It’s about time I looked at adding to this blog thingy, I haven’t thought of it for a while.
Why have I thought of it now you may ask. Well in 10 days time, Tuesday June 16, we’ll be in England on our summer trip. This time we’ll be taking the notebook with us to keep in touch. Write some views of what we see, where we go and add some photos along the way.
Sharon and I were talking a while back on what to do this summer, we'd veto'd Mexico because it might have been a little warm for our Northern bodies. Real estate didn’t seem to be filling our lives, (No really!) back then. So I got on line and booked tickets from Vancouver BC to London Gatwick. Then six weeks later return from Barcelona to Vancouver…..How cool is that? Now we have to fill in the blanks, blank weeks that is.
Sharon found a converted stone barn in a village near Hastings in West Sussex called Three Oaks. We're just doors down from the “pub!” She knows how to pick them. I have a reason for seeing Hastings and Battle Abbey. We want to see Canterbury and the Cathedral again then Dover Castle and other ‘hysterical’ places in the Southeast.
We’ll stay in the South of England for about ten days then take the train under the Channel to Paris and spend a few days wandering Normandy. Sharon wants to see Mont San Michel and the French countryside. I need to look in on the Bayeux Tapestry, seems only fitting after being at the battlefield at Hastings. We’ll get the 1066 Norman media’s spin on the battle. Winners always write the best history of the event, like the “Great Patriotic war for Freedom” we have going in Iraq!!!
One thing I want to do is drive the ‘Beaches’ along to Arromanches (Gold Beach) where uncle John went ashore on D+4 before he went on through France, Belgium, the Battle of the Bulge, Germany, all the way to the River Elbe and the end of the war with the 23rd Hussars.
I’d like to at least have a coffee at the Café Gondre at Pegasus Bridge, just outside the town of Ranville. Ranville was the name of our old barracks in Liverpool, named after the first town liberated on D Day, by 13 Para. (Liverpool lads) My TA Battalion. (Clive and Arthur will know it well) I was at the opening of the barracks way back when/then! The café has a lot of D Day memorabilia I’d like to take a look at.
We found a flat in Paris for rent owed by a Seattle couple so we’re renting it for a week. It’s a great part of the City 2 minutes from the Eiffel Tower almost on the Rue Cler, a classic French market street with some great small shops and cafés. It’s about a 20 minute walk from the Notre Dame along the Rive Gauche (or Left Bank to us non speakers). Wandering Paris for a week should be a lot of fun. We’ll use the Metro and bus to get about plus a lot of shanks pony.
Running up the Eiffel Tower in the morning before getting my café au lait and baguette should just about ruin my day……my life!!!
After Paris…Well, is there life after Paris?
We’ll pick up another car and head Southwest taking in Chartres and it’s cathedral labyrinth and to Chinon Castle, near Chinon is Fontefraud Abbey, resting place of Eleanor of Aquitaine. Wife of two kings, one French (but he didn’t last long.) then Henry II of England, She was also the mother of two kings. Richard the Lionheart who lies beside her and ‘Wicked’ King John, signer of the Magna Carta. Then we'll wander down though the Dordogne, it’s supposed to be an really beautiful area. Châteaux’s, vineyards, rivers for canoeing down (Not up, they let you drop off your canoe down stream!) Even deep caves where you can see art work from the first Frenchmen done a year or so ago.
Then we’ll swing East across the country as far as Provence. After all we’ve read and seen on TV of the area, we really do need to go and see it for ourselves. “Aix en Provence” has a great ring to it, dunnitt? I feel the need to sit and people watch from a sidewalk café on the broad main street. We’ll then head West again, along the Mediterranean as far as Perpignan and drop the car before picking up the train and ride across the border to Spain and rediscover Barcelona for the last week. So many things there we’d like to see. Sharon hasn’t been down as far as the Med. Coast and I haven’t been since 1961. Whoah that’s like 48 years. Oh my! D’ya think it’s changed a little since then?
While in Spain we hope to get down to visit with Roxanne and the girls, maybe take them to dinner. We’d like that. Our flight back to Vancouver is from Barca on the 1st day of August. Should have a tale or two to tell and a photo to put on line.
Well that's the plan, stay tuned and we'll let you know how it really went!!!
Ken.
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