We had an epic journey to France to pick up Katreina! It was my first time back in the country since I was in high school (and that's been a hot minute!), and Frank and Trent's first trip to France. We were also joined by Grandma Sue who was on her second trip there.
The main purpose of the trip was to get Katreina and meet her family so we spent a few days in Tours to do just that! I really like the town and can see why K was so happy there with her amazing host family. We visited her school and favorite stores, began our diet of fresh croissants, and walked miles along the streets with their charming mix of old and new buildings. While we were in town, we explored a few nearby sites of the Loire Valley--Chateau Villandry and Chateau du Clos Luce--but most of all just enjoyed staring at the face we haven't seen in person for 10 months.
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| So happy to see our French student! |
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| Tours was a beautiful city! |
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| Chateaux Villandry and its beautiful gardens. |
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| Chateaux du Clos Lucé, final home of Leonardo da Vinci. |
The five of us piled into our rental car, left the Loire Valley, and headed south toward the Dordogne River Valley. Along the way we stopped at the Village des Martyrs in Oradour-Sur-Glane to witness the horrors the Nazis inflicted on this country village on June 10, 1944. We spent a few days in the Dordogne exploring prehistoric art in the Cro-Magnon caves and enjoying the old town of Sarlat-la-Canéda. We visited Lascaux IV, Grotte de Rouffignac, and Grotte de Font-de-Guame, which was a real treat as only 78 respiring humans are allowed in each day and we somehow secured same-day entry. This region has much more for us to explore in the future!
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| "Remember" Oradour-Sur-Glane |
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| Cro-Magnon Caves! |
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| Sarlat-le-Canéda was such a great little town! |
We spent a few days on the Brittany (Bretagne)/Normandy border in the cutest little carriage house as our base for a journey to the Mont-Saint-Michel Abbey, great dining on the Bretagne coast in Cherrueix, and a visit to the fortress port city of Saint-Malo. It was so cool watching the fisherman drive tractors out onto the sand at low tide to harvest mussels, clams, and oysters along this coast and the seafood was delicious!
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| Mont-Saint-Michel was unreal! |
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| The Bretagne Coast and out cute neighbors at our AirBnB! |
And we finished our trip in Normandy. As Trent is really into WWII history we stayed in Bayeux for a few days so that we could take our time and visit the historic locations. We visited the village of Ste-Mere Elise, Utah Beach, Pointe Du Hoc, the WWII Normandy American Cemetery, Longues-Sur-Mer Gun Battery, Omaha Beach, Port Winston artificial harbour, and the Battle Normandy Museum to learn about Allied and German planning and execution of D-Day and the war that continued afterward. Driving across Normandy really gave me a better appreciation of the geography (and the spread of our airborne forces). While the landing beaches are of great significance to the history of D-Day, on a hot weekend in June they were crowded with happy families enjoying the cool water--it was nice to see that such carnage could be replaced with joy. While in Bayeux we also checked out the Bayeux Tapestry which details William the Conqueror's rise from duke of Normandy to kind of England (and does so with some pretty graphic needlework in some spots!) over 70 yards of stitched scenes that were completed so the illiterate masses would know the story.
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| Ste-Mere-Elise, Utah Beach, and Pointe Du Hoc |
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| Port Winston, Longues-Sur-Mer Gun Battery, the WWII Normandy American Cemetery, and Omaha Beach. These days were so moving and educational! |
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| Bayeux was a beautiful village and we were able to eat a really good meal out! |
We wound down our trip in the port city of Honfleur for no better reason than it looked like a cool, walkable port town with lots of good restaurants. Our group split up some for the day, but came together for one last wonderful dinner.
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| LOVED this little port village! As a sailor, it was great to be back near the water. |
Driving in France wasn't so bad, even with our midsize car. They drive on the right, they love roundabouts (and as a former New Englander I was cool with that), and people actually only drive in the left lane to pass! Brilliant! Highways were easy, but narrow roads in some small towns were a little exciting! Parking in the cities and old town areas was tight, but we managed. The only real challenge was the stupid "AdBlue" emissions additive that we apparently were low on from the minute we got the rental. After some fabulous translation by K and the purchase of 10L of AdBlue and two funnels, we were good-to-go and wouldn't have the car shut down on us for the rest of the trip! (It's an EU diesel thing--you've been warned.)
We had one unplanned adventure on the trip--COVID. It got us all early on and while it definitely impacted the amount of time I spent at cafe tables sipping French wine, I am thankful that we all had only a day or two of minor symptoms and had nice, roomy AirBnBs to quarantine in. We were able to limit our contact with others, lay low, and make decent meals (and the grocery had great 3 euro wine!). Since most of our plans had us outdoors anyway, we only had to cancel a winery tour and tasting and we had plenty of flexibility in our trip to adjust.
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Yep, it got us. But at least our symptoms were mild and our quarantine spot was lovely!
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~Jo, 1st Mate (or is it Lead Travel Agent???)
