Vive la France!

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I shake you warmly by the hand.
So, we are in the absolutely beautiful country of France, and I do emphasize beautiful. Sadly, pictures are not uploaded, but someday they will be. Hold on to hope.

Wednesday, July 13. Rainy and cold. We drove 4 hours to a campground outside Paris with free internet.

Thursday, July 14. Bastille Day (Independence Day) in France. We walked 5 minutes to the train station and went off to Paris. Our first stop was the Louvre, which was free that day. We waited in line for 10 minutes, went first to the Mona Lisa, and looked around for a while. We got to see sarcophaguses, sphinxes, and moat. We came out at 12:15 and sadly missed a military parade that happened just outside (we heard the planes). We headed for the Arc de Triomph for photos, and got to see military vehicles circling the Arc and along the adjacent street on display, and got a few pictures with the French servicemen and their tough looking machines. Next was, of course, the Eiffel Tower, which was a very, very pretty building (as is all of Paris). We made the difficult decision not to go up, as it was a hour-45 minute wait and we had other things to see. We took the metro to Notre Dame cathedral and looked inside- it was lovely inside but I think it is the outside that is the beautiful part. we took a walk along the Seine River and through a couple of parks. We headed to the Latin Quarter to look at the Pantheon, another nice building. We searched for a while for a legit French restaurant and found one eventually. I tried escargot, which had a nasty aftertaste, duck l'orange, and creme brulee. We took our time at a few souvenier stores and headed back to the Eiffel Tower. For Bastille Day there were supposed to be amazing fireworks, but we found out they didn't start till 11:30, at which time trains would be busy and we might not be able to find our way back. We made another difficult decision not to stay, though affirming in our minds that we would be back. We walked back through the Invalides area, where we saw beautiful quiet places where paople gathered to watch the fireworks, and went back along the Seine River at sunset, which was incredible. We took the metro back and had a long sleep.

Friday, July 15. We started out late for Versailles. We arrived at the Palace a bit after noon and it took about 30 minutes to get in. We took an audiotour of part of the palaceand headed out to the gardens. They are breathtaking and huge, but none of the fountains were working (facepalm). It is a spot we would love to spend a whole day in if we had time. We headed towards the WWII beaches and camped out in the cool, wet weather.

Saturday, July 16. We left in the morning to look at some beach areas. First we went to look at the Juno beach Centre- a Canadian WWII museum staffed by friendly Canadians- sadly, no Tim Hortons... The Centre is really interesting and informative; I never really knew that much about Canada's part in the war. After the centre, we walked along the beach.
Next, we went to the Gold Beach museum, a small museum of the British part of the invasion. Another informative place, it has a random butterfly exhibit which we looked at.
Next we went to Omaha beach war memorial for the American soldiers, and saw hundreds of rows of white crosses in one of 10 cemetary sections. Some graves read "Here rests in Honor a comrade in arms known only to God" for the unknown soldiers.
Lastly, we looked at some German anti ship battlements with 150 mm guns. We came to this campground, and after a day of hard rain it's clearing up.

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