Day 8

Day 8

Today was travel day.  We awoke, packed and after saying goodbye to our renter host we were off to the airport by taxi to get our car.  It was a little hassle there because not knowing but we headed to Terminal 1 and our car was at Terminal 2.  But in the end after an hour we were rewarded with really a bigger and better car. 

We drove out of the garage expecting our GPS to start right up and head us in the right direction to Normandy.  Weeeellll, that did not happen.  While our friend drove I sat in the back seat trying over and over again to get the GPS to find our destination town….Arromanches.   As we drove further and further out of the way, I frantically worked on the instrument.  For some reason it would not find any of the reference names I put in.  I really thought we were in deep deep doodoo.  But finally I got it and “Jane” (I call all my GPS’s Jane) got us going in the right direction and in about 3 hours we were pulling into our town.  A gorgeous sunny day awaited us and the sea, the English Channel lay ahead of us.  We were so excited about getting there, we did not stop and so arriving at 5:00 PM we had not eaten all day.  But when we found our rental house we were absolutely flabbergasted.  The house was so gorgeous.  A little cottage set on a small hill overlooking the town.  Two bedrooms, two bath with all the amenities.  It was fabulous.  WE unpacked fast and headed to town to eat. But as we got to town we were overwhelmed with the gorgeous beach and the WWII sights.  The town has one main street and a small boardwalk along its beach.  The beach was huge and had all kinds of WWII debris from the invasion.  But what caught our eye were numerous “dead bodies” stenciled in the sand.  People all over the beach were stenciling different “dead bodies” on the beach to depict the fallen soldiers on D-Day.  It was over powering.  Also, we saw families walking and bathing on the beach, we saw people riding horses on beach.  It was quite a sight.   Being 5:00 no restaurant served dinner yet, so we stopped for a bottle of wine with conversation about our trip and the town.  We decided to go to the supermarket before it closed and get breakfast food and return in an hour or so for dinner.  We spent about 70 Euros on food and of course wine….and coffee and returned and found a wonderful restaurant on the town’s main street.  We all had mussels for appetizer and WOW they were terrific.  I had salmon tartar for my main meal while others hungered for a hamburger (which they said was quite good).  After we strolled back home and after trying to get the Wi-Fi to work we went to bed…….this is why there was a long delay in my blog because the Wi-Fi did not work and we had to call the owner to get assistance.

Tomorrow we are off to explore the area.  We have read that Arromanches was the “center of the storm”. And so we are off to explore.

Hi, Diana here. This town is awesome, beautiful, historic, and much more. The home we rented  (on Homeaway) is really nice. We celebrated Carole’s birthday this morning, fun! Tomorrow’s Bob’s birthday, more fun. Very foggy this morning but we’re hoping it’ll lift, eternal optimists. Starting WWII history today, we’re off!