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Published: November 3rd 2007
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Well I finished off a few things at work while Mum and dad rested up in Walthamstow. We grabbed another Car, this time a Peugeot 307 and headed to the south of the UK. Mum wanted to go on a "Mythic quest"..so we visited Glastonbury Tor, once the Isle of Avalon and Cadbury Castle, formerly known as Camelot. Dad wanted to visit Dartmouth and I wanted to see the town of Torquay.
Staying onboard a Cruise boat for 2 nights, with our car safely stowed in the hold was a great way to get to the continent. We arrived in Bilbao well rested at 7am and took off through Basque country towards France. We were heading for Brittany and Normandy, because rain had set in. By the time we reached the beach at Royan the sun was shining again. We stayed overlooking the marina and beach esplanade and at 75 Euros for the 3 of us, it was a pleasant change from the overpriced, underwhelming British hotels and B&Bs.
We toured the beautiful Brittany countryside and stayed in a stunning medieval walled city called Dinan, in a 17th century inn called The Duchess Ann, while having a grand feast
that evening in a restaurant that was built in 14th century...then off to stay at Mount St Michel, a fairytale monastery surrounded by water. At night, all lit up, it seemed to float above the ground
The last few days of the trip were spent traveling through Normandy. In World War 2, 100,000’s of allied troops invaded a stretch of beaches 50 km wide, eventually liberating Europe from the Nazi occupation.
As most of you know, World War 2 really captivates me, and even after visiting I still can’t believe such an event occurred only 2 generations ago.
We stopped off at Carentan and then St Mère Eglise, This town was made famous when a parra-trooper landed on the church steeple and his parachute got caught and to this day, they have a model of a GI with the parachute still hanging from the church.
We visited Point de Hoc, a cliff face where the Germans had many guns pointed to the beaches, and 200 allied troops had to scale this cliff first, to save the troops on the beaches from being wiped out. This place really shocked me, there are many concrete gun emplacements and
bunkers littering the cliff top and I wasn’t expecting to see anywhere near this much of the Atlantic wall still here. This cliff must have been so heavily shelled, as there are bomb craters everywhere and they're massive.
Omaha Beach - standing on this place where tens of 1000’s of allies landed and many lost their lives. They were bombarded, running through mines and barbed wire, while German machine guns cut them down, as they attacked. If anyone has seen Saving Private Ryan, the opening scene depicts the landings on Omaha. To stand on this beach and imagine the carnage that occurred on the 6th of June 1944; to imagine the armada of ships floating off the coast, was a pretty full on experience.
One town we stayed in was called Arromanches. This town become the largest port in the world for a few months, as an artificial port was built in England and dragged across the channel to allow all the tanks, trucks, troops, guns and numerous other supplies to continue the war effort, once the beach heads were established.
This town now has the remnants of this artificial port, and you can see the massive
scale of the invasion.
We paid our respects at the American Cemetery, where over 9000 white crosses are lined up in rows, so at certain angles it looks like one cross even though they stretch for about a kilometre, while behind the white crosses is the beach, where they all lost their lives fighting to liberate Europe. A very sad place to visit
The last place we visited in Normandy really put a dampener on things, and I know I’ll probably get a lot of flack for this, but the French really need to take a good long hard look at themselves.
We visited a place called Pegasus Bridge. This was the place where the very first allied troops landed in gliders to ensure the bridge was not blown by the Germans. The invasion outcome depended on the allies taking it.
On visiting, we sat down at Gondree café right in front of the bridge (the first Café to be liberated in France), for a couple of coffees at a few Euros each. Then Ma and I wanted to use the facilities. We had to pay to use the rest rooms in the Café, even after
we were paying customers. There were no other public lavatories anywhere in the area, even though many people come to pay their respect to the British who lost their lives here. The woman who owns and runs the cafe is the daughter of the couple who owned it when the bridge was taken. She obviously has made a tidy sum off the ancestors of the liberating forces...and can't even provide a toilet without profiting....doesn't she realise that she and her countrymen were liberated by our fathers and grandfathers.
All the Museums charged about 10-15 Aussie dollars to get in, in most places I can understand, but this is an area is where the liberation of France started, tens of 1000’s of American, British, Canadian lost their lives and should be treated with respect and not as tourist dollar attractions.
The Aussies were not involved in the D Day landings as far as I know, as we were fighting in Africa and Asia, but I really feel for the visiting Wives, Son’s and Daughters, grandchildren who had lost their loved ones in France, trying to return it to the French people from the Nazi’s.
Boo to the French
Government (and the arrogant French woman who owns the Gondree and others like you). You should be ashamed at making money out of visitors retuning to see where their family lost loved ones trying to save your country. The artifacts and places where allies died, should be treated with respect and dignity and not as a tourist $$ trap.
I lost my Great Grandfather “William Dirkson” in France at the end of WW1. He died not long after the surrender of Germany, from the Spanish flu. A course of now common antibiotics would have saved him. He was only 27, with four kids and young wife back in Australia. We paid our respects in La Harvre cemetery and planted a yellow rose bush at the base of his headstone. Dad never knew his Grandfather because of the war.
On leaving France we stopped at a fish market and picked up a few kilo of Scallops’ and Oysters’ to pig out on back in the UK then caught the ferry at Calais and returned to work the following day.
Off to Egypt now, and then to New York. Stay tuned and keep the comments comming !!
Roh
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Megz
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Family adventures
Hey Roh, Great to see your Mum and Dad enjoying themselves with you. Not much has changed in the way you guys buy your seafood hey? A couple of kilo's??? Wow - as always I'm envious of your adventures. Keep the blog rolling and say hi to your folks. Megz (and Jemma - the blue tongue lizard killer!)