05-25 Yep, ANOTHER Train Ride

Nothing much happened today except we traveled on a train from Caen, France to Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport. So, you get to hear about train traveling.

We went down to breakfast this morning. It's like most, but less; and there's no one there. Totally self serve; very limited in items, but enough. Karen has two boxes of Kellogg's Coco Krispies. All of the cereals on the breakfasts so far have been Kellogg's. She has milk on it, a glass of water and a yogurt. I have my normal croissant(s), a bowl of fruit and two glasses of juice. For that they charged us $9€ each. Ouch. l usually ask at check-in is breakfast included. Most of the places we choose include it, but we made this reservation at the last minute in Bayeux so we payed the piper.

We caught the train from Caen to Paris today at 10am walking to the station. We get a reservation because it's only $1.50€ each extra with our EuroRail Pass for a reserved seat on this train. Some of the trains here are so crowded and this isn't even the peak season. But peak season is getting closer now. Having a reservation for a seat makes life more pleasant and less stressful.

I've got the laptop out with power (power comes with first class; sometimes it works, sometimes not). I'm working on a Zermatt blog today. Since Karen is seated next to me she gets to see the pictures!! As she would say, "Ahh the MATTERHORN!!!"

We arrive at Paris St. Lazare train station and we figure out where to go. There's like an entire town, down underground in Paris. Its not like the NY subway where you go down and you have maybe four choices of where to go. In NYC you have to decide which side of the track to go to on in order to go the direction you want.

Under Paris you've got maybe six different directions to go in all and maybe up to 4 or 5 different trains coming through to different places. You have to read all the signs and sometimes the sign is slightly around a corner. Then you've got food locations and store signs that clutter up your reading. We weeded our way through all this and bought a subway ticket only to just miss the train. No big deal normally but the next one didn't come for 30 minutes. That means we won't make it to our next train in the Paris Nord station.

After we arrived at Nord we got lunch and found a place to eat it. Found the next train and it didn't have any stops until the airport so we got here just a few minutes later then we expected.

Found the free hotel shuttle. Goes to several hotel; ours, All Seasons Roissey, was first. Saw this great looking airplane taking off on the way there. Hey, wait a minute. Those don't fly anymore!

Arrive at the hotel at 3pm. Small, modern room. Window doesn't open but the fan works. NOT. They, the motels, say they have A/C and they do, but the question I've found out you should ask is, "What month do you turn on your A/C"?????

Went out to dinner at 5:30. The guy at the front desk told us where to go. Had a good calzone then walked back home.

Tomorrow we get to go on a new roller coaster at Parc Asterix about 10 miles north of our hotel.

05-24 Educational Day at Caen Museum

It is time to move again. Going 20 minutes up the train tracks to Caen for one day.

We caught the 9:21am train into Caen, then walked five blocks to our hotel. Our room is not ready but we leave our bags there. We take the tram into downtown and transfer to the correct bus going the wrong way! I couldn't find the chart on the bus wall telling us the stops so we go all the way to the end of the line and have to go all the way back past where we got on and then to the other end of the line where our museum sits. Heavy sigh.

Finally made it to the Caen Museum about 11:15. This museum covers conflict in the 20th century with emphasis on WWII. It had so much information and was very full of school groups all day.

It is a difficult museum to rate highly. It is full of great information and some of the story telling elements are unusual but in places the telling was out of order. You'd be going along in 1943 and then panels for 1941 about Japan would show up. Very confusing.

Most of the exhibits were below the entrance level, so the explanation of how World War II starts is show by mentally and physically "spiraling" you down to the lower level. This is the entrance level.

Many of the historic video areas did not have sound probably because there would be so many nationalities viewing the exhibit.

They showed two movies in different theaters that were just poorly done. Each time I was just dumbfounded at how bad the movie I just saw really was.

It did have some cool maps showing where the various troops started and where they went from England to the Normandy area of France. All of the unit numbers were on the maps so if you knew someone in a certain unit you could follow them from England across the Channel to Europe.

Here is a fairly clear map showing most of the elements of D-Day. The water is WHITE (not your standard map/water color. What were they thinking). The top of the map is North. England is north as well. You can see where this museum is in Caen. Bayeux, where we started yesterday's tour is close to the center. The American Cemetery is in Colleville-sur-Mer. Isigny-sur-Mer, Walt Disney's namesake, is just down the road to the left of Bayeux. The paratrooper caught on the church steeple was in Ste-Mere-Eglise. If memory serves me this map showed how much ground we had captured (in orange) by the end of the day on D-Day.

They also showed the items the soldiers and medics carried with them.

Some areas of France had been occupied for four years by the time England, United States and Canada came to help. Amazing to think about what their lives were like during that time and it's easy to see why they were so happy to see us. Of course, it probably didn't hurt that we were giving out these goodies.

Outside they had memorial gardens dedicated to each of the three countries. At the USA one there was a plaque representing each state that sent troops. All 50 states sent men to fight in the war.

It should be telling that we have more pictures of the outside of the museum than of the inside.

One thing that WAS really cool was that they had an actual Bailey Bridge to the elevator that took you to the outside gardens. These British-designed bridges were used extensively in WWII by the Allies. What made them important was that you could use available manpower and not a crane to build the bridge and they could support the weight of a tank. These bridges kept the armies moving even after the Germans had destroyed existing bridges over rivers.

In looking back through the few pictures that we took I came across one that I took because it summed up the entire war to me in just one sentence:

"The Allies fought for a world vision totally opposed to that which the Axis wished to impose by force."

On the way home we tried dinner at "Quick Drive" the French version of McDs. Had a Long Bacon Burger and an Oreo milk shake. Karen was not impressed. McDs burgers are better and the Oreo shake was just a vanilla shake with crushed Oreos on top. Got back to the room about 7pm.

Tonight's dance floor

05-23 The Beaches of Normandy

Our purpose of coming to a city you've probably never heard of in France, Bayeux, was to take an all day tour of World War II sites around the Normandy beaches called The Band of Brothers Tour. It's a reference to a 10 part HBO series on WWII.

We walked the 1/2 mile into town from our hotel to our pickup spot and waited for our 9 passenger tour van to arrive.

5 min before the tour was to start our guide, Sean from Great Britain, arrived and we all got in the van and headed off for the beach.

In 1944 there were 4 huge guns pointed at the ocean at our 1st stop. We dropped bombs on them to try and knock them out before D-Day, June 6th, 1944. We managed to disable two of them the morning of the assault using guns from cruisers off shore. Two of the guns had not been removed by salvagers and that made it cool to actually see them still there after all these years at Longues-sur-Mer Battery.

You've heard and probably seen in movies the horrors of taking Omaha Beach, our next stop. When you are down on the beach it is a long way from the ocean to the cliffs. There is NO shelter except those anti-boat things that look like "X"s made of iron and the piles of dead soldiers. It is easy to see why there were so many casualties.

After hearing the stories of mistakes (landing on the wrong beach) or miscalculations made on the landings (jumping into the water with 75 lbs of gear resulting in drownings) I think it was our sheer numbers (160,000 men landed in Normandy that day) and resolve (our excellent plan that resulted in only 4,400 deaths, less than 3%) that finally won the day.

Time after time during the tour we heard "the plan was to....but we ended up doing this because of the error".

The American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer, financed by us, is beautiful in every way. There is no order to who is buried where so as to not give importance to one individual. Relatives were put together when possible. Inscriptions all list the same information; name, rank, state, date of death. Their GI serial number is on the bottom of the cross. The crosses are cleaned regularly and look so. I wish there was a way to keep the peace without all this death.

Our tour group was politely changing seats each time we got back into the van so that everyone would have a chance to look out the front window as we drove to the next destination.

Karen and I were in the front seat as we headed toward lunch and I coyly asked Sean if we would be heading through Isigny sur Mer. He said we might and asked why I wanted to know. I told him we were Disney fans and that Roy Disney had once searched for his ancestors here in Normandy and that he stood by the Isigny sign. We'd like to do the same. I mentioned the Disney name came from the town name. Our guide Sean then proceeded to tell the whole van the story of the Disney family being there and then moving to England and then Ireland and then to America. He explained that the town name Isigny became the family name Disney "and now you know the rest of the story." He knew more than most Disney enthusiasts! He said it was the first time in 8 years of doing the tour that anyone had asked to stop there for the picture.

Our lunch stop was at one of the places made famous in the movie, The Longest Day, called Sainte-Mere-Englise. It was here that paratroopers landed behind enemy lines to try and take positions the Germans held and to disable more huge guns pointing toward the ships.

Pointe du Hoc is famous and is portrayed in scenes in the Longest Day when the soldiers try and scale the sheer wall of rock with the ocean at their heels. Above them the Germans throw grenades and shoot machine guns at them. The ropes get wet and now they weigh more and so the grappling hooks don't make it to the top. They improvise and do something. Being there you get the sense of the difficulty of the task and you ask yourself if you could manage to make those decisions under those conditions. Men rise to the occasion. We've seen it time after time. They did here.

We got to climb down into a pill box cement structure and look out the slot to see how the Germans could clearly see our ships coming.

They could shoot nine miles down the beach or out to sea. We saw the craters made by the bombs we dropped here to try and disable them. Pat volunteered to go down the biggest one to give us a sense of how deep it really is.

After that we went to a church where we heard about the two young paratroopers who set up a first aid station here treating American, French and German wounded. One of them had been back to visit the city several years in a row this century.

Next we visited the farm where they disabled the four big guns there that were supposed to be defending the beach but they were upgrading their mounts so the guns were hidden in a hedgerow. We heard how 12 men confused the Germans and then disabled all four guns. The story was told in the HBO series, Band pf Brothers

Next was Utah Beach. Theodore Roosevelt Jr., President Roosevelt's 56 year old son led the charge that took this beach. We walked on the beach and you could see how far they had to come on this beach. They didn't, however, have the cliffs to deal with and the German defenses were very weak along this stretch of beach.

Then it was back to our starting point in Bayeux. We had dinner just across the bridge from the meeting point. We invited a lady we had met and talked with that morning to have dinner with us. She took the British tour so she saw Juno, Sword and Gold Beaches. We compared stories and then heard about her vacation trip. She is from Sydney, Australia and on a 6 month trip. Only 6 weeks of it are paid. First she traveled to really cheap countries. Now she was in France and then going to England where she once worked in a castle.

05-22 All Day Trains to Bayeux

I decided I NEVER leave enough time to get out of the motel and to the train station. It is always a rush. Time to slow down and give ourselves some more breathing room. I'm adding 5 minutes for checking out the room for things we might have left and last minute bathroom breaks.

It is a rainy morning in Lausanne and our train departs before 6:30am on our 4 hour train to Paris and then on to Bayeux.

I think our checkout guy was in a different time space continuum because it took 10 minutes for him to take my credit card and give me a receipt.

The older gentleman checking us out took too long. It was as if this were the first time he'd checked anyone out. I was patient, as usual, because you just can't hurry these people. Another reason to give ourselves more time out the door. I'm adding another 5 minutes to our leave time for checking out.

We did, once again, make it to the train on time. Shoot, we had 12 minutes to relax in our seats before it left the station. We had requested (3 times from 2 different people) at the Hotel Elite if we could have a "Take Away" breakfast. Not a problem is the answer we got each time. Alas, no breakfast this morning. Fail. I'm adding 5 minutes so we can pick up some breakfast at the train station.

Our train was a mere two blocks away (in light rain) but down 4 flights of stairs. I hate making Karen walk faster than she can so I'm adding another 5 minutes to our leave time for that too.

It's raining again. This isn't a big deal today because we are traveling all day. We leave Lausanne, Switzerland for France. Places our train will stop along the way are Vallorbe, Frasne, Mouchard, Dole, Dijon, Paris (change stations and get on another train), Caen, and our destination Bayeux.

It will be good to leave Switzerland, the most expensive place to eat that I've ever been AND the one with the Matterhorn.

Karen and I had a 12" cheese pizza, a bottle of water, and a diet coke last night for dinner in a cafe across from the train station. It costs $34 US. This isn't possible in the United States, not even in Walt Disney World.

Train ride to Paris was worst ever. 2nd class. Window blocked by pillar. Raining hard and cloudy all morning. We're not going on THIS train again!

In Paris we needed to get from one train station (Lyon) to another (St Lazare) so I researched it the night before and we were in the right places to make our connection. And we're early.

Our train looks so old. Will we get there today?

Train tip of the day: If you have a Eurorail Pass and you have a reservation then they place these yellow tags above your seat. SO, if you don't have a reservation on the train and you have a Eurorail Pass you are free to take any other available seat. Eurorail Pass holders are considered 1st class travelers.

They were rebuilding the pickup area at the Bayeux terminal so we dragged our luggage across the gravel then through a round-about and finally onto a sidewalk heading for our motel.

Nice picture Karen but this is NOT our motel.

This is our motel.

I made reservations for this place in Jan of this year and I made a mistake. I booked nights here and in Lausanne for the same nights. Hoteliers frown on this. I got an email about it a day later than when I could have done something about it due to not having Internet. I emailed the place back asking if he had room for us on the last night we needed and he replied no but that we still had the other two nights that we had already booked . I should have confirmed via email that I still wanted the room but didn't and when we arrived they had given the room to another couple. The son called around to 3 places but couldn't find a room for 2 nights. I had a backup plan and we went to that hotel. Although not quite the B&B of the Le Castle, it was half the price.

We walked the 1/2 mile or so and registration and getting the key were done via a computer terminal in a kiosk outside the hotel. Chalk up a new experience for us.

We got into our stark room complete with one piece plastic bathroom and did our Internet thing before heading into town for dinner and verification of where our morning tour would start.

Lesson learned for the day. Triple check your bookings and over communicate when verifying bookings.

05-21 Lake Geneva Boat Ride

Should we or shouldn't we? That was the question that plagued us all morning. It had rained last night and the forecast was for more and heavier in the late afternoon. Sometimes they get it right. We discussed it over breakfast and then in the room and with the boat leaving in an hour we walked out of the room and headed for the water.

Picked up some food at McD and ate it so we weren't hungry on the boat. Got to the dock 15 min early and paid for our tickets ($92 Swiss Francs) then remembered to ask about Eurorail Pass discount. "zee boat ride is free then, mosieur", he replied. The passes were in our room. Karen, always thinking, asked if we could get a refund if we went and got them after the cruise and he said to come see him. WE WILL. Great news. Best decision of the day was to go on the boat ride at THAT price.

Well, the weather turned out to be just fine. At times we were even on deck without our coats on.

We enjoyed the Swiss hill country views from the boat.

We docked about 7 times going north along the lake.

The views of the huge mansions and their hillside, terraced vineyards was awesome.

We passed community after community perched on rocks and those that were down in the valley areas lined the lake.

There were large beautiful hotels everywhere.

At 1:30 we arrived at the Chateau Chillon and stopped for a few minutes. Everyone got off but us and only a few got on.

I met two ladies doing Pilgrims Walk from Canterbury to Rome getting stamps on their map along the way. They will end in St. Peters Square in Rome and they will get a certificate. 1200 miles of walking. They got off the boat in Montreaux to continue their walk. On our return down the lake they waved to us from the shoreline walkway. Here is a link to the wikipedia article on the walk: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Via_Francigena

We spied two funiculars on the hills that carried people from the shore to high in the hills.

Seeing trains along the shore was fun too. They would blast their horn and our captain would toot his in reply.

On the return trip we picked up a tour group of 60 Romanians and the boat was noisy now.

I blogged some on my iPhone as the scenery repeated itself from what I saw on the way up the lake.

This is such a pretty area but not a place for middle class Americans to move to. It is the most expensive place to live that we've been to so far. Two McD meals cost us about $28 US for lunch yesterday. A Cheeseburger Happy Meal is $7.60 US. Save your pennies as there are pretty places to live in the US also.

The countryside and the time rolled by and we arrived back at our starting point at 3:15pm.

We decided to say YES from now on when we'd rather just sit and be lazy. We had a great ride and were able to still relax - a great combination.

Still left to do today: get a box from the Post Office and mail some stuff (souvenirs) home, check and see if we can upgrade our 2nd class tickets to 1st class (laptop power), and take our pass back to the boat guy and get our $100 refund. YES!

Oh, and yesterday's blog entry about the Giant "C" in the harbor on the breakwater...this one.

It's a huge weather vane!