Rainy Germany, Paris and Normandy

July 26: Eric woke up early (5:30 am) with his father. I woke up briefly to say goodbye and thanks for this great opportunity and place to stay. Then Randy was gone. E and I went back to bed for a few more hours. We didn’t have much going on the rest of the day… just a little house cleaning! So in the evening we fixed a nice dinner with Champagne and ate outside.

July 27: This evening we went on a walk… there was a very nice sunset (check out the pics). The farmers had just started cutting the wheat so the air was a little dusty. Eric was completely interested in the large tractor that was being used to do the job. After our walk we called it a night!

July 28-30: It rained the whole day… every day… for three days straight! We played a lot of Rummy 500, and watched a lot of CNN ☺

July 31: Today we leave for Paris! I am so excited to visit Paris… I am a little worried about the Parisians attitude you so often hear about from other travelers, but E and I are excited because we are meeting Rob and Cody tomorrow! Our train doesn’t leave until later this evening… we are taking a night train (natch zug) from a city named Karlsruhe to Paris arriving around 7:30 am! So I made some pizza and we ate outside… seems like the weather has turned sunny! Our neighbor Gerd stopped by because he saw our suitcases outside and offered us a ride down to the train station. We are so lucky to have met all these nice and generous people here. When we got to the train station we ran into this German guy who seemed to be telling us that the train was not coming! We tried to talk to him but couldn’t understand anything…. Then we realized that he might be just a bit off his rocker because usually we can understand something from a conversation. Then the guy left and we waited anxiously for our train, hoping that it would come. It came and all our worries were washed away! The rest of our journey went so smooth that we ended up in Karlsruhe early. We walked around to find something to eat but all the restaurants had closed at 10:30 am and our train wasn’t coming till 1 am. This is the first time that we had to bite the bullet and eat Mc Donald’s.

After our long wait our train arrived and we boarded in search of our compartment. We had a private room with a washbasin in it… and the stewardess asked for our breakfast preferences. It was kind of like a hotel room, but very small with a bathroom around the corner with a shower! E and I went to sleep and woke up early in the morning to the alarm clock that was set for breakfast. Our stewardess brought us breakfast and coffee (hot chocolate for E) and we ate our food as we looked out our window at the passing French countryside. Oh… I am into the next day!

Aug 1: So as I wrote before we had breakfast in our compartment as we waited for the train to reach Paris. After we got off the train we went to the metro to figure out what line we had to take to get to our hotel. A French train station worker approached us and was more than happy to help us. We were very surprised by his friendly demeanor. We checked into our hotel in the Marias neighborhood just north of the Seine. We walked to the old Parisian Cemetery (Pere Lachaise Cemetary) from our hotel first. We saw Jim Morrison’s grave and Chopin’s grave. There were so many very old graves mixed with more recent ones. It was very interesting walking around and reading those stones that were still readable. In the afternoon we went to the Catacombs located underground in old quarry tunnels. Starting in 1785, six million people were relocated from cemeteries around Paris underground (then) just outside the city. It was very strange almost unbelievable walking through so many stacks of bones. Many of the famous people that are located here were executed during political unrest. We have pictures of this too! After our depressing sigh seeing day we made our way to the Luxembourg Garden. These gardens belong to the Parisian Senate and they had strict rules on what activities can take place in what areas of the park. On our way back to the hotel we passed Notre-Dame!

This evening we met Robb, Cody and their parents at dinner (they just arrived this afternoon). There was Robb’s mother, father, sister, and Cody’s mother and father. We ate at a neat restaurant right by the Place Des Vosges. It was so nice to see them since we have been gone so long! We wish all our friends had been able to make it out for a visit! (I have to give props to Scott, Mike, Dan, Dylan, and Mike L. – all are visiting while we are here!). After dinner we called it a night because we were getting up early to site see with Rob, Cody and the families.

Aug 2: Eric and I woke up at 7:30 am because we were meeting the gang at their hotel at 9 am. First on the itinerary was Sacre-Coeur on Montmartre! We walked up the steps to go through the famous church. You could see a lot of the city from this 420 high hilltop. Then we went to the Eiffel Tower (one of my favorite sites). We didn’t stand in line to go up the tower but we walked all around and under it and got some great pictures. Next we went to Napoleon’s Tomb… E and I didn’t go in, but we heard it was a very big Tomb for such a small man! The rest of the afternoon was a little more laid back with a nice lunch (E and I had Lebanese Food). The ladies did a little shopping and then met the men at the bar for a drink! Then we walked through Notre-Dame.

Later in the evening we met the whole group and took a riverboat cruise along the Seine River! We made the 9:20 pm trip (the best time to see all the sites at night because they were all lit up). This city is really amazing at night, and the view is very different from the river. We saw so many of the main sites in Paris on our boat tour (L’Orangerie, Orsay Museum, The Louvre, Grand Palais, Notre-Dame, the Tuileries Gardens, the Eiffel Tower, and the many bridges of Paris. The Eiffel Tower was all light up and for about 15 minutes was sparkling like a diamond with strobe lights. The night boat cruise will be a great memory of our time in Paris!

Aug 3: Today we slept in and met up with Rob, Cody and Cody’s parents at the Louvre. They went into the Louvre early and we met them around 12 PM so that we could get some sleep! From The Louvre we walked through the Tuileries, Orangerie to the Place Concorde. We kept going up the Champs-Elysees, stopping in some stores and car showrooms. Eric, Rob, Cody and I entered a pit-crew challenge in the Renault Showroom (Eric and Rob’s idea). Cody and I were on a team and Eric and Rob were on the other team. We had to change the tire of a Formula 1 car as we were being timed. Of course Eric and Rob won, but Cody and I gave a good fight. They guys working there told Eric and Rob that they had the fasted time of the week (they seemed really impressed with their time)! Now that Rob and Eric were smiling from ear to ear we finished our walk to the Arc de Triomphe. We all paid to go up to the top for the great views of the city. Later in the evening we all went out to dinner (after a little walk to find a good dinner spot) for our last evening in Paris. It was another great day in Paris!

Aug 4: Today we left Paris and headed to Bayeaux, a small town in Normandy, to tour the infamous battle beaches of WWII. We had a little trouble getting our rental car since they didn’t speak any English, but eventually we were given the car. We drove to the Chateaux just outside of Bayeaux. This place was very nice, and we were served a bottle of Cider when we arrived (they can’t grow grapes there due to the cold weather, so they make Cider instead of Champagne). We went back into town for a little dinner and went to bed early since we had to get up early for our tour!

Aug 5: Our tour of the Normandy WWII beaches started at 9 AM. The first beach we went to was where the British arrived. The tide along the Normandy beaches rise and fall about 25 feet. They set up a harbor just off the beach in about 3 days… this was complete with a floating road so that the tanks could go back and forth from the ships no matter the tide. They used huge 4 story tall concrete bocks, towed across the bay, and then filled with water so that they would sink. It’s pretty incredible how quick they were about to create this harbor… and just a few days after it was made, a big storm destroyed the man made harbor. There are still many parts (huge concrete blocks etc) that remain today… nothing has been changed since.

Next stop were the German fortifications up on the cliffs. These fortifications had the original guns (huge guns) within them. One of the forts took a direct hit and there are pieces of concrete and the gun spread all around. The barrel of the gun was half buried in the ground! The concrete walls of the forts were so think… maybe about 10 feet thick in some areas. Then we learned about the pipe line that the British laid along the bottom of the bay to bring fuel, and water (because they thought the Nazi’s poisoned the local water supply).

We went to Omaha Beach (aka Bloody Omaha Beach) next and walked around. This place was pretty strange… this was the most deadly battle (as seen on Private Ryan) of D-day. There was a French man who walked up to our tour guide and told him that his wife doesn’t come out the trailer when they are there out of respect for all the men who lost their lives helping liberate the French people. There were not many people on this beach. There were no seashells… only pebbles. It is said that the water was red for days following the battle here. The solders had to swim to the beach, then if they made it that far they had to run 300 yards up the beach since it was low tide. Perched on top of the hill stands the American Cemetery. They French gave this land to America and is considered American soil. We walked through this cemetery where only about 1/3 of the dead solders are buried. The remaining 2/3 of the dead were shipped back to the United States. Many of the head stones were unknown, while others contained names, rank, hometown, date of death, but none of the stones contain birthdays.

The last stop on our tour was an area that was so heavily bombed there are still huge craters all over the ground. There were rangers that climbed the cliffs here only to find out that the guns were fake and the real ones had been moved inland. There are huge pieces of concrete from the forts just tossed to the side!

Aug 6: Today we traveled back to our home in Wutha! It was a long travel day, so we took a taxi home from the train station!