A Reminder: Part 2

We renew our tale with our arrival in Calais post-Chunnel. We left quite early from London so that we would be able to enjoy the beautiful Normandy countryside. Dad had booked a car at the Hertz attached to the train station, so there would be as little of a delay as possible. After some slight confusion as to where to go after getting of the train, we got into the terminal.

Alamo, but no Hertz.

Dad started wandering around looking for the Hertz, convinced that despite being able to see the entire terminal from where we were standing, it must be lurking in a corner somewhere. A Frenchman sitting on the bench outside the Alamo asked me a question in (surprise) French. This was my first opportunity to use the two sentences of French that I had learned: "Sorry, I don't understand French," and "Do you speak English?"  I summoned everything I could muster, which amounted to a blank stare and an slack jawed mouth.

Having thus reaffirmed all assumptions about the idiocy of Americans, he asked me in excellent English what we were looking for, and told us we'd have to take a taxi to get there.

Dad called the taxi stand and they said it would be about 5 minutes. There was one other couple there waiting for a taxi, and we felt kinda bad that they would have to wait even longer, seeing as it had started raining. Our driver arrived, got out, and when he realized there were 4 of us, told us he'd call for a bigger car since he couldn't fit us all in. The other couple got our taxi, and we waited another 10 minutes. The second taxi arrived, and it was (surprise again) smaller than the first one. This man, however felt no qualms about having 4 people in his taxi, and off we went to the Hertz.

We piled in to our Opel Astra, and made our way to Caen. It was quite rainy, but the parts of Normandy that we could see were beautiful. Rolling hills, lots of little farms, and of course, I took no pictures.

We stayed in Caen that night and had the most wonderful breakfast at our little hotel (seriously, I know everyone says it, but man. French people know food.), and headed off to the beaches of Normandy

Omaha Beach
That path does lead down to the beach, and you can walk around.

The World War 2 museum in Caen, it was incredible, and very depressing.

The Memorial at the American Cemetery.

The Cemetery.

 The cemetery was so touching, knowing that all those men died in France for people they didn't know. I may have teared up a few times. I might be doing so now as I think about it. Shut up.

Then we left Omaha beach and headed over to Juno beach, where most of the Canadians fought. They left some of the pillboxes and artillery emplacements there so you could see them (and walk around in them, and on top of them).

Artillery in the mist.

The guns... they've stopped.

To give you a sense of scale.

It bet it was REALLY loud in here when they were firing.

An adorable church just hanging out in Caen.

We spent a second night in Caen, and got ready to drive down to Chartes, which Dad had told me is basically the quintessential Gothic cathedral.

Boy was he right.

 We took a tour from an amazing old British man who has spent a very, very long time studying Chartes, and gives incredible tours. The level of detail in the cathedral was incredible, and it was quite inspiring to see people put all their faith and belief and knowledge into building an incredible building. Chartes is actually hobbled together from like 3 different centuries of building, but the result is just absolutely phenomenal.

Absolutely everything in this picture has like 10 layers of meaning.
It's incredible. This is on the outside of the building too. Exposed to the elements.

Inside, surrounding the choir are these incredibly fine and VERY delicate
carvings that depict scenes from the life of Christ.

Sadly this is the only really good picture I got of the stained glass, but the restoration they've been doing is astounding. This glass is just remarkably beautiful.

They're painting the inside of the cathedral, which apparently was done quite a lot back in the day. They're trying to restore it to look as it would have way back when, and the day we were there was the first day they'd unveiled this area, so our tour guide was really excited. It was gorgeous.

We left Chartes a little earlier than I wanted to (I could've spent a whole day looking around in there), but Mom and Dad were convinced we'd need extra time once we got to Paris.

And again, boy were they right. There are no lane markers on any of the streets, so people create as many lanes as they see fit. Many times, this is about 3 more lanes than should actually exist. We were dropping our Hertz rental car off in Paris and it was supposedly very close to the Louvre. We literally drove around the Louvre and across the Seine about 9 times in a futile effort to see some sign of the Hertz. I made a call to the Hertz agency (in and of itself a great feat, because the phone didn't want to recognize French phone numbers), and he said it was in a tunnel.

We looked around for a tunnel, and couldn't really find it, so we pulled over to have Dad call and get real directions. This is where we made that stop.

Yeah. We're inside the Louvre courtyard.

 It turns out that the Hertz rental place is INSIDE the Louvre underground parking, but the Louvre forbids them from putting any signs up indicating that's where it is. It does keep the city pretty, but we literally drove past it probably 4 times without realizing it.

We dropped off our car, found our apartment, and ate some delicious Parisian cuisine (I think it was pizza).

Stay tuned for Paris!