No backups for 353 days. Should I be worried? 🙂
Anyways nous sommes sur le train a Paris Saint-Lazare. Non stop from Caen which is a good thing as it was a real scrum to get on board. Didn’t help that we got on at the wrong end of the carriage and had to squeeze past families trying to get prams on board and other passengers who had also got on at the other wrong end.
Caen was ok. The city had the sH1£ bombed out of it during the Normandy landings. Took until the middle of July to get rid of the Germans. They are still rebuilding the castle. Doesn’t do any harm to repoint the masonry every thousand years or so.
We arrived in Caen mid afternoon having driven along the coast from the ferry port at Ouistreham to Arromanches where we had a spot of petit dejeuner in Hotel de Normandie. As we got off the ferry early, not long after dawn really, there were no caffs open until we got to Arromanches. The building was around during the D Day landings. Picture the scene:
Allied soldiers finally get ashore having flushed out the German opposition. They spot Hotel de Normandie which is now open. Its proprietor, Pierre, having got up early to walk his dog had noted the huge invasion armada and rushed back to tell his wife Genevieve to stick a few more croissants in the oven in anticipation of a bit more business than normal. The Germans often didn’t pay anyway and strode around as if they owned the pace.
Pierre did have to shut the shutters whilst the fighting was going on but once the shooting had died down he opened up for business and stuck some tables and chairs on the pavement outside. The pretty red and white checked table cloths would have immediately grabbed the attention of the incoming British troops. Fierce fighting does give you an appetite and they rocked up in their droves.
It did come as a bit of a disappointment to find that Hotel de Normandie only offered croissants, French bread and coffee on its breakfast menu. No orange juice as oranges were not yet in season and supplies from the southern hemisphere had been impossible to get.
They grudgingly accepted what was on offer being better than army rations and polished off every last croissant in the joint. They also drank every last drop of cider, red wine and calvados the hotel had to offer. The descendants of Pierre and Genevieve still dine out on the story about the best ever business day the hotel has ever seen.
After breakfast we did the museum which was tres interessant and then headed to Bayeux to see the tapestry. It was also tres interessant to hear the William the Conqueror story from the French perspective. I won’t bore you with the deets. Bayeux was an attractive mediaeval city, town really, though its cathedral had been butchered about a bit over the centuries and wasn’t nearly as nice as our own in Lincoln.
So today we are off to gay Paree for Les Jeux. The French harvest is in full swing as the train speeds towards the capital and all is calm in carriage number three.