A Chronicle of Amy and Sean's World Travels
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In Which We Storm the D-Day Beaches and Besiege Le Mont-Saint-Michel

This past weekend, we hopped a train to Northern France with Matt and Brad to check out the Normandy region of France.  Our first activity was to pick up the aqua box otherwise known as a Renault Kangoo.

From Weekend in Normandy

The ‘Goo was one of the most atrocious cars I have ever seen, but it had tons of room and it served us well.  The ‘Goo is a manual, so Sean took a couple of practice laps around town before we set out on the highway.  It’s like riding a bike, Sean told us. To his credit, he only stalled once.  In some of the towns, the roads were so narrow that the stone buildings jutted out in into the roadway, but Sean informed us that the ‘Goo felt like she was on rails.

We headed out to the Gold Beach first, where the ships the Allied forces purposely sank to create an artificial harbor on D-Day were still protruding from the water.

We then drove through the French countryside to Omaha Beach, which is one of the beaches where the American platoons landed on D-Day.  There, we explored the memorial museum set up by the United States on the land granted to the country by France.  Following the museum, we headed to the cemetery, where thousands of crosses and Stars of David were perfectly aligned in rows, marking the graves of 9,387 American soldiers who died in France during World War II.  The orderly rows, with the ocean waves in the background, belied the chaos that occurred on D-Day.

The hometowns of the soldiers were listed on the markers.  It was all too easy to find graves of men from Pennsylvania.  I was reminded of the line in Our Town where the narrator observed that many times soldiers fight for the freedom of people they’ve never met in places they’ve never seen.

We then wandered down to the beach itself, where two German bunkers still remain.  Looking at the peaceful coastline, it is hard to imagine the fighting, death and destruction that occurred just over sixty years before.

From Omaha Beach, we headed to Pont du Hoc, a sharp cliff that American Rangers had scaled while under fire on D-Day to reach and destroy German weapon stockpiles.

You were able to climb in and out of concrete crevices and holes, many of which were still lined with the original barbed wire.  In America, a site like this would be fenced off from the public.  In France, only the deepest holes were blocked off, and by blocked off, I mean that the government evidently inserted some newer barbed wire to deter people from going near the area.

The D-Day beaches, a significant part of World War II, were interesting to see with our own eyes.  Perhaps it is because any of the war-torn sites in the United States happened many years before our lifetime or the lifetimes of our family members, with the exception of Pearl Harbor.

However, we all agreed our favorite part of the trip was visiting Le Mont Saint Michel.  Mont Saint Michel is an island.  The first building on the island was first inhabited in 708.  The Benedictine monks settled into the abbey at the top of the mountain in the 10th century, while the village grew up below its walls.  The abbey and village are still here today, which is almost incomprehensible.  What is further incomprehensible is that the island was under siege from the British for 30 years during Britain and France’s 100 year war – almost our whole lifetimes.

We could see Mont Saint Michel way in the distance before we arrived in the town of Saint Michel.  There are no other way to describe it other than majestic.  In the late day fog, it looked like something from Disney Land, soaring high above the rest of the land.  The island itself raises high into the air.  When you got up close, you could see lots of old stone buildings jutting into the air around the island, culminating in the giant abbey at the very top.  On the land leading up to the island, sheep graze in the grass, most of whom barely paid attention to us as we photographed them.

I was expected Mont Saint Michel to be a cluster of old, unusable buildings, so I was surprised to learn that there are approximately 51 inhabitants on the island.  When we entered through a stone gate at the bottom of the island, I was even more surprised to see what looked like a quaint little European town, complete with gift shops, creperies, brasseries, a post office, and a hotel.

We followed the narrow, rambling cobblestone path up the hill.  Periodically, one of us would exclaim, wow.  This is really cool.

Up the hill, past the buildings, we climbed endless amounts of stairs, until we finally reached the abbey.  At the very top, light streamed through the windows of the otherwise dark chapel.

We then wandered through the stone rooms, each one more fascinating than the next.  We never did figure out how someone seamlessly integrated modern technology into the building.

I am sure we will be saying this a lot on this trip, but le Mont Saint Michel was one of the coolest things we’ve ever seen.  It is one of those places where it is impossible to capture the awe you feel when you see it up close, despite the hundreds of photos you take.


Have you met Antonio Gaudi, Architect?

I’m not sure if Antonio Gaudi ever used his profession to get chicks like Ted Mosby (and the guy who used Ted’s likeness), but Gaudi’s buildings and creations are stunning.  Gaudi is a Spanish architect who left his imprint all over Barcelona.  We explored three Gaudi creations while we were in Barcelona: (1) Casa Batllo, which is a whimsical house lacking many straight lines built in 1877;

From Gaudi Architecture – Barcelona, Spain

(2) Parc Guell, which is a public park;

From Gaudi Architecture – Barcelona, Spain

and (3) La Sagrada Familia, which is a cathedral designed by Gaudi, and still is not completed due to the intricacy of the design some 128 years after building began.

From Gaudi Architecture – Barcelona, Spain

The Gaudi creations are all intricate, inspired by nature, and delightfully whimsical:

From Gaudi Architecture – Barcelona, Spain
From Gaudi Architecture – Barcelona, Spain
From Gaudi Architecture – Barcelona, Spain
From Gaudi Architecture – Barcelona, Spain
From Gaudi Architecture – Barcelona, Spain
From Gaudi Architecture – Barcelona, Spain
From Gaudi Architecture – Barcelona, Spain
From Gaudi Architecture – Barcelona, Spain

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