Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Normandy!

I finally made it! I planned to come to Normandy at least two other times previous to this and both times they fell through. I am so happy I came!

Sunday June 12: Trains and Trains and Trains

As I told you I was up early on Sunday, around 5am, in order to get everything ready to leave and catch my 7am train.

I left Winscho around 6:30a, caught the 7:06 train and then my day went something like this:

Groningen to Deventer - switch trains somewhere in between because the train I was on was 'dirty' (this wasn't my doing, we were made to switch trains)

Deventer to Amsterdam Schiphol - kill one hour waiting for next train, stop by starbucks for a muffin and latte

Amsterdam to Paris - in under 3 hours on a high speed train - this is where I wrote my blog

Paris Nord to Paris St. Lazare (transfer via metro)

Paris St. Lazare to Caen

Rather uneventful. This series of trains had me arrive in Caen around 6pm. Due to a serious lack of sleep I slept on most of the trains and through most of the train trips. This was good for the obvious reasons but also meant I didn't really get to take in much of the scenery or read - my favorite train activity. That said I do like sleeping on trains but it is never a very good sleep, you wake up every time the train slows down and worry you've slept too long and missed your stop.

Basically I found my hotel, then went to find dinner. My hotel isn't really near anything so finding dinner on a Sunday evening was quite a task and due to my serious lack of French I ended up ordered a salad whose second ingredient was goats cheese, followed by goat cheese dressing, topped with melted goat cheese. Goat cheese makes me gag. How sad. I'm all up for trying new things but both my nose and my stomach hate that stuff, unless it is paired with other strong flavours that tame it. Anyways I finished my meal - except the melted cheese, that I just couldn't do.

I walked back in the rain and went to bed. I was a very tired girl.

Monday June 13: Bayeux and D-Day Beach Tour

I decided that seeing as I had to pay for a hotel room - I could find no cheap accommodation in the area - and because I was exhausted, I would take my sweet time getting up and ready. This is such a luxury because when you stay in a hostel your sleeping and waking schedule is largely determined the schedules of the people in your room. Don't get me wrong, they are great for many reasons I just find that I never get a solid nights rest and I always wake up really early in a hostel.

I also was in no rush because I had booked an afternoon D-Day beaches tour leaving from Bayeux at 1pm. Bayeux is about 15 minutes away from Caen by train and Monday morning had only two trains running, one at 7:20 or one at 11am. Naturally I took the 11am train. This was nice because it left me with ample time to get into Bayeux and walk around before I had to catch the tour.

Bayeux is very adorable, very old world France. Narrow streets, cute buildings, a huge cathedral. It was largely untouched by the war because it was mostly abandoned so that the population could help to defend Caen, it's larger neighbour.

The lovely, Bayeux

So I walked around a little before sitting down for a jambon fromage grilled bagette and coffee. France is good for a lot of things, but street food is not one of them. It isn't in the French's dna to eat standing up, while walking, or as served from a vendor. This is good because it usually means that you get better food, but it also means it is difficult to save money on the food front.

After my lunch I wondered for a little while then made my way back to the train station for my tour pickup. I had tried to schedule a full day tour but there wasn't enough interest so I had to opt for the half day, which as it turns out, meant that I got put on the US beaches tour as the general one wouldn't fill up either. No bother though because it touched on the biggest spots that you want to see on the water front anyways. You see, I'd read that you either need to rent a car or do a tour because trying to do it by bus is nearly impossible and would take you forever. This was very true.

My tour was full of Americans, as is to be expected. An added bonus was that they all knew where Calgary was and liked hockey, we were off to a good start. We started with a trip to Pointe du Hoc, in the American sector. It was, I would say, the coolest place we visited. You could see all the bomb craters, it was on top of a cliff - which the American's had to scale in order to attack - and there were bunkers you could go in, in addition to lots of other original German armament remnants, or whatever you would call it. It was just so crazy to see the effects of war so clearly still there.

The bomb craters were extensive

View from inside the observation bunker

Our second stop was to Omaha beach, more of the American sector, where they suffered huge casualties. This was the beach that the start of Saving Private Ryan is based on. It was huge and you could clearly see why it posed such a problem for the Americans. It is such a peaceful and beautiful place now that it is very difficult to imagine it during the war and especially on June 6, 1945.

Looking out to the sea over Omaha Beach

After that we left and went to the American War Cemetery that is along Omaha beach. It was beautiful and huge. It was also full, and I mean chalk full, of symbolism. The crosses for all the soldiers are made out of the finest Italian marble, and they all face to America, and everywhere you look they create lines. It was quite a beautiful place to walk around. They also had a wall with the names of all the missing soldiers which was extensive. Before we left we were given time to walk through the visitor centre/museum which showed a short movie about the war. It profiled the lives of a number of the fallen soldiers. It was very nicely done. When the film ended a young teen girl behind me looked at her friends and said "That was, like, sad." Ridiculous.

Omaha Beach in the distance

From there we were driven to a place, which I wish I remembered the name of, but it had four original german weapons inside bunkers. I realize now as I write this that I clearly have no idea what the weapons etc are called but what I do know is that they are the original weapons still intact.

We headed back to the station to end our tour. At this point it was just after 6pm and I was in no rush to get back to Caen so I headed back to the centre to meander a bit before I sat down for dinner. I eventually headed back to Caen after having a relaxing meal and watching people stream past. I wish I could say I was off to bed early, but I have never been good at that.

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