Day 5 - Saturday, May 17, 2014

We left Abbeville in the morning to travel to Paris, where I would take the TGV to Lyon, while my Dad would travel to London to visit friends. Here's the village center outside our hotel.

I slept most of the way on the train, but sat near a family of four, with two daughters, who played card games the whole trip. So I resolved to pick up some card games for my children before I went home. After I arrived in Lyon, I met up with Lisa & Stacy, and we took a cab to the Hotel Citadines. In the evening I was part of a group of us who walked up to the restaurant near the Basilica Nortre Dame de Fourviere. Here is the view in the light, and after dinner, with the lights.

One thing I realized I was going to have to get used to was the pace of meals. I am generally a quick eater, and I like to finish and move on. This is just not possible in France. They like to take their time. I was also introduced to salad Lyonaisse, which has a soft-boiled egg and ham. Tremendous! The dinner was great, and I managed to arrange an additional dessert, thanks to Ben.

Day 4 - Friday, May 16, 2014

Friday morning, we left our hotel in Bayeux and decided to visit Pegasus Bridge, which was the first capture of the invasion, and included the freeing of the first French home. British gliders flew in and landed by the bridge before dawn and were told to hold the bridge until they were relieved. They were successful.

We travelled north to the small town of Azincourt, which is the location of the Battle of Azicourt, between the British & the French in 1415. This battle was made famous by Shakespeare’s Henry V. The British were outnumbered anywhere from 2-to-1 to 6-to-1, depending on who you believe.

After that, we drove to Boulogne-Sur-Mer, on the northern coast, in order ot visit the last residence of Jose de San Martin, the liberator of Argentina, Chile & Peru. The house is currently owned by the government of Argentina. Since my father and I are Argentine, this visit had meaning to us. More so to my father, who emigrated from Argentina nearly 60 years ago.

Most intriguing was a list maxims that San Martin gave to his daughter, which show him to have been an honorable man with strong character. After that visit, we headed to Abbeville for the evening. When we parked in a lot near the hotel, we were stopped by a elderly French lady, who spoke to us in French and pointed at our license plate. We had no idea what she was saying. It wasn’t until she called her husband over, who spoke some English, that we learned she had seen the license plate, which evidently indicated it was registered near where she was from. It was an amusing encounter that made me realize how little I could communicate with people when I had no idea what the conversation was supposed to be about.

Day 3 - Thursday, May 15, 2014

For the two American beaches (Omaha & Utah), we elected to take a tour, via Overlord Tours. Overlord was the code name for the D-Day invasion. Our tour guide Colin, was an Irishman who grew up in England, but has lived in France the last 10 years.

We took us to the northern end of Omaha beach, where is was high tide, and the bech was maybe 20-30 yards to the water. In reality, the Allies attacked at dawn, in low-tide, which meant they had about 300-400 yards of beach to traverse before the got to a rock shingle which vehicles couldn’t cross, followed by a flooded ditch area, then steep hills with massive German emplacements which ship fire couldn’t take out, due to massive concrete encasements.

After seeing the beach, we travelled to the American cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, which holds over 9,500 Americans who lost their lives during the Normandy campaign.

I was able to locate two Medal of Honor winners, Jimmie Monteith & Frank Peregory.

Monteith died on D-Day on Omaha Beach, after traversing the beach multiple times to encourage troops, as well as after personally leading tanks through minefields multiple times.

Frenk Peregory died 8 days after D-Day, and received his Medal of Honor for entering a German emplacement by himself with 3 grenades and a bayonet. Fifteen minutes later, he came out having killed 8 Germans and having captured 40 prisoners.

A picture of the spot where he captured the prisoners. We also visited the most dangerous spot of Omaha Beach, where the first troops to land suffered 90% casualties.

I found the tour to be very insightful. The prior day had been museums with facts and information, while the tour was filled with personal stories of individuals and their efforts to overcome obstacles to achieve their goals.

Day 2 - Wednesday, May 14, 2014

We woke up, had breakfast, and then headed from Bayeaux towards the coast, to the town of Arromanches. We stopped by the Musee de Debarquement to get our bearings, before visiting the three beaches (Sword, Juno, Gold).

It just so happened that the museum happened to have a prop from the movie The Longest Day, which details the invasion of the Normandy beaches. During the planning, the Allies created fake paratroopers attached with explosives that would go off when they hit the ground, which would sound like gunfire. This was to help confuse the Germans. Here is “Rupert”, the actual prop used in the movie. He’s about 3 feet tall.

We then made our way to the northern most beach, which is Sword Beach. The British lead the attack on Sword Beach, with elements of the French Free Army, including 177 French commandoes.

We went to the No. 4 Commando Museum, which details the contributions of the 177 French commandoes.

We watched a video presentation, and it struck me that the point of view was essentially that these French commandoes helped to uphold French honor. Throughout my trip, I came to realize that there might be a sense of collective shame for the fact that the French did not do more to resist the Germans. The French lost over 3 million during World War I, and the wounds were still fresh, and therefore, I believe it was a much harder scenario when World War II came about. Of the 177 French Commandoes, 10 lost their lives during the Normandy invasion. All 10 plaques can be seen in this photo.

After Sword Beach, we went to Juno Beach, which was also attacked by the British. One thing that stuck me about Sword, Juno & Gold Beaches, was that they were all relatively flat, and that even with the German emplacements, there really wasn’t any high ground from which to defend.

At the end of the day, we visited the battery of Longues-Sur-Mer, which consisted of four 152-mm guns.

These guns had a forward post 300 yards towards the coast, but since the French resistance cut the communication lines, the guns didn't know where to aim. Despite 5,000 ships being part of the D-Day invasion, this battery never hit a single one. That completed our day of the British beaches.

Day 1 - Arrival & Travel to Bayeux

Arrived at Charles De Gaulle airport around noon. The lines at customs were extremely short. There didn't appear to be any concerns. The officer who stamped my passport said "Bonjour" then handed me my passport and stepped out of the booth to take a cell phone call.

Met my dad outside and we got to our vehicle, which has a massive moonroof that covers the front and back seat. We closed that up and headed to Bayeux.

Loyta of countryside and very little commercial buildup is something that I notice right away when we for outside of Paris.

We had a Garmin GPS provided by the rental car company, and I don't think we could have gotten out of Paris without it. However, the battery ran out on it, which means either the DC plug or the car's DC port wasn't working.

We managed to muddle our way to Caen and on to Bayeux. When we got to Bayeux, we found an Electronics store, and purchased a Micro USB cable.  Managed to complete the transaction without a lock of French. I'm pretty much limited to saying "Merci!"

We found a Peugeot dealership and asked a guy in back who was smoking if he could take a look at our Garmin and the DC port. We accomplished this mostly through grunting and pointing.  Just kidding...maybe. The man spoke just enough English to come to our car. He tested the Garmin and said it was okay.

He took the keys to the car and got in. We joked that that was the last we'd see of the car!  The mechanic proceeded to spent the next 20 minutes looking at the car and was able to replace the fuse and get the DC connections working again.

Now came the crucial, "How much?"  We followed him into the reception area while he filled out a handwritten receipt. He then took it over to the front desk and said €0.70. What service!  They didn't even charge for labor!  We thanked the guy and tipped him €10 when his manager wasn't looking.

We arrived at the hotel without any problems, now that the GPS was working again.

The restaurant doesn't open for dinner until 7:00 PM, so we rested until then.  The bread with the meal was great, and I'm glad they have unsalted butter here, which is not common in the US.

As an aside, I have to mention that the flushing capability of the toilets in my hotel room are severely lacking.  Needs more power!  It's a two button system, one button for a mini flush, and a larger button presumably for when more oomph is needed.

Tomorrow we will head to the British landing beaches of Normandy. 

Packing Up

Just packing and getting ready for my trip to France. Setting up this blog to document my trip.