NORMANDY AND BRITTANY
Last week I took a very quick trip with a visiting friend to Bayeux in Normandy and to St. Malo in Brittany. We only had 52 hours; I think we spent more time traveling to and from the train and on the train than we did in our destinations. In any case, the weather was very sunny and nice. It was an adventure.
We left Paris from St. Lazare station, after taking two trains to get there. The train trip took two hours and we sat with a lovely couple from upstate New York. Arriving in Bayeux, there was no time to check into our hotel as we were booked on a tour of the D-Day sites beginning at 1 p.m. A small cafe and the meeting place were across the street from the train station; our bags came with us in the trunk. There were only four of us and it was most interesting (a father and daughter from CA). Our guide, Adoline, was very nice and a wealth of information as she took us to a number of stops which were important during the invasion on June 6, 1944.
The first stop was at Gold Beach, which was the scene of the British invasion. On all of these stops, we wound around the French countryside through small little villages which faced or were near the beach where the action took place. Dinner was at a charming little restaurant behind the cathedral accompanied by a glass of wine. Our rooms have a TV, and I was able to watch the last part of a very close tennis match, the details escape me, I was shocked at having a television in front of me.
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| Wonderful museum at our first stop |
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| German bunker |
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| Carole talking to our guide, Adoline |
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| The American Cemetery |
Learned next morning via BBC that the presidential debate in the U.S. last evening was considered a draw; basic details were presented early a.m. We needed to catch our train at 7:31 a.m. and there was no time to see the Bayeux tapestries, which were on my list to try to see (next time). We got into St. Malo about 11:00 and checked into our hotel, the Anjours d'Oc, in the old walled city. The rooms here were also very nice and faced the cathedral. Our for a quick lunch and a walk on the wall around the whole city, which takes just under an hour. We then hopped on a little train called "Le Petit Train" and waited with others for the driver to show up. When he was late, I suggested we just drive the train ourselves, but, as one woman remarked, We don't have an engine. Behold, about 15 minutes later the driver and the engine come clanging down the street.
The ancient walled city of St. Malo controlled the fortified island of Rance (St. Malo is now connected to the mainland and is the most visited site in Brittany). In the 6th Century the modern city was founded by Monks and centuries later became the home of a firece breed of pirates who forced English ships passing up the Channel to pay tribute (financially). Four four years, beginning in 1590, the city becme independent. Jacques Cartier, who founded Canada, lived in and sailed from St. Malo.
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| St. Malo from above on the wall |
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| St. Vincent Cathedral |
Next morning, after a wonderful sleep, we just had time to visit the St. Vincent Cathedral, which was lovely. This church is very old and is the resting place of Cartier. Our taxi picked us up at 11 to go to the train station for our return, and we got on our high speed train with no problem just before noon. We did not arrive in Paris until right before 3 (Montparnasse), and spent a lot of time trying to find our 2 Metro stop to get back to where we pick up our bus to go back to Vaujours. Finally we found both of them. Almost there, right? Wrong. Our bus #8 stop had disappeared! A different bus # was posted there. After asking about five different bus drivers what happened to the #8 stop, we finally found it across the street. It was raining again by this time and tons of people were getting on the bus. Fortunately, we got a seat. I think this took us about another hour until we finally got back. We ate another one of our frozen dinners and went to bed.
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