Normandy to Andorra 14/06/10-16/06/09

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14/06/10

After checking out of our little hotel in Paris, we dragged our suitcases through the subway then 1km along the road through roadworks to the Peageot pickup. You may think we are mad and wonder why we didnt get a taxi, well when we were told 20 euro for a 1km journey, we though bugger off! Mike had a broken wheel so it wasnt turning and eventually wore through and feel of which caused his other wheel to fall off, and he had to drag his suitcase the last 100m, lucky it was just a cheap suitcase and we have now thrown it out. We got our car without problems and Mike picked up driving on the right quickly and well, unfortunately I cant say the same for myself!
When we made it to Normandy it was evening and it was cold and grey. We spent the night at a campground near the D-Day beaches.

15/06/10


In the morning we drove to Omaha Beach. We only stopped at Omaha Beach because of time constraints and it was freezing cold! On 06 June 1944 allied troops stormed 80km of beaches north of Bayeux, ultimately liberating the European mainland from Nazi occupation. The most brutal fighting took place on Omaha Beach, now home to the huge American Military Cemetry. Omaha was a long, wide rugged beach with yellow sand. The cemetry was HUGE and immaculate. There was a heavily guarded museum, monuments, a reflection pool, gardens and thousands of white marble crosses. Seeing all those headstones in one place made you really realise the huge numbers of men and women lost and this was only one cemetry, only americans and only those whose bodies were recovered. How were the millions of bodies recovered and buried in such order? Does anybody know?
We then drove to Mont St Michel which is as massive and impressive as the pictures. Mont St Michel (named after saint Michael, saint of war) dates back to 708 when bishop of Avrances had a sanctuary built on Mont-Tombe to honour archangel, continued to expand in the 14th century and has never been seized. In 1863 it was used as a prison. It is surrounded by water and has a narrow causeway. Unfortunately it was very busy, but we made our way through the narrow cobblestone alleys full of people and shops to the abbey and chapel right at the top.
After Mont St Michel we then drove 6 hours towards Bordeux. It got late and we didnt make it to Bordeux so we spent a night at a campground in Saintes. It wasnt an exciting or pretty place but the people were friendly. In the non-touristy places they get all giggly when they have to try and use their english!

16/06/10
The next day was pouring with rain. We made a short stop at Bordeux which is the largest urban world heritage site and is full of yellow sandstone neoclassic buildings and narrow alleyways (a navigation nightmare) thank good for the GPS! From Normandy to the Pyrenees Mountains the landscape was very flat and boring. It probably didnt help that we were on a highway the whole time and im sure the like of the Louire Valley are very beautiful. Entering the Pyrenees got more interesting with the large green mountains. We stopped in a small town called Ax-les-Thermes, which had lovely stone buildings, cobblestone alleyways, a river running through the middle of town and a hotspring in the middle of town.
After this we entered larger, rocky mountains and began to climb, when we reached about 2000m we entered Andorra

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