D-Day Tours & Bike Riding Part 2

So we moved into Bayeux for 5 days, possibly 6 and we are in heaven. Although it might appear modest this place is sweet.

The washroom is like a trailer washroom with just enough room for a sink, toilet and shower. A room with free wifi... how can you complain!

Bayeux is in Normandy, and we are reminded everywhere about the D-Day invasion. When we got to Bayeux we saw Canadian, British and of course French flags everywhere, which symbolize the liberators of the region. Flags of the liberators fly year round for a lot of the northern french towns - each town flies the flag of its particular liberator - and every year on June 6 there are huge D-Day liberation celebrations.

Here is a picture of a street in Bayeux with multiple flags flying.

May 26 (Wednesday) we took a tour of the Canadian D-Day sites. Here the eastern section of Juno Beach in the town of St. Aubin. Many Canadian soldiers died against this wall. They were supposed to land on grassier, unfortified portions of beach to the west, but the storms pushed them to this unfortunate landing point, which was subject to fortified batteries and machine gun fire.

Here is the Canadian cemetery, where only about 50% of the Canadians that died on D-Day are buried. On each grave there is the name of the soldier, his age, date of death, regiment and a few lines that were given to each family. Andrew and I were very touched by the entire tour, but this part especially because of the huge size of the graveyard (over 2,500 graves), the ages of the Canadians that had died (so many were 19, and in their early 20s) and the personalized lines written by the families of the fallen men. We were told that the Canadian and British graveyards are different than the American because plants and flowers can be planted on the graves and because of the lines given by each family. The personalized words really made brought the loss home to us. Beside some graves there were even pictures of the soldiers and stories about them.

Our guide told us that this grave site has the most sets of brothers in it. He told us a story of 3 brothers all who died within June 6 -11 1944, which means their mother would have received 3 telegrams together to inform her of the deaths of her sons.

We also learned that the Canadian forces were very well respected as soldiers.  Canada was the only country on D-Day that could boast of having a force completely composed of volunteers.

This is in the backyard of an abbey (Abbaye d’Ardenne) outside of a small town where 11 Canadian soldiers were taken prisoner and than brutally executed. This is the monument dedicated to them. The German officer in charge refused to take prisoners, and demanded that any captured men be brought to the garden and killed. This site is very well known due to the atrocities committed in the garden.

The tour was very informative and Andrew and I really appreciated it. It was really hard to hear about the brutalities of war, but we are really glad that we were able, if even for a moment, to appreciate the soldiers who, so selflessly, gave up EVERYTHING, and those who went back home after fighting for peace.

I think that November 11 will have a really special meaning for Andrew and I now, and that we will start to give it the proper respect that it deserves.

So, biking round 2... Andrew and I didn't have a tour planned but we wanted to go and see some more WWII sites that were 10-15 kms out of Bayeux. The French bus drivers were on strike (not really surprised...) so we decided to bike. That's right we were going to give this biking thing another try.

We biked off to Arromanches (10 kms from Bayeux), which was a huge harbour brought over from Britain in prefabricated pieces and assembled on a beach that the British liberated on D-Day (the first harbour of its kind, and it was not known whether it would even work). The harbour is one of the primary reasons that D-Day was a success, because without it, it would not have been possible for the Allied forces to bring in supplies - the D-Day beaches were chosen primarily because there were NOT harbours, which were heavily fortified and liberated days to weeks after D-Day, from behind. 

This is a diorama of the harbour. Each inch on the diorama is 100 feet. The harbour was 3 1/2 miles by 1 1/2 miles. Huge ships docked at the harbour, and causeways allowed trucks and tanks, etc, to drive between the ships and the shore. Massive slabs of concrete each weighing more than the Eiffel tower were brought over and partially sunk in order to serve as breakwaters.

Reminents of the harbour.

Next we biked off to the "Batterie de Longues-sur-Mer" (6 kms) which was a German battery, and part of the Atlantic Wall. It was really creepy to go right up to these guns and inside of these bunkers (there were several), but what was even more disturbing was that French kids (ages 12-14) were on a school trip, and they didn't see the sadness of these guns, but rather saw them as jungle gyms. So kids were screaming and laughing and playing around instead of paying respect to the lives that were lost because of these machines (these guns caused a lot of problems on D-Day as they were close to Utah, Omaha and Gold beaches). This is the only battery in Normandy to still have its guns.

Here is a view of the other bunkers.

After another sad day we decided to stop at the Bayeux public park to have a snack. These parks are totally beautiful. There was this tree, called the Bayeux Beech, which was made by grafting 2 different species together (trunk and limbs). It only survived because of the city's TLC - because it can't support its' own weight there are 5 massive posts and an extensive network of cables running from them that support the tree's limbs.

After a visit to the city park we went to Britain's cemetery. There were so many graves, we couldn't believe it. Some of the lines on the graves really stood out to us here, especially one written by a mother to her only son, and another from a family who asked for someone in a foreign land to plant flowers in in front of the grave. Again, it was evident at how many lives were lost and so, so sad.

Although the cemeteries are very sad it is really nice to see how well they are being taken care of. They are in amazing shape and they are so beautiful with gorgeous trees and shrubs.

Biking was definitively a success, we spent 7 hours on the bikes and are talking about going biking again... maybe tomorrow!

Today, May 28, we got on the train to go to Mont St. Michel, an abbey on the top of a hill with a fortified village below. 

It was a gorgeous site and really enjoyed learning about churches, abbeys and Mont St Michel in particular.

The views were great.

I'm still missing Ireland, but we are getting this whole France thing down. We have found our new Dunnes, called Marche Plus+, and my new chocolate chip muffins have become trays of brownies (nothing compared to G'mas brownies though!!). We are trying out several different varieties of wine (all red though) which we are still managing to get for under 1 euro 50 cents. We are also trying out different cheeses (we finally found out what they call cheddar here), and the baguettes are amazing. We have caught a few tennis matches on TV (the French Open is on right now) and we are enjoying playing crib nightly.

The Last Few Days

We have really been enjoying our time in Killarney. The first day that we got here we spent it at the National Park then the next day (May 8) we spent the entire day in the park too. Below are some pictures from the second day spent in the park.

The next day we decided to go on a bus tour of the Ring of Kerry. We were really excited to see the beautiful landscape, what we didn't really know is that we were stuck in a tourist trap. The first two stops we made were at the most random places: a Bog Museum and a sheep hearding place. At both places you had to pay for admission and both times we were stopped for at least 3/4 of an hour. We paid for neither.

Andrew and I still had fun though. Andrew nicknamed an American tourist on our bus "old man steal me money" because he and his wife paid to get into all these stupid places that the bus stopped and bought other stupid things. Andrew and I were trying to figure out how to scam "old man steal me money" into giving us money. No such luck.

Here we are outside at one of the stops.

Ring of Kerry.

Ring of Kerry.

The next day (May 9) we didn't have any plans so we decided to go to Cork because we read that it is "The People's Capital" (whatever that means). So we got to Cork, it was pretty cold outside (even for Andrew), and we didn't really know where to go or what to see. We went to the tourist office to see what sites we wanted to see in Cork and discovered that we didn't really want to see anything in Cork. So instead of getting on the next train we decided to go to an old church and to a park. The park was really nice and we really enjoyed it but we discovered that we hated Cork. There was dog poop (I'm assuming it was dog poop, some it was questionable) everywhere!! Needless to say, Andrew and I got out of Cork as soon as we could. Now that I think about it we probably spent more time waiting for the train and on the train than actually in Cork. Nevertheless, it was a great day, and we had lots of fun.

Jack this picture is for you. Here is how they do construction (and demolition) in Cork.

(I just wanted to say that I really wanted to take a picture of some dog poop because that is how I will always remember Cork but Andrew wouldn't let me and he was holding the camera.)

So today we thought we would rent a couple of bikes and go into another (bigger) part of the National Park. 

We went North of Killarney to a lookout to have a really good view of part of the National park, but I was too captivated by two horses to really have a look at the view.

Here is picture Andrew took from the lookout.

Then we went to the South to see Torc waterfalls. On the little climb to the waterfalls we were talking to a guy who asked us where we were from, and when we said Canada he said, 'Don't you have Niagra Falls in Canada? Well this won't be as good as that.'

He was right, why did we even bother?? Ha ha.

Although they weren't quite the same size as Niagra Falls, they were still really pretty.

The real story to the bike ride is that after 10 minutes on the bikes I didn't want to bike anymore. See the problem with having a 5 star hostel is that I never want to leave. Today I would have preferred to have gone to Buy-Low (the grocery store here is actual called Dunnes) and purchased a couple containers of chocolate chip muffins and ate them while watching multiple episodes of Glee. Since we had already rented the bikes and because Andrew was having a good time I tried to be a good sport. Unfortunately for Andrew, that didn't last for too long. By the time we made it to the falls I was done, it was time to go back to the hostel, but I guess I didn't communicate this to Andrew because he proceeded to take us in the opposite direction of the hostel and on a route that the only way out was to go back the way we came. Half way through this new little adventure I tried to quit, by telling Andrew that I was not going to bike anymore (I'm not sure how I was going to get from the path back to the hostel because I was not going to bike or walk back... I know the thought of calling a taxi entered my head, but I don't think taxis pick people up on bike and walking paths) but he was so far ahead of me that he couldn't hear me yelling 'I QUIT!'

After I had finished throwing a tantrum we proceeded to go further away from the hostel so that Andrew could go to the washroom, but then finally we were able to go back to the hostel. I am glad to say that we made it back to the hostel and now looking back on today... I think it was a pretty good day and I think I actually liked the bike ride, but we definitely aren't renting bikes tomorrow.

Andrew and I are still having a great time in Killarney but we will be packing up the day after tomorrow to head out to who knows where. We are homeless as of right now because we haven't decided where we want to go before we meet up with Mom and Jack on the 15th.