I’m not a war buff. I don’t like to visit places where battles were
held and blood was shed, where people killed each other. You can’t get
away from it in Normandy though, and as we visited the region recently
here are some Normandy notes (more to follow in future blogs) from a
staunch non-war tourist. (You’ll find lots of tourists here, including
German tourists, mostly visiting the war memorials along the coast.)
So, here we go…
1. If your husband wears a t-shirt he picked up in the airport in
London that has the London underground symbol on it, be sure that you
will be mistaken for Brits. This may be the only area/departement
in France where this is a good thing. Americans, British, Canadians et
al, are warmly welcomed in this region due to their marvellous efforts
in the D-day invasion (débarquement) along the coast of
Normandy leading to the liberation of France from the Nazis in WWII. We
stayed in a village called Asnelles and from our gite you can still see
the now corroding remains of the port built by the allies after D-day.
It’s big, really impressive, and when the tide is right you can walk to
the closest remains, although a man with a whistle may warn you off
them.
2. If you are driving from Toulouse to Normandy over two days, gird your loins
for an onslaught of increasingly horrific driving the further north (=
closer to Paris?) you go. At one point I screamed loudly as a car cut
sharply in front of us, with the driver hitting his brakes and then
furiously wagging his finger at us for something we may or may not have
done to upset him. We were in the fast lane, travelling slightly over
130km per hour, following the speed of the traffic in front who were
also all passing the camper vans, the cars pulling cute little caravans,
limited-speed trucks, and old people driving to survive. My husband of
course slammed on his brakes, sending our two hamsters in their cages
into a traumatic state they are still recovering from, before furiously
giving the finger to the IDIOT driver in front. We saw this tosser
repeat his mad action further ahead of us. We stayed well back after
that. Notably my husband had to use the horn twice if not thrice on our
journey north to alert drivers who were wandering across lanes (as they
texted and smoked at 130km/hour, as I saw one young buck do). Needless
to say I was ready for a stiff drink after that.
3. Do visit Bayeux, not just for the tapestry which has some pretty
exciting scenes on it here and there and which is actually an embroidery
on linen, but for the cathedral (undamaged during WWII) and the river
walk through the town, oh and the icecreams. Gorgeous little streets,
soft stone-coloured stone homes, and flowers everywhere. Just beautiful.
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| The Bayeux tapestry |
4. Driving to and from Omaha Beach through little villages with
impossibly small lanes was as if we were driving through the southern
English countryside. My breath was caught several times with the
composition of buildings, the ivy covered towers attached to the grand
chateaux, the highly coloured hydrangeas, and then a thatched cottage or
two. Surely I was in in England?! But the villages were called names
like Arromanches-les-Bains, Tracy-sur-Mer, Manvieux, Longues-sur-Mer,
and Colleville-sur-Mer. So, definitely France.
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| Manvieux |
5. If you own a restaurant in Courseulles-sur-Mer and you want to
provide hungry punters with somewhere dry to eat on a very wet summer’s
night, do think about investing in a waterproof sun shade for
the front verandah seating area of your restaurant. We were turned away
from about six restaurants because their under-shade seating areas were
drenched and unusable. Thankfully we found one that had a dry seat or
five. We arrived at our gite too late to find a supermarket, and this
lovely seaside village was our only option for an evening meal. The
drink of the region is cider. I like it. And pommeau. And calvados.
6. The seafront promenade at Asnelles has
some really curious architecture. Grand houses (chateaux really) in all
sorts of styles. Our gite is more modest but it’s the cutest, sweetest,
best decorated, most well provisioned gite we’ve stayed in in France.
And then the best thing about a beach holiday is the beach. Why is it
that a beach can entertain kids for hours? The tide comes in, the tide
goes out and it changes all the time. “Mum, Dad, can we go and see what
the sea looks like now?” Perfect entertainment.
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| Asnelles |
More notes to follow…
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