Rachel's driving tally:
Number of times trying to go on the wrong side of the road - 2
Number of stalls -3 (but these took place on a roundabout so double points)
Number of times gutter was hit - 1 (but this is important to establish boundaries on car)
Number of comments about fandangled on-board computer and inexplicable beeping - lost count Estimated number of kilometres going in wrong direction - about 20 (but I was navigating so I must take some responsibility for this. When I drove and Rachel directed we didn't get lost at all. There may be something in that)
Despite her claims that she wouldn't be able to sleep given her excitement at being in her castle, Rachel did manage to do so and report on her dream the next morning - she loves her 'travel jeans' so much that she wore them to work back in Canberra, and was only mildly disturbed to discover that her plac
e of employment had instigated a bake-off competition in her absence. I wish I could remember my dreams! We had a little stroll in the gardens before our breakfast of croissants and hot chocolate, as well as some photos in the chair salon, and then it was time to bid farewell to Nicole, drag Rachel into the car, and set off with me driving, this time to Normandy.
The drive was beautiful - sun dappled hills, church spires in the distance over the trees, orchards and cows in the fields, quaint little villages...it was quite hard to take really. We stopped for a lunch of tartines (ie toasted sandwiches) in a little town called Flers and stocked up on a pastry or two for later, before continuing on to Bayeux, famous of course for the 70 metre long tapestry which records the battle of Hastings in 1066 and the subsequent installation of William the Conqueror on the throne of England. We managed to completely fluke a free park right in the
main square outside the law courts and our luck held as we then managed to get a room for the night in a gorgeous little hotel called La Reine Matilde right across the river. It's mentioned in the LP for the desserts at the restaurant downstairs - what more could we want? And the view from our room just happens to be over the Cathedral and the flag bedecked Town Hall. Not bad!!! All the rooms are named after people of some obvious historical significance, but I'm afraid none of us have worked out exactly who Bertil was. Oh well! He was probably a friend of William's but beyond that, he's a mystery. We had a restorative drink and then headed out for a walk in the beautiful little streets, visited the internet cafe and ate in the restaurant downstairs, managing 
to resist the desserts given our chantilly cream overdose in Tours.
Before our departure from the unexpectedly delightful Bayeux the next day, we set off for a visit to see the aforementioned famous tapestry, which was well organised with a pithy English commentary about what each scene meant. The arrival of floods of primary students (both English and French) signalled the end of our visit, including a look in the shop of course, so off we set in Hugues once again, this time for the D-Day beaches. Our first stop was Utah Beach, followed by Omaha (made famous at least for me by 'Saving Private Ryan'). These two were where the Americans landed, but at Omaha they encountered much more resistance from the Germans. Consequently, near this beach is the huge American cemetery
where nearly 10,000 graves are marked with perfectly aligned white crosses. It illustrates the complete waste of war and yet lessons still haven't been learnt. Continuing on we managed to find Juno beach where the Canadians landed, but we gave up in the end trying to find the two where the Brits landed. Instead we decided to head off to Rouen where we had booked accommodation for the night - excellent in theory but it involved going through Caen which was sprawling and confusing. Despite my patchy navigating though we did eventually make it to Cléon, just out of Rouen, where Rachel acted on a hunch and somehow we fluked finding the hotel. It just goes to show that some things are meant to work out!
Number of times trying to go on the wrong side of the road - 2
Number of stalls -3 (but these took place on a roundabout so double points)
Number of times gutter was hit - 1 (but this is important to establish boundaries on car)
Number of comments about fandangled on-board computer and inexplicable beeping - lost count Estimated number of kilometres going in wrong direction - about 20 (but I was navigating so I must take some responsibility for this. When I drove and Rachel directed we didn't get lost at all. There may be something in that)
Despite her claims that she wouldn't be able to sleep given her excitement at being in her castle, Rachel did manage to do so and report on her dream the next morning - she loves her 'travel jeans' so much that she wore them to work back in Canberra, and was only mildly disturbed to discover that her plac
e of employment had instigated a bake-off competition in her absence. I wish I could remember my dreams! We had a little stroll in the gardens before our breakfast of croissants and hot chocolate, as well as some photos in the chair salon, and then it was time to bid farewell to Nicole, drag Rachel into the car, and set off with me driving, this time to Normandy.The drive was beautiful - sun dappled hills, church spires in the distance over the trees, orchards and cows in the fields, quaint little villages...it was quite hard to take really. We stopped for a lunch of tartines (ie toasted sandwiches) in a little town called Flers and stocked up on a pastry or two for later, before continuing on to Bayeux, famous of course for the 70 metre long tapestry which records the battle of Hastings in 1066 and the subsequent installation of William the Conqueror on the throne of England. We managed to completely fluke a free park right in the
main square outside the law courts and our luck held as we then managed to get a room for the night in a gorgeous little hotel called La Reine Matilde right across the river. It's mentioned in the LP for the desserts at the restaurant downstairs - what more could we want? And the view from our room just happens to be over the Cathedral and the flag bedecked Town Hall. Not bad!!! All the rooms are named after people of some obvious historical significance, but I'm afraid none of us have worked out exactly who Bertil was. Oh well! He was probably a friend of William's but beyond that, he's a mystery. We had a restorative drink and then headed out for a walk in the beautiful little streets, visited the internet cafe and ate in the restaurant downstairs, managing 
to resist the desserts given our chantilly cream overdose in Tours.Before our departure from the unexpectedly delightful Bayeux the next day, we set off for a visit to see the aforementioned famous tapestry, which was well organised with a pithy English commentary about what each scene meant. The arrival of floods of primary students (both English and French) signalled the end of our visit, including a look in the shop of course, so off we set in Hugues once again, this time for the D-Day beaches. Our first stop was Utah Beach, followed by Omaha (made famous at least for me by 'Saving Private Ryan'). These two were where the Americans landed, but at Omaha they encountered much more resistance from the Germans. Consequently, near this beach is the huge American cemetery
where nearly 10,000 graves are marked with perfectly aligned white crosses. It illustrates the complete waste of war and yet lessons still haven't been learnt. Continuing on we managed to find Juno beach where the Canadians landed, but we gave up in the end trying to find the two where the Brits landed. Instead we decided to head off to Rouen where we had booked accommodation for the night - excellent in theory but it involved going through Caen which was sprawling and confusing. Despite my patchy navigating though we did eventually make it to Cléon, just out of Rouen, where Rachel acted on a hunch and somehow we fluked finding the hotel. It just goes to show that some things are meant to work out!
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