Now that's a hunting lodge!

David and Yolanda picnicking on the lawn at Chambord

Chambord (week 3)

We stayed in Orléans the night after our unsuccessful search for Great Uncle Cecil, at yet another Novotel hotel.  The trip across Paris was far easier than a similar trip across Toronto would be.  We then continued south.  The valley of the Loire has many châteaux, with Chambord being the largest, built as a hunting lodge by Francis I (it's even bigger than Ulf's lodge in West Caledonia!).  Francis spent a total of 35 days at the lodge in the 10+ years he reigned after its completion.

Searching (unsuccessfully) for Great Uncle Cecil

Yes, that's a sheep pasture between the parking lot and the Memorial

Vimy (week 3)

We stayed overnight between Lens and Douai, in the heart of the WWI battlefields.  There were signposts representing the front line at certain dates, there were Commonwealth graveyards everywhere, and of course there is the Vimy Memorial, which was the first stop of the day.  As you can tell from any pictures you may have seen, it is very large with minimal decoration.  Apart from the monument itself, there is also an interpretation centre, a series of preserved bunkers and trenches, and plenty of roped-off areas that still haven't been cleared of unexploded ordinance.  It is all cared for by employees from Veteran's Affairs Canada (their uniforms are identical to Parks Canada uniforms except for the logo).  The surrounding terrain was remediated by the French planting trees on the landscape as it was left after the war, so it basically looks like a motocross course with trees planted on it.

The Courcelette Memorial

Our second goal was to try and find the grave of Pte. Cecil Alvernon MacKinnon, 26th Bn., Canadian Infantry (New Brunswick Regiment), killed on 16 September 1916 in the Battle of Flers-Courcelette.  He was my grandfather's oldest brother.  The Commonwealth War Graves website (mirrored at Veteran's Affairs) says his cemetery is the "Vimy Memorial".  So we looked on the memorial (for all those Canadians with no known grave elsewhere), and we could not find him (we also checked under "McKinnon" and "McKenna").  So we asked at the visitor's centre, and they frowned and said they'd never heard of such a cemetery.  So we then checked the two cemeteries on-site (Canadian Cemetery #2 and Givenchy Road Canadian Cemetery), with no luck.  Unfortunately, the town also has several Canadian and Commonwealth cemeteries, with no indication where they are (e.g. we saw one on the side of a controlled-access highway and couldn't figure out how to get to it).  So we carried on to Courcelette to see the battle site (checking the Warlencourt Cemetery just up the road, but he wasn't there either).

So, no luck in finding Great Uncle Cecil.  I'll do some more research and see if we can find him in November, when we're planning to be back in the area.

Leaving Normandy

That's David and Andrew lower left

Rouen (week 3)

We are now on the road for a week, making our way to Provence.  First we cut across the top of France, heading towards the Pas de Calais.  Our last stop before leaving Normandy was Rouen, containing one of the biggest cathedrals in the area, and a substantial city.  Unfortunately, like Caen, it too was largely destroyed in 1944, and they are STILL working on restoring the cathedral.  There was still a nice area to have lunch at the cathedral, plus we found a playground on the way back to the car.  Also like Caen, there is ample underground parking with good signage (the lots all have specific names to help you find them again), so it was convenient to drive into the heart of the action and then walk around for a few hours.

Rouen is where the English held Joan of Arc after her capture, and is one of the many cities that claim her as their own.  There is a chapel to Ste. Jeanne d'Arc in the cathedral (in the background of this picture).

A few thoughts as we wrap up the first part of the trip:
1. as I mentioned, everyone speaks at least a little English
2. French motorcycle drivers are crazy
3. French drivers have no regard for emergency vehicles (and appear to not even notice them)
4.Norman food is very good, but there are two things they do not understand: milk and bacon

"Ah my eye!!" ... Bayeux stuff (week 2)

Bayeux (week 2)

 Some more stuff we did in Bayeux:

4. The Bayeux Tapestry.  One of Mr. Derrick's favorites, Craig has been waiting to see the tapestry since 1986.  Okay, it's only a tapestry, but it is really long and impressive.  You see the actual tapestry (behind glass), we used the self-guided audio guide method, which works well.  Obviously you aren't allowed to take pictures inside.  And yes, it does depict King Harold getting an arrow in the eye.

5. The Public Gardens.  The crowning glory is a weeping beech of unknown species (apparently two species grafted together).  The tree is officially listed as a "natural monument" and as a "remarkable tree of France."  It's become so large that the city built support towers with cables running down to hold up the branches.  There is also a cactus greenhouse, some nice flower beds, and signs explaining the trees around the walking path.

6. Ice cream!  Maybe it doesn't deserve its own paragraph, but Normandy is a dairy region.  If you're ever in Bayeux, there is an ice cream place across from the tourist office that's excellent.

7. Things we didn't do that we should have.  There is a chocolatier in town, but we didn't get the chance to check it out.  There's a shop and tours of the factory available, but the timing never seemed to work.  There is also an art gallery - you can buy a 3-pass ticket for the WWII museum, the art gallery, and the Tapestry museum, but we ended up seeing two.

On the trail of William the Conqueror

Eglise Saint-Pierre from the Château

Caen (week 2)

Back to Caen today to see the central old city.  It's an interesting mix of old and new (and faux-old) because much of the city was destroyed in the fighting in 1944.  Unlike Bayeux, which completely escaped the fighting, the core of Caen contains multi-story carparks, modern apartment buildings, etc.  Even some of the supposedly old buildings are rebuilds - for example the spire of Eglise St.-Pierre, right in the centre of town (the rest of the church is mostly the original started in the 12th-century).  A couple blocks away are the ruins (closed off) of another church, Eglise Saint-Etienne-le-Vieux.  The front façade is intact (except the windows) but all that's left of the rest is one wall of the nave.  You can see the skeletal supports for the second level through the vacant windows.

Tomb of Guillaume le Conquérant

The old city is built around a 3-site axis, of buildings built by William the Conqueror: L'Abbaye-aux-Hommes in the west, the Château ducal in the centre, and L'Abbaye-aux-Dames in the east.  We started with the Château.  Much of the newest fortifications are intact, and you can walk the walls.  William's exchequer building and chapel are also intact and visitable.  The foundations of the original keep are visible, but they are excavating and digging there, so they are off limits.  We then went over to the Abbaye-aux-Hommes and saw the tomb of William in the abbey church.  We didn't have time to go over to the other abbey.

To celebrate the end of our second week in France, we had McDonald's for lunch.

Festyland!

bumperboats!

Caen (week 2)

rope bridge

Yes, there is a theme park called "Festyland".  It is roughly equivalent to Upper Clements Park, except with more rides and fewer specialty shops (for example, it has 2 rollercoasters!).  There are rides for a wide variety of age groups, so there were kids there from 2 to 20 years old.  After a week of dragging the boys all over the D-Day beaches, we thought it would be a nice break to go to a theme park.

Neither of the boys wanted to risk the rollercoasters, but we still managed to spend over 5 hours there, with David especially taking multiple rides on each of his favorites.  It's a one-price-covers-everything park, so the number of rides is limited only by the length of the lineups and the strength of your stomach.  Even though the day was sunny and warm (30C), there was never more than a 10-minute wait for any of the rides.

Memorial site (flag is for the North NS Highlanders regiment)

After having thought they'd escaped history for a day, we dropped by the Abbaye Ardenne, which was the site of the killing of 20 Canadian PoWs by a Hitler Youth SS regiment.  The German commander was convicted of a war crime after the war.  The Abbey grounds were also open - it was the command centre for the 12th SS Panzer Division, so it was fought over and much of it had to be rebuilt.  They left one ruined building as a reminder.

Ranger climb

Craig in shell crater - yes it's that big

Pointe-du-Hoc and Catz (week 2)

Deciding that the boys needed to have some separate time, Craig took David with him for his morning jaunt to Pointe-du-Hoc, where the U.S. Rangers scaled the bluffs on D-Day to attack a battery.  The site has more-or-less been left as-is.  Of course, there are wild grasses growing in the shell craters, and the mangled rebar from the destroyed bunkers is very rusty, but the place gives a feel for the chaotic destruction of an assault.

They also went to the new Normandy Tank Museum (yes, that's its official name, even though the proprietors are French).  It's basically just a big warehouse with vehicles and mannequins dressed in equipment.  They had excellent period big-band music playing over the speakers.

Yolanda and Andrew stayed at the gîte and did homey activities, such as watching German tween TV shows.

Mont Saint-Michel

Mont Saint-Michel (week 2)

You couldn't tell by these pictures (we have others where you can tell), but Mont Saint-Michel is one of the most-visited spots in France, with several million visitors a year.  It was warm and (mostly) sunny for our day, so the tourists were spread pretty thick.

This fortified abbey is built on a rock out in the middle of the tidal flats.  When the tide comes in, the place is an island.  They are doing a lot of work to build a new environmentally responsible access road and in restoring the plaster and stonework.  Parts of the abbey date to the 10th century.  It is very high and the only way up is the traditional way: your own two feet.  The boys were quite impressed by the views from the top.  The tour winds through various chapels and halls and is well laid out to keep the flow of traffic moving.  We especially liked the giant wheel - basically a hamster wheel for monks, used to turn a pulley to draw heavy objects up into the abbey from below.  We also got to see part of a mass that was going on in the main chapel.

As you can see, it is mostly of the austere type - plain stone, even the chapels are unadorned, and very little stained-glass (only in one chapel of the 8-10 halls and chapels that we saw).

Juno Beach

Courseulles-sur-Mer (week 2)

It rained for part of the time while we were at Juno Beach, but it held off enough to stroll the beach, see the Croix de Lorraine (the site where de Gualle came ashore on July 14), etc.  When it was raining we spent the time inside the interpretation centre.  David and Craig also did the guided tour of the bunkers - a 1941 command post opened this year (they just finished getting the sand out and restoring it) and the 1944 observation post.  The latter is now behind 20 metres of dunes since the storms and tides have shifted a lot of sand around.  The interpretive centre had some relics and a lot of video and audio interviews (archival from the war and also reflections of veterans).  The centre is manned by Canadians (usually students taking a year off after university or high school) over for a 7.5-month stint.  Once again it was low tide (same as when the landings took place) so you got a feel for how far the soldiers had to cross the sand.

One of the Juno strongpoints: "Cosy's Pillbox"

The beach is the first one we've seen that has lifeguards (manned by the local gendarmérie).  It is right next to the local yacht club, so there were a number of catamarans out, in spite of the weather.

Bayeux stuff (week 1)

Bayeux (week 1)

We have been touring around the various sites in Bayeux as we've had time.  There are a number of interesting sites, of which we've checked out the following:

View of cathedral from Pomme Canelle

1. Bayeux Cathedral and the old town.  Bayeux was founded by the Romans, and part of the old Roman wall is visible outside the cathedral.  The cathedral itself was built piecemeal over various time periods.  The town has only 15 000 inhabitants, so it's easy to walk around the core area.  We also took the tourist "train" (a Shriner-esque road vehicle with a running commentary in English and French).  Bayeux was unharmed by the invasion unlike most of the surrounding communities.  As a result, it was the administrative centre of de Gaulle's liberation forces for a few months in 1944.

We had a nice meal just beside the cathedral at a café/crêperie called Pomme Canelle.  The bells ring every hour, but the 2pm bell was the full spread that went on for 10 minutes.... just as we were trying to order and understand the waitress's French.

2. Musée Mémorial de la Bataille de Normandy.  A museum covering the Battle of Normandy, with lots of artifacts.  There is an especially cool diorama that includes wrecked German equipment, plus lots of mannequins dressed as various soldiers in their full kits (David and Andrew were particularly interested in the latter).  There are a variety of tanks located outside.

L.Cpl. McKinnon marker on the right

3. Cimetière Militaire Britannique.  This is the main British war cemetary in Normandy; it also includes a number of other nations including Canadian, South Africa, and even German.  This picture is beside the grave of Lance Corporal D.M. McKinnon of the North Nova Scotia Highlanders.  As far as we know, he's unrelated to us, but the boys wanted to see if there were any MacKinnons in the cemetery.

Home life in Normandy

Saint-Loup-Hors (weeks 1-2)

Dining area

We are in the Beaussy gîte for 2 weeks, so we've had to settle in, do laundry, shop, etc.  Bayeux has a "ring road" around the city, and we are just outside that, in the community of Saint-Loup-Hors (good to know for the car's GPS).  For those that are familiar with France, there is both Leclerc and Carrefour grocers around the ring (these are superstores with liquor of all types, clothing, pharmacies, etc.).  We are eating almost exclusively at home.  There are 2 full baths (although only one bidet!) and two bedrooms.  The backyard is spacious and fenced in (or rather, the pastures around us are fenced out).  There are some enormous trees on the estate - Andrew is in this picture in the bottom right for scale!

Boys in their natural habitat

The traffic lights have been much more difficult to get used to than the roundabouts.  The latter are the same as in Armdale.  The former are far back from the actual intersection and no stop line.  I often stop too far ahead to easily see and have to rely on the person behind to beep at me in irritation to know when it is time to go.

Everyone speaks English.  There are lots of British tourists (we are in the Commonwealth D-Day landing zones) and many Americans as well.

The daytime highs are generally around 25C.  The days have been sunny pretty much all the time, and it often showers at night.  We've heard thunder a couple of times, but we've certainly not seen anything like a typical Ontario thunderstorm.

We didn't bring much for toys/activities for the kids, except their hockey ministicks and a few stuffies.  We bought markers and blank paper so they are drawing stories, and of course playing Temple Run and Minecraft on the iPad.  They are also playing a lot of soccer in the yard.  The cows sometimes come over to watch (especially in the afternoon around dinnertime).  The farmer brings the cows to and from the pasture (for milking?) so there is a "cow parade" out the back window twice a day.  On the other side of the pasture is the train tracks, but the train is very quiet (electric?) and only passenger service so it's short.  Yolanda is doing most of the cooking so far.  As is typical at home, Craig is the morning caregiver and Yolanda the evening one.

Cow parade!

We are about the same latitude as Thunder Bay, so ~6 hours of darkness.  The boys still aren't quite used to the time change, going to bed at 22:30 and getting up at 8:00 (about 1 to 1.5 hours later than at home).

Omaha Beach

St.-Laurent-sur-Mer and Colleville-sur-Mer (week 2)

Having learned from our trip to Gold Beach, we arrived at Omaha at low tide.  The tides here are close to the highest in Europe, and the beaches slope gently, so the effect is dramatic.  As the tide turned, you could see the water coming in - the waves (mere lapping compared to Summerville!) never receded, just sort of petered out and the next wave came in and went a little further, and so on.


Also true to form: the American beach had ample free parking and wide streets, unlike the British Gold site.  As you can see from the picture above, it very simply adorned (the museum is off the beachfront up the street, and there is a second museum further towards the American Cemetery).  The Cemetery was considerably busier, and quite impressive.... and looks exactly as it does in Saving Private Ryan.

"The shark's name is Reefie"

Cherbourg (week 1)

Today's excursion was to the Cité de la Mer, an aquarium/sea exploration museum in Cherbourg.  It has one very large tank (2.5 stories) based on a coral community, as well as the typical series of small aquaria.  There are also many exploration exhibits featuring, for example, deep-sea submersibles like Alvin.  France's first ballistic missile submarine Le Redoubtable (S 661) is there as a museum ship (the reactor and missiles removed, obviously!), so we went through that.  David liked the submarine driving simulator.

Conning the Redoubtable

Finally, there was a Titanic exhibit, with a very effective introductory show - it tells the timeline of the voyage and sinking through wireless transmissions.  The morse code is heard over the speakers and the words (in English and French) are printed on the screen, along with a running clock telling the time of each transmission.  The exhibit also has recreations of cabins, etc.

Gold Beach

Arromanches-les-Bains (week 1)

Boys walking on Atlantic Wall

There isn't much left at Gold Beach - except the Mulberry artificial harbour.  We were there at high tide so there wasn't even very much beach!  There is a museum there that we didn't go in, but there are lots of museum pieces outside - an LCI, tank, artillery pieces, etc.

Craig in front  of the Mulberry at high tide

David and Craig braved the English Channel water (cold: almost as cold as Risser's Beach!), and both boys built sand castles and waited for them to be washed away.

1st D-Day site

Longues-sur-Mer (week 1)

Our first D-Day site was the Batterie Longues, apparently the last Atlantic Wall fortification with Nazi guns still installed (that's David inside the gun).  It was not too busy because it was a little drizzly in the morning.  The drive up was Craig's first attempt at the narrow back roads - the car survived although a couple bushes along the side of the road may not have.

Our Normandy home

Bayeux (Week 1)

The drive from Paris to Bayeux was fraught with difficulties, with multiple accidents and lots of construction.  But arrive we did.  We are staying in a gîte (cottage) on a manor property; also on the property are landowners (in the manor) and dairy farmers (in another building on the grounds).

The Beaussy manor: left, not our place; right, our place (and car)

We did a long-term lease on a vehicle - for you car-o-philes it is a Peugeot 308SW, 1.6 L 5-speed diesel.  The boys' favourite feature is the full-top moon roof.  My favourite feature is the fact that all our luggage fit in.

We watched the World Cup final on the TV in the gîte..... in German, because it was the first station we found that was broadcasting it.  Fitting enough considering Germany won.

"I can't stop eating crêpes!"

Roissy-en-France (Day 1)

We are here!  We took the red-eye to Paris, leaving Thunder Bay at 3:30pm and arriving here at 8:30 am.  We are staying one night in Roissy-en-France (is there another Roissy with which this one would be confused?) to acclimitize.  This is the park (behind the mairie)  The boys did very well.  Andrew has immediately taken to the food, having crêpes for breakfast (hence the quote above) and bread for dinner (hence the picture below.
 

Yolanda and I had duck pizza for dinner.  Mmmmm!

Rosie's sabbatical

Thunder Bay, ON (Day -4)

Rosie has left for her "sabbatical" - i.e. her stay with Mummu and Grandpa. Our house-sitter (a visiting scientist) has arrived and is learning the quirks of our appliances, so everything is finally ready for our departure.... except the packing.