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Black Cats
There was clan of black cats at our hotel in Connelles. They kept trying to attack the river otter babies... not very smart. D-Day 16 - 70 years later
For our last day in Normandy, we decided to visit the Bayeaux Tapestry and D-day invasion beaches. The tapestry was very interesting. It holds a lot of historical significance, and it is interesting to see the story from the point of view of the French (Anne and Tony learned a more English version of the story). One of the most striking impressions was the exhibit which runs the story of William the Conquerer and the battle of Hastings in parallel with the D-Day invasion of France in 1944. It is very interesting to look at these two events, as they bear striking resemblance, and really drives home the fact that history repeats itself. After the Tapestry viewing, we ate at a fantastic Creperie by an old mill. The riverside terrace was a serene experience, and Anne even made friends with a spider when we were waiting for our seats... it had made a home in a hole and came out to say hi. We then headed out to see the D-Day beaches, and ended up at the museum at the port of Arromanches where they described in great detail the building of an artificial
Cool old Mill
Almost as cool as the Bayeaux Tapestry is the centuries old mill and sluice gate just outside. port in just a few days. While Tony had heard about them building a port for the war, neither Tony nor Anne realized what an amazing feat of engineering this actually was. In a short time, the Allies had created floating roads/docks/breakwaters, etc in England, tugged them over a 20 hour channel crossing, installed/sunk/secured them against the beach, and started unloading even during harsh storms. You can still see the breakwaters and some of the spare floats, etc, and they have permanent buoys to mark the locations of the temporary bridges and piers. After leaving arromanches, we wandered the coastal towns looking for a Petrol station that would accept an American credit card or cash. During that exploration, we stumbled upon the last remaining large guns from the German fortifications, now protected. There were 5 large bunkers with huge guns that could fire 12 miles. The place had been hit with more than 5000 allied bombs during the invasion, but half of the bunkers hardly looked damaged. They kept firing until they were overwhelmed by ground forces. Most of the big guns are there still, and boy are they big! You can walk through the bunkers, but the rooms are
Hamster's Artistic Side
He insisted on posing with the cafe's art pieces. gated off. Peeking into the rooms, you can see where rainwater has started to form Stalactites and Stalagmites over the last 70 years. Instead of traveling into Paris from our resort in Connelles, we decided to stay at the Orly airport Ibis hotel. We do not intend to be in the room much beyond sleeping, and it has a convenient tram to connect to the Underground, plus it made it easy to catch our early-ish flight on Saturday to Dublin. On the way to the hotel, we stopped at a roadside restaurant in one of the Service areas. In this one, they built the restaurants on one side of the motorway and had a big bridge to cross for the people traveling the other direction. It was a toll road, so you couldn't just get off and find pubs in the local villages. We arrived at the Hotel late, and Tony had an adventure returning the rental car before they closed. He ran out of money on his UK phone, and had no way to top it off with an American credit card from France. Thanks Aby for topping off the phone from the UK for us!!!! The room is
Yummy Crepes
Dinner crepes and Dessert Crepes.. we had both, in the proper order. very small, but we crowded in none-the-less. Tomorrow, we are up early so we can get to Paris in time to use our noon Eiffel Tower tickets.
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