11 june thurs

wow! we made it to paris. lets see what we've done.

we went to mont ste michel. 1000 steps up they say! i say thank god they aren't all in a line. there is a village along the bottom of the abbey. the causeway out to the rock is for driving and parking. they post the high tide time and tell you which lot has to be vacated before the posted time. i didn't know that it the rock was used pre roman times and in the 1700 and 1800 as a prison. the benidictines returned in about 1967. it is spectacular and the views are incredible. the only draw back was the rain. we had rain since we left the south but it mostly went away when we were out in the sites.

that night we stayed in a farmhouse owned by some brits. it was the least interesting of the places so far. we also went to st malo where they have the first tidal energy dam. it was really neat to see. tide was coming in and racing thru the turbines. regina was a bit bored but i was fascinated.

the next day was the sites of d-day. it was quite surreal inTHAT THE 65TH ANNiVERSARY WAS THE SATURDAY BEFORE. THERE WERE reenactors all over the place. they were for the most part wearing US uniforms but speaking french and the queens english. they have an impressive array of WW2 us army vehicles. i guess thats not too surprising because the us left most everythingthey brot over in 41 in the uk and france. i talked to some of the guys and it's really big like it is in the US. some even travel to the us for gatherings. they were often men and women in their 20's and 30's as well as older folks. going to utah, pont du hoc, omaha juno beaches and seeing guys in us army uniforms with vintage military jeeps, convoy trucks and staff cars was unbelievable!

we stayed at the neatest b&b in eu that night. we had another adventure getting there. we almost got stuck on a farmers track . the ruts got so bad that we bottomed out several times. the cows came to the fence thinking we were bring dinner! on the third try we found it about 9pm. the bedroom was about 20x20 with a huge bathroom. the owner had been born there and was part of the original beaumonts who controlled the area for 700+ years. i thought of barb and wayne.

so yesterday we went to dinkirk. the bray dunes north is where the evacuations of several hundred thousand french, british and belgiun troops off the beaches that were cut off by the germans in 1939. there are still german bunkers that had built after that.

we later went to vimy and the canadian WW1 memorial. there are still trenches and bomb craters in the area that have never been flattened in intervening 90 years; they have several semi restored trenches that i have alot of pictures of.

i'll give you more info tomorrow about chartres, versailles and paris. just realized that we have less than a week left! so sad. regina is a great traveling companion.