CHERBOURG, France 1-3 May

We left early this morning to head to Poole for our 11am ferry.  There weren’t many on the ship and as we sailed out of the harbour we could see the grey skies and rough water.  Sure enough, not too long into the trip we all started to feel quite seasick.  We had 4 hours to endure.  We all felt so horrible we couldn’t even buy any lunch, let alone walk around anywhere, we just lay our heads down on the table and tried to sleep.  Poor Jack threw up twice.  Cherbourg could not come quick enough. 

Once we had passed through the customs, we headed off down the coast to see one of the D-Day beaches – Utah Beach.  It really was an auspicious day, depicting exactly the mood of the place and what we imagined it would have been like.  It was grey and overcast and extremely windy and cold.  We got out of the car as much as we could be the wind was too strong and the sand was whipping into our faces.  We did see the abandoned long sweeping Utah Beach though and some German bunkers and memorials.  We headed straight back to Cherbourg and our cute little hotel in the centre of town.  We scrambled 10 minutes down the road in the gusty wind and light rain and found a little Italian place for dinner.  Unfortunately the waitress knew no English so we scrapped together our French and sign language and had a lovely dinner.

The next morning we went to Arromanche.  Thankfully it was a warmer and sunnier day and we wandered around the quaint French seaside town realising the underlying haunting history that has made this town famous.  It was very touristy, all things World War and Jack bought an old used WW2 American bullet.  We wandered up the hillside to the incredible views of the Arromanche Beach and next beach down.  From here we could see all the remaining pontoons out in the ocean that the Americans used to defeat the Germans here.  We also went into the 360 degree cinema which showed black and white movies of the war – we were surrounded by screens.

You can see one of the pontoons in the background

From here we drove up the coast again to Omaha Beach where we went to the American Military Cemetary with over 9000 soldiers buried there.  It was enormous and so beautifully kept.  We couldn’t spend too long here because we had a 3 hour drive to Paris.

We arrived into Paris at 8.30pm.  Our first view of familiarity was the Arc De Triomph as we came out of a tunnel.  The kids were so excited.  Next we caught sight in the distance of the Eiffel Tower – more excited yells.  Soon enough we were thick amongst the Paris traffic feeling very weary of the racing cars and dodging motorcycles amongst us.  Craig experienced his first go at the roundabout of the Arc De Triomph in peak hour traffic – I gritted my teeth, the kids cheered Corky on.  We made it!  We found our apartment and luckily a carpark quite easily but then we had to carry our luggage up 5 flights of stairs to our top floor apartment.  We were all so excited to be in Paris.  We headed out for a walk around the corner and for dinner at a Japanese restaurant.

Our first view in Paris .... Arc De Triomphe

We are in Paris for 5 nights x