Utah Beach dawn.
The large French farmhouse windows are flung wide open and we lie in bed listening to the abundance of birdlife noisily greeting the day in the surrounding woods and fields. This is a marked contrast to mornings in Place de la Republique in Paris where the sound of refuse lorries and police sirens formed the early morning alarm.
We have an unhurried start to the day but have a plan to follow in the footsteps of the Band of Brothers from the field in which Dick Winters landed to where they finished after the battle of Carentan and the Bloody Gulch. Expect this will take us a couple of days especially with multiple museums to visit en route. We did the Utah Beach Museum itself yesterday seeing as the room at the hotel was not ready when we arrived.
If we get a chance I’d like to stop by the Herout calvados distillery following the delightful experience of the digestif after dinner last night. It is near Carentan and is closed on Sunday so it has to either be today or Monday en route to Deauville.
Tonight we have a reservation at Chez Roger @Reza about which I am v excited. We did a recce yesterday afternoon en route to the beach. May skip lunch to ensure optimum gastronomic performance at dinner.
…
Had to mute the Olympics on the telly. I just don’t get on with French sports commentary. Apart from the fact that I don’t understand it, it is a bit of a dull monotone and too irritating to be background noise in the way that test match special is good with the cricket.
…
Well we’ve just got back from Chez Roger. Probably one of the best meals we have ever had. Oysters, langoustines, lambs sweetbread with sardine and sun dried tomato, lobster flambeed in something, tuna, five cheeses and some milk moussy pudding. Different wine with every course and green chartreuse as a digestif. I’d already had the 12 yo calvados. Great experience. If you have the opportunity to go don’t hesitate.
CR was 4 miles from the hotel. Country roads, bugger all traffic. We are now home watching the beeb’s excellent olympics coverage. Not the French stuff.