Well Hello Paris - It's Time to Say Goodbye (for the weekend)

Friday July 25th Evening:

We just made it to Paris from Kaiserslautern. We have checked in to our penthouse apartment and the majority of our luggage is here to stay for a while. 

After figuring out sleeping arrangements it was time for dinner. Nobody really wanted to try and find a table for ten with no reservation and it was a beautiful evening. It was time to try out our awesome rooftop terrace. 

In Paris, right? Baguettes, check, wine, check, assorted cheese, check check check. 

Good job Gary, Amie, Meme, and Cindy on dinner. One of the best ever.What a great evening spent with the family in a great setting. 

Additional views from the apartment. 

The girls could not stand it. They had to get out into the streets a little that evening before calling it a night. One thing we noticed immediately was the daylight hours in Paris in the summer. It is on the far western edge of the time zone and very far north compared to Texas. It was still twilight after 10pm.

Can't stay out too late though. We had one of our longest days starting in the morning, and that is saying something for this trip. 

Saturday July 26th:

What a rough start to this day. I think I might have lost it for a while, things were looking really bad for a time. The plan was to leave most of the luggage in our Paris apartment, pack an overnight bag, and spend a couple of days in the Normandy area. The goal was to see Mont St. Michel on Saturday and the D-Day landing beaches and other sites associated with Operation Overlord on Sunday before returning back to Paris Sunday evening. The map below shows the massive distance that we covered on day 1.

We had a guided tour set up for both days but they were meeting us in the Normandy area. We had to ride the train to Caen France to meet the guides who would then drive us the rest of the way. I thought this was smart planning to avoid the congested roadways for the bulk of the distance, the problem is that you have to catch the train on time. We only had to walk two blocks to get to the local subway stop that takes us to the Saint Lazare stop where our regional train to Normandy leaves. This was our first morning in Paris and we had not quite figured out the subway system yet. We ended up going down the stairs to a stop that was a secondary entry/exit and therefore had no place to purchase tickets. Gary and I left everyone else behind and tried to find tickets. We returned a few minutes later, now a little behind schedule but still okay. Then trying to get all ten of us successfully through the turnstile put us further behind. I am sure the closed circuit security tape would be hilarious. I still don't know exactly what happened but several of us had issues leading to people trying to double up through the gate or just jumping it after the ticket did not work. We finally got to the track for our local train that comes every three minutes. Nine minutes later it finally arrived. I was already panicking, we were going to miss our regional train that would have a domino effect on the rest of the schedule. 

We made it to Saint Lazare and rushed off the train not knowing where to go to catch the regional. We went up one level, asked some employees that simply told us to go to the ground level. Once there we still found no monitors that listed our train. It was now seconds from the departure time and we had no clue where to go. Then around a corner on the back side of a set of monitors we found a reference to our train. Track 16. Cindy notices that it is showing delayed, maybe there is a chance. We look around, there is a sign that tells us to go up the escalator for tracks 1-5, we are looking for 16. All of us look around and there is no reference to any other tracks above 5, much less 16. Every second we stood there seemed like an eternity trying to figure this out. This is when my sister noticed I was losing it. The frustration was boiling over thinking about the wasted time and money because of missing this train. We eventually just started walking down a long corridor, and there is was. Another sign pointing up the escalator for tracks 6-10, in the distance another one for 11-15 and so on. We made it to the track and miraculously the train was there, but the rush was still on. We had to get several cars back to our assigned car and seats. All of us were worried about the doors closing at any moment and missing the train, or even worse some people get on and some do not. Some of us jumped on one car early with plans of walking through the train to get to the other car. This plan failed as there were bicycles blocking access between cars and the people were not going to move them. We reluctantly got off and ran to the next door to get back on. Our group was split in to two groups for this ride. Everyone made it on and the train departed 15 minutes later than planned. We made it on board twelve minutes after the scheduled departure. 

We still do not know why the train left late. After all, this location is where the train originated the journey. It was not like it was delayed coming from another station into Saint Lazare. Everything that morning worked against us but in the end it was okay. We simply got lucky and I am so thankful. I am not sure what we would have done if we had missed it. The hotel plans in Kaiserslautern was minor compared to this potential disaster.  

The tour guides met us at Caen. There were no problems other than traffic trying to get out of the city and on to the highway. For this weekend we had two vans and two drivers/guides. The van that I was in was leading out of Caen. This lady stayed in the right lane come hell or high water. We would have been on the highway twenty minutes earlier if she had just moved over for a kilometer then got back over. As I have gotten older my filter has opened up more. I think in most situations I would have said something to her. Even though the almost missed train was a couple of hours before I think I was still feeling fortunate to be in the van stuck in traffic. At least stuck in the right lane. We eventually made it to the highway exit and had a nice drive to Mont St. Michel. 

A couple of years ago you could park pretty close to the MSM, now they have a large parking area a few kilometers away with a bus system to get you the rest of the way. After the guides driving decisions delayed our progress, now she had us walking the wrong way to catch the bus. I was starting to question if this tour guide thing was going to be worth it. We gave them the benefit of the doubt. They usually only do D-Day related tours and MSM was a little out of the normal for them. Tour guides are not allowed to take groups into MSM so we were mainly relying on them for transportation on this day. 

This place is really tough to get to from Paris. I have to think most people that visit are staying in the Normandy area. I did find several day trips from Paris on large buses, but I wanted no part of that. It includes about eight hours on a bus to make the round trip. Regardless the people were coming from somewhere. This place was busy. Now I understand why they say it is one of the most visited places in France and all of Europe.

When you walk in it is like a little village with shops on both sides of the narrow street. This is no longer a functioning monastery, it is very commercial. Most of the people that live here run the shops or are employees of the area that sell tickets or take care of the property. The street winds around and around uphill the whole way until you arrive at the abbey at the top. 

During the walk up the shops stop along the path and you get a good view of the abbey. Upon reaching the lower levels of the abbey there is a large open courtyard area with views all around. Below is the old road and parking areas. Now it is the pedestrian walkway and bus drop off site.

The way our schedule worked out we arrived at low tide. One of the fascinations with this place is that every 12 hours it is an island, during high tide. It would have been cool to see the high tide but the low tide was fascinating as well. Up on top of this large city mountain you could barely see the water of the English Channel in the distance. I had no idea the tides went so far.

There were various groups of people walking around in the sand, some as far out as the rocky structure in the distance above. It was a very hazy day so it took some playing with the camera setting to get any contrast in the sky sand and water.

From the courtyard area this was the view of the abbey. We hung out here for a while and took some good pictures.

We did go inside and take a tour of the abbey. It was interesting and different. The structure was very large and had lots of rooms and levels and you might imagine. It was all hard masonry surfaces throughout with many of the rooms finished out in the medieval style. 

During the tour towards the end you come to a central courtyard area that was very nice. 

After the tour and a few more pictures we made the journey back down the mont. We still had a little time before we were supposed to meet up with the tour guides. We decided to make our way out to the sand. 

To my surprise, our best beach girl was not happy. Apparently this was not the right kind of sand. Here feet were dirty and muddy and the princess was not having it.

You can see in this family shot she was still not excited about the sand. She eventually forgot about it and ran around for a while with her brother and cousins.

Love it!! Best shot ever. 

We had arranged to drive to the medieval town of St. Malo after the MSM. With the early morning, train delay, traffic problems, and exhaustion of the trip overall we decided to make the drive back to Bayeux where our hotel for the night was located. Nobody wanted to drive 45 minutes further away to see the town. The drive back was thankfully pretty uneventful. They dropped us at the hotel and we checked in. We had dinner reservations at a restaurant that had tables inside huge wine barrels. It was gimmicky but fun still. Josh discovered a cider that is popular in the area. I liked it but Gary did not care too much for it. I think "horse piss" was the phrase that he used. The food was good for the hungry group, but everyone got really hot over the course of the dinner. Inside the barrel in the back of the restaurant close to the kitchen was not the best place. Most of us had a casserole thing made with a local cheese. I thought it was good. We made it out of there and back to the hotel for the evening. Lauren started to feel sick during dinner. It must have been a combination of exhaustion, heat from the barrel, and maybe the food. She was good to go the next morning. 

So far the trip had been packed with activities and travel requirements. This day was tough enough even without the train problems. After making it past this day things were going to start getting a little easier. Everyone was very excited about the tour on Sunday and seeing the sites of D-Day.