On the road!

After our Paris weekend it was time to attack the French road network in our hire car, having a GPS was a godsend and most of the week was spent with the "Avoid Tollroads and Highways" setting. It turns out is is quite a novel way to see the countryside as well as all of the nooks and cranny's that it offers. It's also a great way to get a flat tyre!

So the first part of this road trip took us to:
Monet's Garden in Giverny.
The ruins of Chateau Gaillard in Les Anderlys.
The trail of Joan of Arc's demise in Rouen.
The Dover-esque white cliffs of Etretat.
and of course a flat tyre, which no body really cares about.

We also made it to Normandy's D-Day beaches which were pretty powerful to say the least, fields of crosses on the shoreline. Most crosses had the name and the age (90% would have been under the age of 23), as well as the date they died (again 90% would have been within 3 days of the landings). Then of course there were the crosses that had no name, just a generic epitaph and the timeless reminder of how brutal this world can be.

Thinking about the thousands of generations that have lived on this planet, and to only miss out on being a part of something like that by a generation or two is a scary thing to think about.

For some better visuals, see below.

Ears: Jack J 

Yes these posts will be full of songs from the trip.

Monet's Garden

Chateau Gaillard

Rouen

Joan of Arc - Rouen

Immediately preceding this photo, Lucy, looking at her map said "there is a cross marking where  Joan of Arc was burned at the stake somewhere around here?" that massive light pole looking thing behind her was it. Lucy still unawares.

Honfleur

Honfleur

Etretat

Commonwealth Memorial Site - Caen

Normandy Memorial Site

A comrade in arms.