France Part II

We spent the last 3 days of our trip touring the northwest side of France. We drove from Versailles out to Mont Saint Michelle, famous for its monastery. We arrived around 9 pm. There was nothing but farms and then the monastery just appeared, glowing: 

We checked into the hotel and went to take pictures.  We tried to get a great one, but this does not do it justice.

Here it is in the day!  It's hard to tell, but what is really impressive is that it's built on a rock "island" on the tidal flats.  At high tide, it's an island.  At low tide, you can walk to it through the mud.  We chose the road.

We wandered the narrow streets because the monastery did not open until 9. This is me with Joan of Arc at a small chapel below the monastery. 

We also ate breakfast. Our first breakfast in a restaurant. We had hot chocolate, croissants and bread

When we arrived at the monastery we were told the government workers that operated the site were on strike and there would be no entrance for the day. All that driving for nothing...although it was pretty at night.

We had read in the guide books that at low tide you could walk around the whole island. There were a bunch of signs saying not to though because of quicksand. [Alan's note: the signs did not say that you should not, but that you should be careful]  Luckily, Alan was confident we would be safe and we were. We got some great pictures and got our feet all dirty.

Barefoot and pregnant!

After the monastery we were off to the Normandy coast. We had a nice drive before reaching the coast. This was at Pointe du Hoc. It was a small outcropping of land on which the Germans had set up a lot of large guns. From here they could defend both Utah and Omaha beach. The cliffs were vertical so they felt it would be difficult to attack from see. One group of US soldiers was assigned to scale the cliffs and take out the guns in order to make the D-Day landings successful. This crater is left from one of the aerial bombs.

You can see the extent of the bombing that occurred prior to the D-Day invasion.

This is Alan next to one of the German bunkers. Many had sustained bomb damage, but many still remained. They apparently bombed the area for 2 months prior to D-Day.

Here we are eating lunch on Omaha beach. The army suffered the most casualties on this beach during the invasion. There were 5 beaches total along the coast that soldiers invaded on D-Day. The US invaded Utah and Omaha, the British invaded 2 and the Canadians invaded 1.

Here Alan and I are the U.S. Cemetery. It was a beautifully kept memorial. There were over 10,000 casualties on D-Day by allied forces alone.

After Normandy we went onto Chartres which is southwest of Paris.  We spent the night there and visited the cathedral which is famous for its blue stained glass windows.

Alan worked hard to get a picture that really captured the blue of the windows.

My favorite part was witnessing the restoration that was going on. Can you see the difference in color of the stone that has been cleaned and the the stone that has not. It was amazing to me. I wish I could see it once it was all clean.

From Chartres we were onto the home of the late treasurer of Louis the XIV.

This man was well liked by all Parisians but King Louis was jealous of his success and his home. He asked the Treasurer to hold a party at his new home and then shortly after accused him of treason and locked him up for the rest of his life. Louis confiscated all the artwork from the house and took the Garden/Home designer to build him a great home. A great home now known as Versailles.

Here Alan is in the gardens. The home was being worked on so that is why there is a large square tent over the middle portion. The gardens were lovely.

This was the tree lined road leading to the home.

From there we were back to Paris where we dropped off the car, checked into the hotel for the last night, and went off to see the Eiffel Tower.

We got very artsy in our picture taking. We decided to take advantage of the fact that we were in Paris in the Springtime.  [Alan's note:  The line to climb the stairs of the tower was quite long, but the elevator line was longer.  Lindsay decided that she was up to the task of climbing the stairs.  We had a great time climbing, visiting, and learning about the Eiffel Tower.  We also got our Eiffel Tower Christmas tree ornament.]

The Tower at night. We stayed out pretty late this last night in Paris.  

The next morning we had to wake up early to catch our flight to Salt Lake.  On top of the early flight, it was daylight savings so we had to set our clocks back an hour.  We picked up some last pastries and caught the subway/train to the airport.  We arrived in Salt Lake during Amelia's nap, so we got to surprise her when she woke up.  We are so grateful to grandma and grandpa for watching her. She had a great week. The next day, she was exhausted and fell asleep in the airport before our flight to Phoenix.  This isn't her stroller anymore.  This is one of those that you clip the infant carseat in.  We had left it in Salt Lake and needed to take it back home before the new baby came.  Prior to boarding, we asked her if she wanted to ride in the bottom of it.  She readily agreed and quickly fell asleep.

Here is Alan and Amelia (still sleeping, hurray!) on the plane ride back to Arizona. We had a great time in Paris and seeing everyone in Utah. Thanks for all your help and encouragement.