France - Chantilly August 2018

Chateau de Chantilly was the home of the Duke of Aumale, son of the last king of France. The collection of antique paintings is (in France) second only to the Louvre. The chateau itself is beautiful from the outside and very interesting on the inside, not garish or opulent but with an understated feeling of wealth.

There are collections of manuscripts and works of art including two paintings by Raphael.  There are artifacts from an ancient Greece and from Pompeii. The reading room is lovely. It's an impressive collection housed in a beautiful chateau.

Outside there are gardens and fountains, but be sure to visit the Great Stables. Built in the 18th century, they are the largest stables in Europe. They have equestrian shows there, and you can go into the stables and see the horses up close. Really close, so close that one of the horses snorted his spit on me! Even with that lovely bit of slime and grass, it was still one our favorite places and a place I would definitely visit again if the opportunity presented itself.

France - Versailles August 2018

The Royal Palace at Versailles, home of the Sun King Louis XIV. Also home to Marie Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI, famous for being beheaded during the French Revolution.

The lines are very long at Versailles. If you go, buy a ticket and a guided tour online because the tour gets you into the park faster than waiting in the regular line. I guess there are timed admission tickets available but I didn't find any when I purchased the tickets, probably because I waited until the day before and all the timed ones were likely sold out.

The tour was interesting and the palace is opulent as one would expect. Mike and I have been to Herrenchiemsee in Germany which King Ludwig built as a copy of Versailles because he admired the Sun King. It is a very good copy and I would even say that the Hall of Mirrors in Herrenchiemsee is bigger and better than the one at Versailles,

We concluded our tour and looked around a bit then went outside into the gardens. It was hot outside that day and inside the palace was pretty warm as well.  The gardens are not gardens in the sense of a garden with lots of flowerbeds, but more of a garden that has lawns, trees, fountains, etc. It is very large and a lot of walking involved unless you hire a little golf cart. It was really disappointing that none of the fountains are running except on weekends and a few specific days during the summer. A little water mist from a fountain would have been a welcome refresher.

We walked down to the lake and had some lunch at a cafe there and even indulged in some ice cream sundaes for dessert. The food was very good and it was nice to sit in the shade.

We then walked over to try to find the little hamlet of Marie Antoinette's,  but we were a little confused trying to find the entrance and it was really hot so we eventually gave up.  If I were to visit again, I would choose to come in the off season and preferably on a weekend to see the water fountains.

France - Normandy D-day sites August 2018

Mike and I had toured some off the D-day sites before, but we encouraged Amanda and Greg to take a tour with us and they readily agreed. I think its important for younger people to understand the sacrifices that Americans made to help liberate Europe in WWII.

We hired a tour guide from the same company we used previously, Overlord Tours. Overload was the military name for the D-day invasion plan.  We stopped at Omaha Beach where our guide Thiery explained the dynamics of the beach landings. Mike and I spent some time explaining too about the loss of life and the seemingly impossible odds that confronted the troops. The beach at Omaha is wide and it stretches out quite far when the tide is out. That's lots of exposed ground to cover when people are shooting machine guns at you.

Our next stop was the American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer. It's a sobering place with the rows upon rows of markers, and it's less than half of the Americans killed just at Omaha Beach. Amanda and Greg took their time and really felt the effect of the memorial.

We made a stop at the La Fiere bridge over the Merderet. One of my favorite places for the story of their fight to keep the bridge from the Germans.

We also saw the gun batteries at Longues-sur-Mer, and the village of Sainte Mere Eglise.
After a lunch break in the village, we went to Utah Beach and Pointe du Hoc.

Last stop was the tiny village of Angoville au Plain where two American medics worked tirelessly through a multi-day siege to treat wounded soldiers, including a couple of German soldiers. At one point, their position was overtaken by the Germans and the only reason the Germans let them stay and continue to care for the wounded was because they were also caring for German soldiers. At one point, a bombshell came right through the roof of the church but didn't explode. One of the medics had to pick out up and carry it outside. You can go into the little church and see the shellhole in the ceiling and the bloodstains that still remain on the pews.

See my blog post from September 2016 for more on these places.

After a long and emotional day, we climbed into our van and drove to Versailles for a visit to the palace the next day. You couldn't find a more completely opposite set of places to visit.

France - Bayeux August 2019

We arrived for a one-night stay in Bayeux for our tour of the D-day sites the next day. When we checked in to our hotel, the clerk mentioned a light show at the Cathedral that night. We didn't know what to expect but decide to check it out and we were so glad we did.

They had the cathedral lit up in red and blue lights and there were special projection lights set up around the Tree of Liberty in the cathedral's courtyard. When the show started, the lights projected pictures on the tree and there was music to go along with it. But the pictures on the tree actually moved across the trunk and the branches, it was really cool. The show lasted for about an hour I think, I was so engaged that I wasn't even thinking about anything but the show.

If you go to Bayeux, also make time to check out the tapestry museum. It's much more interesting than it sounds, believe me. Definitely worth a visit, especially if history interests you.

France - Mont Saint-Michel August 2018

Mike and I had been to MSM before,  but our visit coincided with one of the highest tides and we wanted to be there to see that. We stayed in a hotel located at the beginning of the causeway to the Mont so we could easily walk back and forth. Plus there's something really cool about waking up in the morning and seeing the Mont right there in front of you.

We went over to the tour the Abbey when we arrived and, even though Mike and I had been here before, we enjoyed visiting again and sharing it with Amanda and Greg. They really liked it and thought the whole place was very cool.  I have to say that I really love this place, there's just something almost magical about it.

That evening, I was all set up with the camera and tripod and waiting for the tide to come in. The bay is quite large and when the tide is out, its possible to walk quite a way out into the bay since it's not very deep. So when the tide comes in, it's not like a giant rushing wave but more of a steady increase in the amount of water covering the bay. The really great part is the beautiful reflections that you can get if the wind is calm. Well the wind was not in my favor this particular evening but there was interesting cloud cover, so I still got some great photos.

The next morning, we woke up to find that the tide was just starting to go out. The Mont was an island once again! After breakfast, we walked over to find that people were waiting to get in the city gate because the water hadn't retreated far enough yet to cross over. It didn't take too long before it was down far enough to cross and just get your shoes a little wet. It was far more crowded today than the day before, it turned out to be a holiday of some sort so there were lots of visitors. We explored some parts of the Mont we hadn't seen the previous day and then reluctantly left for our next destination.

France - Paris August 2018

We had originally planned to fly into Paris from Edinburgh and and go straight to Mont Saint-Michel, but daughter Amanda wanted to meet up with us and had never been to Paris before.  We met Amanda and her fiancé Greg at the airport and piled into a cab for the trip to Hotel da Vinci where we had stayed previously. It's a good location,  just 1-1/2 blocks from the Louvre on the Left Bank in Saint Germain.

We decided to take a walk that evening and found ourselves at the Eiffel Tower. The line wasn't horribly long, so we bought tickets and rode the elevator to the top. It offers a great view of Paris, I especially like looking out across the river and the Trocadero. We were back on the ground and right under the tower when the sparkly light show started so we managed to get some good photos of that.

We got up early the next day and walked to Notre Dame only to find out that the towers are now accessed by advance ticket only, and we couldn't get in until 4pm that day. While Mike and I were figuring out the ticket situation, A and G went inside to tour the cathedral. We decided to walk down to the Louvre as it was still early in the day and bought a museum pass there to get discounts on the places we wanted to go. The Louvre is huge and confusing and filled with so many works of art, see my blog post from 2016 to learn more. Amanda was an Art History major in college, so she loves museums and of course she wanted to see the Mona Lisa.

From there, we found a place to have a bite to eat and went back to Notre Dame for our timed entrance to the towers. It's a long spiral walk up and when we made it to the first open area, Amanda decided she didn't need to go all the way to the top. She and Mike headed back down the stairs while Greg and I kept going to the top level. After looking out across Paris from this vantage point, Greg and I made our way down to find Mike and Amanda enjoying a nice cold ice cream cone! Aha! Could this be the real reason they left us? It was a pretty hot day so we really couldn't blame them. Luckily Mike offered to buy one for me too, so all was well.

The next day, we went to the Musee d'Orsay which both Amanda and Greg enjoyed. It is not anywhere as big as the Louvre but it's less crowded and you don't get hopelessly lost inside. Amanda likes the Impressionists so she got to visit her friends Monet, Von Gogh, etc.

We walked down to the Arc de Triumph and climbed to the top of that as well.  Luckily our museum passes allowed to skip the big line outside. It was  blazing hot at the top and not much better inside, but I do like watching all the crazy traffic down below and all the crazier pedestrians that don't know about the access tunnels. They try running across that huge roundabout and dodging traffic as they go. Yikes!

We had dinner that night at the Paris Hard Rock Cafe. Greg collects T-shirts from all the Hard Rocks he's visited and so he needed one from Paris. Later that evening, we took boat ride on the Seine to see some of Paris' landmarks lit up.

Just a whirlwind introduction to Paris for the kids, but we had to be at Mont Saint-Michel the next day.