France, day 7 - Loire Valley

Today we drove to the beautiful chateau Chenonceau.  It is so much more developed and organized around it than when I was last here.  There are clearly marked parking lots set back from the sites, bathrooms, restaurants, mazes and playgrounds at almost all of the chateaux  we went to - totally different from past visits!  So, Chenonceau was crowded, but I think they say it's the most visited of the chateaux, so that makes sense.  We toured the house, which I love, but I think the girls aren't that interested in the old furniture/tapestries anymore :). I love the long hallway there that spans the river, and I always love seeing how old kitchens worked for some reason.  The gardens are the beautiful formal French style, and we walked in them for a minute, then had to hit the playground and maze to keep Goose and Suse going!  The weather has been perfect the last few days, and I keep trying to soak it all in...magical.

Next stop was Chambord.  I always remember being stunned by this place.  Now they have you park pretty far away, wander through some cafes, a ticket entrance, and then walk around the back and side of the chateau, so you don't get that same impact as when you drive up and see it head on for the first time.  It's still amazing to see, though, of course.  We had fun wandering through this huge place, and winding to the top so we could walk around on the roof level.  They've tried to furnish a bit of the chateau, but you can tell there's no way to furnish and finish these places - they're massive!  You only end up seeing about 20% of them, and always wish you could see them back when they were new and fully furnished.  

On the way home we stopped at a chèvre farm.  They let us go see the (stinky) goats and the girls loved the (flea ridden) dogs. We bought baguettes and have some jam from past days, so that was dinner - voila!  So happy everyone shares my love for chèvre and baguettes, and so happy that's the extent of dinner prep for me this month...happiness.

France, Day 6 - Loire Valley

Today we ate our traditional French breakfast of hot chocolate and croissants.  Then cheese, more bread and plain yogurt.  The girls have mixed feelings about these breakfasts because while they like the croissants and hot chocolate for breakfast, they're not so sure about the cheese and plain yogurt.  Anyway, following breakfast we drove out to our first chateau, Azay le Rideau. It's a beautiful chateau with a moat and park surrounding it.  We had fun touring the rooms, and we have the most gorgeous, sunny weather today, so it's perfect.  

Our next stop was Villandry.  We went through the chateau, then made our way to the gardens.  When deciding which chateaux to visit, this one was recommended as a good one for kids be issue of the gardens and it did not disappoint! There are fountains, incredible hedged gardens, rose gardens, a playground and maze.  It was a fun place to explore outside.  

By now everyone was getting hungry, so we made our way to our last stop of Clos Luce, Da Vinci's home.  We went through the small bit of house you can see, and enjoyed the models of his inventions, and ate at the cafe there.  They've added some fun models of his inventions down in the park/grassy area that you can try out.  You can pull the levers to see how one invention works, or turn paddles in the water at the pond to see another work. This, not surprisingly, was a big hit.  It's always fun for kids (and any of us) to do the hands on things, especially with inventions. 

I was hoping to see the castle at Amboise right there, but it was already 7:30! These days are flying!!  

France, day 5 - le Mont St Michel, drive to the Loire Valley

Today we made our way to the Mont St Michel.  It's stunning to see it rising from the flat ground all around you.  All of a sudden you see a giant spire in the distance.  I find myself wanting to stare at it over and over again - kind of mesmerizing.  As we were approaching it, the girls said, "oh, it's like the movie Tangled."  I hadn't thought of that before, but when you see the movie, you can tell Mt St Michel must have been the inspiration for the town and the castle in the movie.  Anyway, we took a little hidden stairway once we entered the town gates, and decided to follow it a little while to w where it went.  It ended up taking us up to the top to the abbey, which was great because we got to skip past all the crowds of people heading up the one road to the top.  We loved the views! You can't seem to get enough of that view of the washed out tide with the ocean out on the horizon.  

As we entered the chapel, a service was going on and we heard the cool singing (reminds me of Ben and Mark and every old building they enter where they can't resist the urge to sing Gregorian chants) and saw the nuns - cool.  We continued on our self-guided tour of the abbey where we saw the great hall, scriptorium, and crypt.  Goose found a side door that we went into and followed a curly staircase all the way up to the roof of the abbey - we were way up there!  We could see the statue on top if the spire of St. Michael slaying the dragon, except just as I'd tip my head back to see the statue up there, it would feel too weird and dizzy ish.  Did I mention in my post about when we climbed up to the top of St. Paul's that Suse has Dad's and my same fear of heights?  I totally get how she feels - sightly freaked out, can't wait to get down, equilibrium a little off.  It must be hereditary...funny.  Anyway, we loved our visit, but as we wound down the Main Street through the island, we were ready to be done with the crowds.  It gets pretty packed.  

Now we were on to our drive to the Loire Valley.  We had a 3+ hour drive so we stopped at a Carrefour to get snacks and duck tape - why? Because our van door on one side doesn't quite shut all the way (never has since we picked it up - this thing is so dinged up, it's amazing). Anyway, it gets really loud in the car on the freeway, so for this long of a drive,  we needed some tape so we could hear each other.  It actually worked pretty well.  It was so funny in the store, too, because we went to check out and the girls was so bugged at me because I hadn't weighed the fruit.  I ran back and weighed the fruit (people waiting in line behind me the whole time), and told her how much it weighed.  She said "uuuh, I'll just do it" in some really quick, annoyed French.  Turns out I was supposed to get a sticker with a bar code when I weighed it - oops. So then I see no bags and ask for some, and she says there aren't any, so we left carrying a ridiculous amount of stuff in our arms.  Funny thing was, the next line of peeps in checkout had bags...hmm.  Anyway, with our duck taped van door and snacks, we were off.  The kids were happy to have some down time (read movies, iPods, plugged in time), and Mark and I could now hear each other.  We have done 1,000 roundabouts, where we keep saying "cedez le passage" because we see it so many times a day.  Mark in his frantic voice as he tries to get the van to have enough juice to merge onto the crazy roundabouts successfully.  We are also cracking up about the amount of toll roads we hit - 5+ a day.  Sometimes our credit card works, sometimes it doesn't.  The first time it didn't work, we had been through toll booths that accepted US credit cards about 10 times.  Then all of a sudden this one didn't, so it spit our ticket out, and it landed under the car, we had to call the help booth, etc.  They said they'd send someone out to help us, but after several minutes of no person, Mark started waving cars behind us to back up, then we backed up and found our ticket and got into a different cash line.  These are the stories of the daily minutiae, but they're so funny, and they are the reality of the whole experience. 

When we pulled up to our hotel, the guy that runs it came out to meet us, and I forgot the door was duck taped.  It took a while to push my taped door open, and out we pile with our incredible number of kids here...awesome image, right?  A US family was also checking in and went on and on about the winery they'd been to.  They showed us pictures, gave us the business card of the place, and the 10 yr old was telling us how good the wine was.  We feel like the Griswolds at times :).  

It's a fun, old house/small chateau we're staying in - very quirky, but memorable.  The girls are in a room with an upstairs bed in the turret, and it has old beams in the ceiling.  It's like a cozy attic, and they're loving it.  Funny, wonderful, memorable day.

France, day 4 - Bayeux, Omaha Beach, Pte du Hoc, La Cambe

This morning, we explained to the girls that we were going to rewind 1000 years from what we'd been seeing and go to the Bayeux Tapestry.  We had read through it the night before with Mom's great copy of it that has an English translation.  Lu also remembered quite a bit from learning about it this year in school.  She remembered lots of details.  The three big girls also were remembering which section they drew in their fourth grade classes in the project where each person in the class draws a section of the tapestry and then they put it all together. So we got audio guides when we got there, and most of these places have kids version audio guides, which is so great.  We listened to our audio guide as we walked along the length of the tapestry.  It's in better condition than I remembered it to be in.  It's really great to see - we loved it!  From there, we walked around the Bayeux cathedral where the tapestry used to hang.Then we checked out of our hotel, and headed to Omaha Beach.

For me, as soon as we got to the grounds of the American Cemetery there, I felt the heaviness and the nobility of what happened there.  There is definitely a tangible spirit there of sacrifice and sacredness.  We watched the movie (of course) that gave you insight to a handful of the boys buried there - what they were like, letters they'd written home, etc.  It made it so that when we went out to the rows upon rows of white crosses, we could try to imagine the story behind each - at least that there was a story, and a boy with hopes and a future.  Somewhere there, they said it best, that they gave up their futures for ours.  I must have a bit of my Dad in me because I was overcome with emotion a few times here...I think the chapel with the mosaic roof with America sending her boys off to war and France receiving them and burying them is beautiful.  We also found it sad to think of the crosses that marked an unknown soldier died in battle.  How sad to give your life in battle and have no closure or certainty for your family/friends.  The girls took it upon themselves to decorate some of those graves with wildflower daisies growing around the place.  The view out over the beach is peaceful and beautiful.  I always try to imagine it the way it was on dday.  It's a powerful, moving place.

Next we visited Pointe Du Hoc where the ground is covered with bomb craters and bunkers and gun platforms.  We had watched Regan's speech at the anniversary there before coming, and again it was amazing to think of those rangers scaling the cliffs.  It's hard to really wrap your head around.  The girls liked going up and down the hills made by the bomb craters.  I saw a man snap a picture of them picking flowers in of the bomb craters.  It definitely gave us a better sense of the price paid for our free, peaceful lives. Our final Dday stop was the German Cemetery.  We wanted to see the contrast between the two cemeteries.  There are flat grave markers, with two buried per plot, back crosses placed every so often, and a black cross on top of a big hill.  It had no memorials and none of the feeling of the US cemetery.  To me, it mostly felt like lives wasted, when given for their dark cause.  It was an interesting comparison.  This closed our Dday chapter of our trip, and while I think the others girls were fine with moving on, Zelle said she wanted to do more. She was so cute, she really was interested in all the history.  She wanted to visit more of the beaches and see more of the places.  She said she wants to come back some day.

Tonight we drove to our hotel near Mt St Michel, which we will see tomorrow!  It was another wonderful day, and we're beginning to figure the car/moving around every night thing.

France, day 3 - Arromanches, Lingues Sur Mer

Today we stopped back into the museum at Caen to see the movie we missed yesterday since it was on our way to Arromanches.  It's a good movie about Dday, all with footage from the actual day.  I love how they've done that.  It's amazing how many of the boys look so young and happy- like they have no idea what they're getting into. Following the movie, we went to the town of Arromanches which is part of Gold Beach that the British secured.  We watched the slideshow that explained how they built the "Mulberry" harbors in just a couple of days.  It's incredible to see parts of the massive structures out there in the ocean still. The movies and slideshows really help us all understand it better, especially the kids.  That said, we also visited the 360 degree theater there and watched that short movie.

After this, we went to Longues Sur Mer so we could see German guns there above the beach.  They are enormous concrete boxes with enormous guns inside of them. It's interesting, and kind of surreal to visit these spots that are now so peaceful and pretty with wild flowers everywhere.  The girls ran around and picked windflowers, then climbed into concrete bunkers.  That night we drove to Bayeux to stay at our hotel. Tonight and the last two nights, we've had hotel rooms with bunk beds, etc where we could fit 5 to a room in one room, and the other room is a standard 2 person room.  The other room has been down the hall.  The girls have been wanting to sleep together and then Mark and I have our own room.  It's pretty fun, and a little crazy that our kids ae big enough to do this!

France, day 2 - Rouen, Caen

So after a short and bad night's sleep, we woke up and Mark took the girls for a quick swim at the hotel.  Then we began the slow process of mobilizing :)...takes us a while.  We then saw the beautiful cathedral at Rouen, which looks like it has lace on it from the outside.  It's amazing what they could make with stone hundreds of years ago.  While most of the windows were damaged in the war, the are a few that still have the beautiful medieval blue stained glass.  It's incredible.  Supposedly, Richard the Lionheart'sheart us buried there, too...eeew. We saw where that supposedly is, too.  We saw the wonderful old clock there in town and the site of Joan of Arc's burning at the stake.  Quite a lot in a little two block area.  Everyone keeps cracking up at the pronunciation of Rouen, and they've decided it sounds like a pig snorting.  So whenever they ask if something is in Rouen or if we're going to Rouen, etc, they just snort.  "Are we staying in (snort) tonight?"  Kind of funny if it makes any sense :)

Following checkout, we drove to Caen to see the museum "Memorial"- all about WWII, and a nice intro for the Dday part of our trip.  The girls did really well there.  We spent 3 hours at the museum and learned a ton. I seem to have some similar take always when I revisit this history:  the Brits were so gritty and tough, Churchill was incredibly heroic, the axis powers were evil beyond evil, war is horrific, and where were the French when they were being liberated? Why weren't more fighting alongside the Americans, Brits and Canadians?  My favorite part of the museum was a little movie about the Battle of Britain because we saw places we had just been - the tube with people sheltering down there, St Paul's with part of the roof bombed, Big Ben with bomb damage from the blitz.  It just felt more meaningful feeling like we knew and loved those places, too, now.

By this time, we headed to our hotel for the night in the little town of Honfleur that Mom had recommended.  What a quaint town!  It's right on a harbor with many Tudor style buildings, and an old wooden church from the 14th century.  I've never seen one like it.  Seems like most of them have been burned down.  Anyway, it's a lovely little town that we loved.  We even had creeps for dinner that night - complete with ham, cheese and egg, and Nutella, banane.  I can again say it was an amazing day. And best of all, no music festivals!

Vive la France

This morning we woke up early to check out of our flat and catch a train to Paris.  We had booked a taxi, and there was enough traffic getting to the train station that it was a little rushed.  We grabbed a little food at the strain station for breakfast and got on our train. Before getting on the train, I had my first encounter with a Frenchie - the passport guy - super rude and unhelpful.  Welcome to France...I could sense myself getting closer to all things France as we checked in.

The train is such a smooth, easy way to get from London to Paris.  I really do love train travel.  Once in Paris, we rented our car from a car rental site right there at there at Gare du Nord, so that's pretty slick.  And we were off on our car adventure - no idea what we're doing!  I have no sea how mom and dad did this with paper maps.  It's confusing/hrd enough with google maps. At one point I wasn't getting no signal, so I unfolded a map I brought along from Mom and Dad's things, and it spread out across the entire width of the car.  It was so unwieldy...Anyway, we managed to find food and make it to Giverny - phew!  The home is fun to see.  You can tour the upstairs now, which I think is new. Another thing I think is new is the subterranean path you go under a busy road to get to the water lily pond.  So now there's a really busy road with traffic whizzing by the garden, which is a bummer, but the gardens and water lilies are still so lovely!  It makes it more fun to see Monet's paintings when you see his inspiration and backdrop for a lot of them.  We were saying its so pretty there, it could make a painter/photographer out of anyone!

Following Giverny, we were on our way to Rouen for the night.  We took a few minor wrong turns and hit some pretty heavy traffic doing into Rouen.  I kept wondering why there would be traffic at 7:30 there, so weird.  It took us forever to get to our hotel because streets were blocked, etc.  We finally made it, though and were excited to rest after a long day.  No sooner had we found food and started getting settled than the music started...sure enough we happen to be here on the night of the heinous music festival that is nation wide.  I remember the stupid festival with super loud, late concerts all over the country.  We thought it would be fun to stay in this hotel right in the heart of Rouen so we could see the cathedral and the clock in the morning, but what this means is that the speakers and music for this part of the festival are literally feet from our room.  It is now 1:15am and it feels like we're inside a super loud club with repetitive beats and mind numbing techno "music" (it's seriously 2 notes over and over) blasting into our heads.  We considered moving hotels, but by the time we fund one and get settled, it will be 2:00 anyway, which is when we're told this ends.  So this is one of the more reality filled days, where I'm stuk grateful we're healthy and safe, but I'm not going to say it was another incredible day.  Sheesh.  I took a video so you can hear it sometime.  Amaaaazing.  Sad too because it means we will all be fried tomorrow and maybe the next day for the littles. Oh well, c'est la vie, non?