Blogs from Lower Normandy, France, Europe - page 36

Bonjour, notre fils et notre filles et tout les enfants. Aussi, bonjour nos amie's et nos ami's, The Paris we visited was different from our previous experience, where we stayed in a hotel near the Arc de Triumph and followed the museum trail. This time our apartment near St Germaine was in a narrow back street, behind huge wooden doors. We were about 8 steps up on a mezzanine floor and when we entered, we went up another 6 steps with a petite bathroom on one side and a smaller kitchenette on the other. That left just enough room for a bed, a small table and a TV. But the real Paris was outside our door. A bar on the corner and another across the road, our own boulangerie and boucherie, fruit market and just along ... read more

We managed to get to Paris after 5 airports and 36 hrs of traveling. We arrived Saturday evening about 6pm. It was then straight to hotel to get some sleep! Sunday - we had the mission of picking up the car and heading to Rouen. Heading to Rouen easy - picking up the car from the airport and driving back to the hotel - took about an hour half. Putting this into perspective our hotel was 2.8 km away from the airport. We got so lost! Anyway, by midday we were on our way to Rouen, which took abut 2 hours heading towards the North West of Paris. Part of the Normandy province, Rouen is well known for its Gothic architecture, Cathedrale of Notre Dame, and the place of where Joan of Arc was executed at ... read more

We have been at Mont St. Michel for 2 days and have really enjoyed it: This is the one place I have wanted to visit since in high school French and it has lived up to my expectations. Magnificent from near and far. Amazing engineering feat: We were not able to tour it the first day there since the Prime Minister of France was coming to kick off a major environmental project in the bay: Visited it yesterday and tour was great: We went bicycling in the countryside yesterday afternoon and got to cheer the runners completing a marathon that started at St. Michel and looped around to finish there: On our run we stopped to have some cidre bouche (non-alcoholic), a well advertised local product. No hint of apples in it. Tastes more like beer: ... read more

left paris today. i don't know if i said this earlier, but Paris started to grow on me the more i got used to it. i probably would never go back to Paris though because i pretty much saw everything i wanted to see. its pretty much just people watching and walking around here that's fun to me. the food is too of course. we got picked up by our driver for the next 3 days for Normandy. he is our driver tour guide there. he must think we are rich or something because it is a private tour. i think a tour for 3 people cost the same though if we were going to do 3 days individually with different people so it worked out. hes a nice man a bit younger than my parents. ... read more

本來「法國」與「克羅地亞+意大利」兩段路，究竟誰放在行程中的最先／最後，一直未有定案。到我想起6月6日這個熟悉的日子，法國一行放在首段便是逃不了。 on d-day, i visited the normandy beaches, out of my imagination, the site is very cool and windy, how the soldiers beared the weather to do the must-die mission 62 years ago? in the guided tour i came across an australian boy, finally could say some english. i discoverd my listening has become poorer...no good. 問了幾句，那澳洲青年便招認出他是二戰迷。不想冒犯，但我實在很難明白那些戰爭迷的想法，我倆同樣看過"Saving Private Ryan"，我看到的是血腥與恐怖，但他在Normandie卻不斷流露出興奮的神情。至於我為甚麼來到這裡？全因為我相信62年前的今天，在這裡發生了一件改變了世界的大事，我到來只是為了憑弔。 在美軍墓地走著，忽然軍樂響起，全個墳場的人皆面向傳來樂曲的一方肅立。我走了幾步，雖然不知如何才好，心想還是停下來會恰當一點，有人甚至向著同一方向行敬禮，剎那間，全場靜默。... read more