewhere in America and Casey and David from wherever Warren Buffett lives (that’s all they needed to say apparently).  Personally, I couldn’t give a toss about where Warren lives.  Casey and David are a young couple on their honeymoon, he is a pilot with a small regional airline and has an interview with Delta on 6 June.  MJ (she) and Crews (he) are also on their honeymoon, second time around for both, and coincidentally they and the other honeymooners were married on the same day.  MJ is lovely, about our age and interesting.  She sold her head hunting business some years ago and spent 6 years on a yacht with one other person, which included 9 months circumnavigating Australia.  Her favourite place was NZ.  We liked MJ and Crews very much.  Ann and Louis have been married for 30 years, were childhood sweethearts and married at 19.  They clearly considered themselves the most interesting people at the table by a long shot.  He is CEO of a small healthcare company and she is an actuary.  They love Donald Trump because he says what he thinks and they agree that social security is a waste of money and that everyone should just get off their bums and work.  If, or when, Trump becomes President it will all be ok because the US has a really great system of checks and balances.  So no worries, folks.

Orders were to be at breakfast at 7am and we had to sit in the same place.  It is quite beyond Jean-Christof to count heads if they are in different seats.  Just to be recalcitrant, Cherrie and I swapped seats.

We set off at 7.45am in rain and moved from Normandy to Brittany.  We made a photo stop at Cockeye, the oyster capital of France

 In fact the brochure told us it was Cancale, but Jean-Christof only knows it as the home of the famous Cockeyed oysters.  He loves the town of Cockeye.  He also proudly showed us houses on the right, by which time we knew to turn to the left, where the owners love to skate on the roofs.  The skate is locally mined.  Needless to say, the roofs were slate.

Saint Malo, 50% of the reason we were on this tour, was up next.  It is a walled port city and once again we cut loose (as did most of the party) as soon as we could, and gave ourselves the local tour.  J-C had announced that we had 2 hours in this city and that we needed to be back at the bus by 12 and 30 o’clock this morning.  He gets a little confused with morning and afternoon.    The rain had pretty much passed and we were able to get around without umbrellas.

 

 For lunch I had the local speciality, the ‘galette bretonne’ a savoury crepe made with buckwheat flour.  Mine was leek and scallop and absolutely delicious.

Back to the bus 12 hours earlier than instructed and off to the other half of the reason for the tour, Mont San Michel.

By now everyone had given up on Jean-Christof, and we were grateful to find a potted history on the island.  It is thought to date back to 708 when the local Bishop had the sanctuary built in honour of the Archangel and it soon became a major focus of pilgrimage.  The Benedictines settled in the abbey in the 10^th century and it became an impregnable stronghold during the 100 year’s war.  It’s now a UNESO World Heritage Site and pretty amazing.  A bloody big climb to the top, too, a challenge for any knees but one which mine met.  Just.  Mrs Frankston, wife of our military historian, was extremely excited because this is where ‘In The Name of the Rose’ was shot.  It wasn’t, actually, but who were we to destroy her illusions?

Our orders to be back at the bus by 4.30 this morning were obeyed and we were once again corralled into two groups – those who were continuing on for another two days to do the Chateaux of the Loire, with Jean-Christof poor buggers, and those of us who were returning to Paris.  We were, of course, in the latter group and were moved to a double decker bus with far less comfortable seating, and driven five hours back to Paris.  A quick 7pm stop at a fuel station for supplies, mostly consisting of pre-packaged sandwiches and packets of chips, revealed long queues for fuel and we learned that the refinery workers were also on strike, along with the rail staff.  Our sandwich sustained us until our 9.30pm arrival in Paris and a taxi transfer back to the hotel.  750km clocked up over two days.