Wonderful Trip!!!

I have been home now for almost two weeks. It feel longer than that but I can think that "two weeks ago today, I was in Paris". That part is amazing. I have a more recollections of the trip. I wish I had more time (and energy) to have kept up my blog each day. But when you get back to your room at 9 or 10 after a day walking, looking, absorbing, walking, deciding, reading, walking, wondering, trying to figure out where you are an the best way to get back to the hotel and, did I mention walking? You are pretty darn tired. My problem was when I sat at the laptop, I would read the news. Check out a few more Paris sites. Get caught up on the social pages. Check the bank balance and before you know it, 2 hours has flown by. That is when I would realize I had to get up at 5:30 AM (11:30 PM at home, ever try to get up at 11:30PM)? to catch a day trip.
I took a bus tour from Paris to the Normandy coast. The brochure said it was a 3 hour ride each way. Not a problem for me. I had the MP3 player loaded up and a book (a true story murder mystery that happened in NYC in 1890 which turned into a newspaper circus. This is when the Pulitzers and Hurst's of the news world owned the largest papers in the city. The Times was a minor player at the time. There were a dozen "daily" papers, each of which had multiple editions every day. The tiny New York Police Dept. could just sit back and wait for the papers to solve any crime, accurately or not. Each paper was always trying to "scope" the other one. The reporters, with the papers permission, would become "good friends" with the accused, victims and friends and family, a lot of money was floating around. When a "fact" was reported in one of the papers, the police would move in and begin there questioning, anyway, that is a different blog).
The bus pulls out of the tour center, which happened to be a short walk across the plaza in front of the Louvre, which is very quiet and peaceful at 6:00 AM. One of the two tour guides (one for French and English, the other for Spanish and Japanese) mentions on the intercom that the FIVE hour trip included a stop at a rest area on the way. FIVE HOURS on a bus - that's almost as long as I was on a PLANE to get to Paris! There was an audible "gasp" from the crowd. But what could we do now, just sit back and enjoy the ride. Well, it was not bad, not bad at all. It took almost an hour just to get out of Paris and on the highway. The highways are very similar to our but like everything else in France, they were smaller. I think just a little narrower, not a big median in the middle, just a guardrail or cement wall. There were some peculiar warning signs, which I wish I could have gotten pictures of. One was the silhouette of the back of a car, with a stick figure driver in it and a huge amount of flames over the car. The only think I could think of that it indicated was "Please stay in your burning car until the firemen arrive, within the hour, maybe). They also had interesting "speed limit" signs. They were round with a red LED circle and the speed limit was light up in LED in the center in white. The speed limit number could and would change depending on the traffic density. When it was raining, it was "40" kpm. When it was dry and uncongestide it said - I swear - 80 kph. ( I think that's like 100 mph or is it 60, I never did the conversion on speed).
I had two thoughts on going to the Normandy region. Normandy is an area of France, like New England is to us, at the northern end of the country. Its coast is made up of the English Channel waters. During WWII, any term using "Normandy" refereed to the general region of the country. The specific invasion of the country, to fight the Nazi occupation was at Normandy but more specifically at Omaha Beach. The area I toured in Normandy was at the coast but it was a medieval village and Monastery built on a rock outcrop off the coast back in the year 1,000. It is known as Mt. St. Michel. There are a lot of photos of it showing a huge church surrounded by water.  had seen photos of it as a kid and always wanted to see it. The other tour was to the actual Omaha beach and the American military cemetery located there. I opted for the Mt St Michel tour. There is a town in the Normandy area, a few miles inland, called St. Lo. It is about 30 miles from where my Dad was injured a few days after the invasion during WWII. He was a "half track" driver for an infantry platoon. A bomb exploded and he lost part of, most of his fingers on one hand. The town is very small and off the beaten track, so to speak, so I did not get there. We did stop at a similar small town or "village" which is famous for its apples and hard ciders. As it turned out, this stop for almost an hour was part of the FIVE hours mentioned at the beginning of the tour. The village was very quaint and pretty. Very French. I went in a cafe to get a water, it was the front room of the owners house. The woman did not speak any English and luckily one of the tour guides was in the cafe to interpret for me. The village was bathed in a light fog which enhanced it "European Frenchy" look. Back on the bus and onward to Mt. St. Michel or so I thought. We had one more stop before the actual destination...and it included FOOD.  We stopped at a "famous" Creperie which is within sight of the tours destination. The name escapes me, it was something like Madame Pluiere... We were lead into a large dinning room, more like a banquet hall,with 50 or 60 tables that each sat 10. Soon we were served a fruit cup, followed by a Crepe with a light fluffy filling with home made bread. Dessert was a some kind of custard with a chocolate sauce and cafe. There was also a couple of carafes of sparkling apple hard cider. After this lunch treat we were back on the bus for a quick ride across the causeway to the island and Mt. St. Michel.
My photos of the Monastery are pretty self explanatory, I have a brief caption under some of them. It was a beautiful, ancient place.
The trip back to Paris included a severe thunderstorm while on the highway. We stopped at a highway gas and convenience store plaza. Some of the gas stations in France are "ESSO" stations. A brand that disappeared from the US forty years ago. It was a major service station chain in the US.
I picked up some juice, water and a packages sandwich. The rest rooms were standing room only, in competition with the other ten buses that had stopped. Back on the bus, it was such a torentsal down poor that when we got underway, the roof started leaking in the last row of the bus. I was close to the back and saw what was happening, a young Japanese couple were getting drenched. I went to the front of the bus to inform the guides and some guy who was along for the ride, I think from the bus company because him and the driver were pretty chummy. So I asked if they had any paper towels or anything to stuff into the leak. They all looked at the guy and he said he would see. After rummaging around in the front of the bus he came back with a handful of paper towels which were very much appreciated by the Jap's. A few minutes later he was back with more. The leak stopped when the rain stopped so I think they only had wet butts for the rest of the ride. The bus was totally full so they could not move anywhere.
Oh, when it was raining like hell, the inside of the windshield, which was an expanse of glass like 10' x 8", started to fog up. The three windshield wipers where keeping the water off the outside but inside it was like looking through frosted glass. The guy who was along for the ride got out a squeegee and ran it over the windshield. Ah, that's what hes there for, probably to change a tire if we get a flat. Those French Unions don't miss a trick.
All in all it was a great day!