• Jersey
• Saint Malo
• Pontorson
• Mont Saint Michel
• Bayeux
• Arromanches
• Juno Beach
• Carentan
• Bayeux Tapestry

Getting There

Covid had previously impacted our 2020 Travel Plans, so when we saw a window of opportunity to do some travel in France we jumped at it, but we were also a bit wary of booking anything.

We’d spent so long making the original plans and then having to go through the rigmarole of cancelling everything that we wanted to be as sure as possible before making more plans. It didn’t help that after booking things the UK government reacted to the higher Covid rates in France and imposed a 14 day self-isolation rule on people returning from France. Ange and I both work from home so that wouldn’t be too problematic, but there was talk about France retaliating in kind which would rather spoil the trip if we had to stay in one place for fourteen days.

We’d found a flight from Glasgow to Jersey which necessitated an early morning train ride, but the low appetite for travel meant that once we arrived at the airport, we breezed through security and were very ably looked after at the only lounge that was open.

Jersey

We had a compulsory Covid test on arrival and while it wasn’t the “let’s see if we can hit your brain via your nostrils” sort of test, it was more of a “let’s see if we can make you throw up by hitting your gag reflex” sort of a test. Still, not the worst kind of medical test you can get, so not worth worrying about it.

We then headed to St Helier, the capital of Jersey, via bus. As we left the interior and started to inch our way around the coastal route in heavy traffic, we could see how St Helier’s Bay in Auckland got its name: it shared the same gently sloping beach and golden sands.

We checked into the Royal Yacht Hotel and then explored the town a little. The original plan was to dash across the island and check out the World War Two tunnels built with slave labor, but the miserable weather, early start and lack of public transport sapped us of the necessary enthusiasm so instead we amused ourselves in town – checking out where the ferry building was so that we would be able to find it the next morning.

We’d managed to arrive in the year of the 75th anniversary of liberation from the Nazi invaders, but the strong focus on these events weren’t restricted to just those celebrations: the main town square was Liberation Square, the bus station was Liberation Station and the local shopping centre was Liberation Wharf.

The next morning we headed to the port and checked in for the ferry ride to the French mainland. We were about fifteenth in the queue, and were waved through past the security checkpoint. I paused, confused, expecting everybody to have to go through the checkpoint. After they told me the third time to keep going, it finally registered that they just took the first ten or twelve people to check and the rest, well….

The people behind us joked about it – “I guess we don’t look like criminals” a reference to the fact that everybody was masked like highway robbers from the Wild West. We were still joking about it when a group of four men walked through the waiting area to the main doors.

I looked over at Ange and her eyes were wide. She’d noticed, as I had that two of them had their jackets over their arms in an attempt to hide the fact that they were heavily manacled. Not the handcuffs you see on TV, but thick chains like you see to lock up motorbikes. One of the non-handcuffed escorts headed back, while the two prisoners and their other escort were let onto the gangway by a ferry staff member. He then turned to the room at large and invited all other guests to follow him down to the ferry. Those who had seen the manacles were a little slower than those who hadn’t!

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Saint Malo

I spent most of my time on the two hour ferry ride chatting with a local who split his time between Jersey and Normandy. Him and his wife (and two dogs) were driving to their house and said that normally they’d offer to drop us off at Mont Saint Michel, but that the car was packed with dog accoutrements and luggage. I thanked him for thinking of us, but said we were hoping to have a look around Saint Malo.

We could keep an eye on the prisoners and their escort who surprisingly were laughing and chatting quietly. Our new friends indicated that they occasionally had French people who came over and got into trouble and the local police would just send them back to France and say “don’t come back”. That satisfied my question about why Jersey (part of UK) would send prisoners to France rather than maybe back to mainland UK.

As we came into the port, we could see the walls around the old town which had been recommended to us. So we made sure we were some of the first off the boat, making our way onto the first of the waiting buses which ferried us to the passport check where they stamped Ange’s passport and casually flicked their eyes at mine and then we were in France.

We made our way into the interior of the city through the thick walls and into a very picturesque old town with stone buildings and cobbled streets.

Breakfast at the hotel was a while ago, so we endeavoured to find something to eat, and happened upon the main town square surrounded by tourist trap restaurants.

We selected one where we could sit inside away from the smokers, partially attracted by the giant teddy bear out the front, and got stuck into the first of many baguettes we would have over the course of our trip.

Suitably satiated, we headed towards the wall which encircled the town. The staircase which we chose to access the battlements had a bit of a story. It was the kennels where the guard dogs were housed. At night they’d close the gates and release the dogs. The dogs wouldn’t be fed during the day so they were naturally quite hungry – an incentive to catch anyone out and about after curfew.

I assume that they were fed in the morning after running around all night. The practice was stopped after a military officer was returning after curfew and was caught and mauled by the dogs!

The views from the wall were quite lovely, islands and forts from Napoleonic times scattered around. The sun was out which explained why some kids were swimming in the lido – some even diving from the diving board.

While the sun was out, there was still a fair bit of wind, and the horizon was a wall of clouds of various hues.

The walls were very thick and occasionally a military building of some description would appear behind it – an obvious location for more cannons.

Eventually the path lead to a gate in the walls and we headed down on to the beach. A whole lot of logs had been driven into the sand to protect the town walls against the waves, making a denuded forest with a ten foot wide no man’s land.

We made our way around the walls until we came across the second cluster of restaurants, these ones encircling the town square in front of the Town Hall. We climbed back onto the ramparts, and enjoyed the unique perspective – one restaurant’s glass conservatory roof forming a fascinating insight into what other people were eating.

I was just commenting how the clouds were turning dark when the temperature abruptly dropped. and the heavens opened. We dashed to the shadow of a turret along the walls which offered a slight respite.

When it looked like the rain had set in for a long time, Ange got out her umbrella and we headed down the stairs through a cascade of water to stand in the gate which passed through the walls which provided much more cover. Not long after we made ourselves comfortable, the rain stopped, just as suddenly as it had started.

We completed the loop of the town on the top of the walls, marvelling at the darkness of the storm clouds not a kilometre away as the rain continued its way along the coast.

From this corner of the walls we could see the Condor Ferry which had takes us across the short section of the Channel between Jersey and Saint Malo.

We’d seen as much of the old town as we could and so headed towards the train station, Google Maps navigating the way for us but a yacht needing to come into the harbour meaning the road was raised for them to get by.

It was a six minute detour if we went the long way so we waited patiently with a growing group of fellow tourists and locals alike (the joke was that you can tell the locals because they’re the ones carrying a baguette or two).

Before too long the yacht passed through, the road was lowered and we carried on our way, finding a cafe near the station and having a coffee while waiting for the train.

We had a forty five minute layover in Dol de Bretagne so endeavoured to find something to eat again. That ended up being a twenty minute walk through the town to a supermarket where everything was organic, a five minute scramble to find something we could eat without cooking, followed by a fifteen minute jog back to the train station in the rain.

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Mont Saint Michel

We checked into our AirBnB and the next morning we headed out nice and early to walk to the free shuttle which would take us to Mont Saint Michel.

The AirBnB was actually in Beauvoir, on a hill overlooking the bay, and so five minutes from the room we could actually catch our first glimpses of the Abbey.

The mudflats are famous in the area and even have a featured spot in the Bayeux Tapestry. We’d been told not to go on them without a guide as there was quicksand. There were guided groups heading out and an organised group on horseback as well, but there were also couples and single people ignoring the advice and heading out across the mud. They did tend to stay close to the town walls though.

We entered the town and followed the only road, Ange asking if this was the way. I told her that there was only really one way and it lead up to the Abbey, so we followed a group of well-armed soldiers through the tourist trap shops and made our way up the cobbled street to the ticket office.

The man at the counter apologised and said that there were no guides available because of Covid so I turned to Ange and told her that I would fill the gap. I’d last been to MSM ten years ago, but I assured her I still knew all the facts and figures.

From the top you could get the sense of grandeur that being on the highest point in kilometres in every direction brings. You could appreciate just how quickly the tide would have to travel to cover all the bay four times in a day, and I regaled Ange with (made up) statistics of how many tourists and horses they lose every year to the quicksands in the bay.

Photos like the one below helped in my graphic tales of ultimately doomed rescue attempts and how sometimes whole rows of cyclists on mountain bikes disappeared into the mud never to be seen again. At night, I told her, you can sometimes hear them ringing their bells forlornly from the other side…ring ring! ring ring!

The shells were a motif woven into the decorations on the Abbey, indicative of the fact that MSM was a stop in the Camino de Santiago which we’d discovered in Saint Guilhelm le Désert.

The French hold MSM as a symbol of national pride because it never fell to the English in the Hundred Year’s War. You can see why, with the steep roads, thick walls and imposing battlements, it would be very easy to defend.

Ten years ago the causeway didn’t exist and the tour buses would drive all the way to the base of the town before dropping off their passengers and then driving back across the causeway in case they got stuck.

Now the buses park in the carpark and everybody walks, cycles or comes on the free shuttle. The causeway means that it is only in the highest of high tides that you can’t access the town.

At the top the Abbey’s cloister used to have honey bees and a proper garden, very handy for waiting out those long medieval sieges.

It was amusing for us that the Abbey let you select whether you wanted to exit through the gift shop or not – both staircases ending on the floor with the gift shop, but one at the beginning of it and one just after the cashiers.

Most attractions we’d been to had taken commercial advantage of the flow of visitors and channeled them all through the gift shop to try and squeeze what they could out of them so it was unusual to see an attraction forego this.

We descended via the town walls, past the restaurants who actually have views out across the mudflats (and charge an extra couple of Euro per meal for the pleasure) and back down into the town proper.

We thought ourselves quite clever to select a crêperie on the 1st floor, the stairs hidden within yet another tacky tourist tat shop. When we got there it wasn’t quite full but getting close and we realised that everyone else was swarming to anywhere which was reasonably priced. The crepes were delicious!

Afterwards we made our way back to the hotel, this time instead of cutting through farmland between the free shuttle drop off and Beauvoir, we walked along the canal instead, passed frequently by cyclists on their way to or from MSM, some on ebikes with a thicker frame or battery poking out the back.

For dinner we tried one of the many restaurants in La Greve, all clustered around the main road joining MSM with Pontorson where the train station was.

The bridge across the canal was one way and it was mildly amusing watching one or other of the cars on the bridge having to back up after realising that the oncoming cars had right of way and weren’t budging.

The meal itself was great with a balance of burger and fries with just a nod to a salad. The local cider was delicious and cheap – always a dangerous combination!

On the way home the country lane between La Greve and Beauvoir was lit by sunlight fighting its way through the clouds, which was quite picturesque.

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Pontorson

The next day we had a choice. And not really a good one. We had a fair few hours to wait for our train from Pontorson to Bayeux, but there was very little to do in any of La Greve, Beauvoir or Pontorson. So we decided to head into Pontorson by bus and hang out until the train came.

We started off wandering the streets of Pontorson looking at all the restaurants and weighing up whether to go inside. It was a Sunday afternoon and the whole country pretty much shuts up between 2 and 5, so we were lucky to find something that was still open and at the right price point. Ange finally got her own bowl of moules et frites (she’d previously just tried mine) and could see what the fuss was about.

We soaked up a bit more time later on in the afternoon by going to the local chocolate shop for a cup of tea (Ange) and the Cafe Gourmand (me) – an espresso with jug of warm milk, served in an edible, chocolate-lined cup followed by a pair of chocolates and a macaroon. Fun to eat and quite delicious!

Eventually the time came for the train and we headed on for the next stop, Bayeux. We had searched for other ways to get to Bayeux, but whether it was because of Covid, or because it was Sunday, there were no other options available.

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Bayeux

After checking into the Churchill Hotel, we went to a nearby restaurant (La Table du Terroir) and enjoyed a late dinner. I had the Terroir Burger while Ange had the vegetable soup. Terroir in this case referring to the influence of the environment (soil and weather etc) on the food rather than “terror”.

The next day we headed out for an organised tour of the D-Day beaches, returning in the early evening.

This time we went further afield for something to eat. We ended up at a place called La Marsala where I had a pizza and Ange had the vegetarian pasta.

For desert she had the strawberry sorbet but I asked for the profiteroles. For some reason I expected to get a little pyramid of them, and so when I asked how many were in the serving and they responded that there were two, my face must have fallen.

For the price, two little profiteroles would have to taste pretty amazing to be value of money. I needn’t have worried though: when they did come there were two profiteroles, yes, but they were of such a size and accompanied by so much cream that I was well satisfied.

The following day the bus time table ticked over to the winter schedule, and whether it was that or Covid, there wasn’t much public transport access to the D-Day beaches – two buses out to the Eastern three beaches (Gold, Sword and Juno) each day.

Our research didn’t look very appealing so we headed over to the Information Centre and they confirmed what we’d come up with on the local bus service. We decided to check out the local Cathedral while we were waiting for the bus out to Arromanches/Gold Beach.

On the way to the bus stop we found a vending machine offering fresh pizza in three minutes, which we thought was a good solution for fast food under Covid.

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Arromanches 360

The headlands overlooking Gold Beach are now a camping site for RV and campervans. The spectacular view of the sea with the remnants of the Mulberry temporary harbour in the foreground must make a stunning view, especially with the sun rising or setting on the horizon.

We got off the bus at the 360 Cinema which we realised was a great idea, given the steepness of the hill up from the township and the heat of the day.

Overlooking the beaches was an observation point, built on top of a pillbox which had been converted into a toilet.

Nearby part of the floating jetty showed what the Mulberry portable harbour consisted of – imagine if you would hundreds of these pointing out into the harbour in four fingers with trucks driving along them laden with supplies.

Getting closer to the cinema we passed the D-Day 75 Garden which had first been unveiled at the Royal Chelsea Flower Show. The fleetingness of life was very well represented by the medium of wire mesh with the bodies seeming to fade away as you walked around them.

The actual Arromanches 360 cinema is a nine screen standing experience which shows the story of the 100 days of the Normandy campaign. It’s a bit distracting having the screens covering all 360 degrees – I was always wondering if I was missing something going on behind me!

The movies themselves are well worth the trip – very informative, but worrying. The combat footage indicated that some poor camera person was filming the soldiers while they were under fire. Can you imagine the conversation with Health and Safety if that happened today?

“So there will be people who are shooting at you while you try to film?”

“Yes”

“Hmm.. that sounds like it might be a little dangerous… could you hold up a sign or something to say that you’re filming and not to shoot? Or maybe do your filming when they’re not there?”

Anyway, hats off to the Cinema for securing such good footage – it’s the closest we can get to see what it was like during those fateful 100 days. And it really brings to light just what an engineering feat it was with the Mulberrys.

Our Arromanches 360 visit was supported by Laurent and Laetitia at Arromanches 360 and Fran at Normandy Tourism.

After the Cinema, we headed down the hill to the town of Arromanches. The path was incredibly well signposted and seeing it was downhill, it was easy going. At the bottom of the hill we elected to head to the beach. We were lucky with the tide and we could walk right up to the floating concrete blocks which formed part of the harbour.

I was glad that they left the remnants here, it allowed you to fill the gaps and see the scale of the exercise. We tried to get into the Musée du Débarquement but after standing in a line for 20 minutes with no indication of what was causing the delay, or the expected time we’d be able to enter, we decided to cut our losses and explore the rest of the town.

The town itself had the familiar sleepy feeling of a holiday resort – clothing stores interspersed with restaurants of various price points. We walked the length of the main road in no time and then I grabbed an ice cream (double wafer cone – peanut and banana/chocolate) and we thought about how we were going to get to the next beach.

The second bus eastward would be coming through at the same time as the last bus westward, so we couldn’t wait for that one – the plan was for us to take a taxi to Juno Beach. The taxi rank was right there in the main square, but when I rang them the lady answering the phone indicated that it would be two hours before the driver would be able to take us. I shrugged, thanked her and checked Uber. We got very lucky and found a driver 10 minutes away who would be able to take us.

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Juno Beach Centre

Half an hour later Murat was dropping us off outside the Juno Beach Centre. Staffed exclusively by Canadians, the centre does a wonderful job of explaining the context behind the Canadian involvement in World War Two.

It starts off in the 1930s explaining where the nation was in terms of independence, and covers the maturation of its armed forces from the disasters at Hong Kong and Dieppe, to the closing of the Falaise Pocket and advance on Germany.

While even under Covid there is plenty to see and experience, they’ve had to remove the more tactile exhibits and displays which is a pity. Despite this there is plenty to keep everyone occupied, and the introductory video showing the mock up of a landing craft is a good way of introducing the experience that the soldiers would have encountered while coming ashore at Juno.

The last sections of the museum’s permanent exhibitions are the most touching with the focus on the service people that didn’t come back plus a video entitled They Walk With You, linking the servicemen who came ashore at Juno with those Canadians alive now.

There are a number of temporary exhibits including a spotlight on the stories of Great Women during the War, an eye opening look at the lives of both European and Canadian women during wartime.

Our Juno Beach Centre visit was supported by Ophélie and Patrick from Juno Beach Centre and Fran at Normandy Tourism.

After visiting the museum at Juno, we had a half hour wait for the last bus to go back to Bayeux. We used the time to check out the beach and the surrounding town of Courseulles-sur-Mer, which had even more monuments and memorials to the Canadian forces during D-Day.

We were starting to get a little worried when the bus was late – it’s hard to have a plan B when you’re in the middle of nowhere with no trains, limited taxi and Uber services, so it was a relief when the bus turned up, a trainee driver behind the wheel supervised by another member of staff.

After an exhausting trip, we found ourselves back at Table du Terroir for another burger, this time we both had the fish burger washed down with a bottle of the same cider we’d had at La Marsala previously.

After dinner we headed off to our accommodation: this time Le Château des Monts in the little hamlet just out of Bayeux called Barbeville. The next morning we came back into town after breakfast and dropped our luggage off at the Winston Churchill Hotel in preparation for our last night. Then walked to the station to catch a train to Carentan and the D-Day Experience.

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Carentan

The D-Day Experience is not really in Carentan – it’s a 40 minute walk away and given the sun’s strength we decided to grab a cab from the train station to the museum. We were very glad we did – the path alongside the road was denuded of tree cover so we would have gotten sunburnt on the way.

Our petty reservations were brought to light when we discovered that the road to Carentan from Dead Man’s Corner was a hard fought after corridor which was to prove central to the protection of the Western flank of the break out from the D-Day beaches.

The Museum itself is nuts. There’s no other way of describing it. It starts with the house used as a headquarters by first the German Paratroopers and then by their American counterparts. This is where you get your first introduction to the exhibits which are eerie in their realism. They stare through you as they sit or stand in realistic positions with authentic equipment as you read the placards nearby.

The sheer volume of equipment is astounding. In each exhibit all manner of weapons, equipment and uniforms are displayed with explanations and by the time you’ve looked upstairs and downstairs and head through the saloon type doors, you find yourself in the shop. Not the gift shop, but instead a place where you can buy enough equipment and weapons to costume a whole movie set.

There are weapons, uniforms, badges and emblems, medals and webbing and all manner of equipment, for sale. It feels like a military surplus store on steroids: all the equipment comes with eye watering price tags and are presumably all authentic. I couldn’t imagine paying almost €3k for a German helmet unless it was the real thing.

I can’t imagine who would want to buy a medal though – who would wear an unearned Purple Heart?

Anyways, it was onto the D-Day Experience inside a real C-47. We sat for a briefing where a holographic officer gave us the low down of what was going to happen and then we all shuffled aboard a genuine C-47 and buckled ourselves in.

I won’t give away the rest of it but let’s just say it did a really good job of showing what it might have been like inside a C-47 leaving England and participating in the drops over the Contentin Peninsular on the night before D-Day.

Afterwards we checked out the exhibits. I was fascinated by one describing the paratroopers who took on the hairstyles and face paint of the Mohawk Native Americans. I was pretty sure they would be accused of cultural appropriation now, especially with Cancel Culture.

After that we headed upstairs for more exhibits featuring hyper-realistic mannequins posing in various scenes. The size of these scenes are larger than I’ve seen in other museums and the D-Day Experience must have a huge footprint because they have so many of them as well.

Our final stage of the D-Day Experience was the 3D cinema which showed a a couple of movies illustrating the advancement of the lines during D-Day, and in particular the Battle for Carentan.

The 3D really came into its own with the illustration of planes fighting using an almost Matrix like bullet cam effect. The only downside to this was that the big screen had French commentary while we had headphones dialled into English, so you had to turn the volume up to drown out the French equivalent. It may have been better to have the cinema sound off and for everybody to rely on their individual headphones for the commentary.

Our trip D-Day Experience visit was supported by Aurélie at D-Day Experience and Fran at Normandy Tourism.

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The Bayeux Tapestry

We took a cab back to the train station and then returned to Bayeux by train, arriving at about 4 – just enough time for a quick bite from Le Conquerant before heading across to the Bayeux Tapestry Museum.

Thanks to Covid there was no queue and we were able to go straight in. The audio guide really is a must because without it you’ll be looking at a medieval embroidery stretching for 70 metres without picking out the meaningful bits, especially if your Latin abilities are, like mine, zero.

No photography allowed, but an entertaining and informative half hour of the story of William, Duke of Normandy’s conquest of England in 1066.

Our Bayeux Tapestry Museum visit was supported by Fanny at Bayeux Tapestry Museum and Fran at Normandy Tourism.

After the Tapestry we took advantage of our proximity to the local Carrefour (supermarket) to buy a salad and a baguette and watched a movie in the hotel room.

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On the way home

So on the last day of our trip, we have ample time and have booked tickets on the train with allocated seating. For the first time my SNCF app actually showed the QR code for the trip, so any conductor would be able to scan it and not need to see the booking email. Awesome!

The train trip from Bayeux to Paris St Lazare was supposed to stop briefly in Caen before continuing on, but we stopped there for a while… and then a while longer… and finally after a 30 minute wait I got up to see what was going on.

I went up to the Chef du Gare who was on the platform and he looked up expectantly as I approached. “Hi, uh… what’s going on?” I asked. He didn’t understand my question. “I don’t speak much French and so I haven’t been able to follow the announcements,” I explained.

I think he’d spent 30 minutes getting chewed out by other passengers so he was a little blunt. “We found a bomb,” he said. “We’re not going anywhere for at least two hours.”

“Well, that’s not very good,” I managed, looking at the body language of the other people waiting on the platform. Nobody was panicking, and the fact we’d been there for 30 minutes made me think that there was nothing to worry about.

I pointed to the signage board behind him which indicated that there was another train to Paris coming in at 11:48, about an hour away.

“Will that train be able to take us?” I asked, indicating both the rails that our train currently occupied plus the number of passengers on the platform.

I think that he was surprised I wasn’t holding him personally responsible for the delay, and so he answered that the 11:48 would come into the station on the line on the other side of the platform and that there would be no issue with capacity. I thanked him and went and told Ange the news.

We decided that while there didn’t seem to be any immediate danger, we’d go and use the time to grab some food, stopping at La Consigne across the way from the station. Ange had the soothing soup and I had the calming fromage et jambon baguette and we headed back in time for the 11:48. Which was saying that it was now delayed by an hour and a quarter.

I looked at Ange and we started thinking about backup plans. I saw that the train to Rouen was leaving at about noon, and that if it was halfway between Caen and Paris then maybe we could catch a train to Paris from there.

I was worried that our tickets were for Bayeux to Paris only, so joined a short queue waiting to talk to one of the station staff, and explained our predicament. She said that it was not advisable, not because of the ticket situation, merely that the train from Rouen to Paris would leave four minutes after the train from Caen arrived in Rouen and that wasn’t enough time for the transfer. And most importantly that the 11:48 might be able to arrive earlier.

I relayed all this to Ange and we decided that even though we might be able to grab a cab from Rouen to the airport, it was probably a better option to wait for the 11:48. Not long after the Rouen train left, the signage on the big board indicated that the 11:48 would be now arriving in 20 minutes. A mass of people headed to the platform and we trailed along behind them.

We’d originally planned on taking public transport to the airport from Paris but we didn’t want to have any further delays, so elected to spring for a taxi instead. Paris during lunchtime in the searing afternoon sun was a shock after the gentile tranquility of the countryside towns of Bayeux and Beauvoir.

While masks were everywhere, there really wasn’t much social distancing going on – maybe because everyone was safely isolating in their cars?

Anyway, we made it to the terminal and to our gate without any further incident, taking off in lovely sun and flying above the clouds all the way up the body of the UK, before poking down through the cloud cover (with a few bumps) and seeing the welcoming sight of Edinburgh.

After landing and crossing the tarmac by foot and feeling the first drops of rain starting because our carrier didn’t want to spend any money on an air bridge, we zoomed through passport control and waited for our bus to come.

Just then the heavens opened and a biblical downpour ensued, which we watched from the dryness of our shelter. Ten minutes before our bus arrived, the rain stopped and the storm passed over towards the city and we watched a gorgeous rainbow follow in its wake, an obvious ray of hope after the darkness of the storm.

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We were the only ones on the morning section of the American D-Day Beaches Full Day Tour from Bayeux, which meant that from Saint Marie Eglise, through to the Museum at Utah beach we had Adeline all to ourselves.

We’d started from the pickup point in Bayeux, the Covid briefing identifying that we’d need hand sanitiser every time we got into the van and when Charles and Cathy joined us in the afternoon we’d have to wear our masks in the back, but until then the plastic screen separating Adeline in the drivers seat from us in the passengers section would mean that we could breathe freely.

Saint Marie Eglise

We drive through the streets of Normandy from Bayeux to the church in the square at Saint Marie Eglise, made famous by the scenes in the movie The Longest Day which retold (with artistic license) the paratrooper who got stuck on the roof and played dead until he could be rescued by his colleagues.

I was tickled by the play on words the local hairdressers had used in their name, the town was full of references to the Airborne paratroopers liberating the city, cafes named after the events or units in operation in the area and museums seemingly on every corner.

Inside the church we looked around as Adeline filled us in on the memorial stained glass windows and the events in WW2 when the town was the first to be liberated by the American forces.

Utah Beach

After a lot of information, we continued on to the Utah Beach Museum where we were given a short amount of time to make our way through the museums on our own steam. We really didn’t have enough time to do it justice – there was a short film which chewed up a bunch of our allocated time and the exhibits were in-depth and well though out. But we had to get back to Bayeux to pick up Charles and Cathy who were joining us for the afternoon component of the tour.

I was particularly impressed by the details – the scattered parachutists landing sites, the names for the sub-beaches within Utah for example: all bringing the night before and the days immediately following D-Day into a more granular story.

The beach itself was nondescript, a stretch of wide sand which could have been anywhere, belying the importance all those years ago.

Pointe du Hoc

After a quick lunch back in Bayeux, we picked up Charles and Cathy and headed to the first stop on the afternoon tour – the battery at Pointe du Hoc. Here six First World War 155mm cannons were embedded which could cover the beaches at Utah and Omaha. It was fascinating to hear the challenges the US Rangers faced scaling the cliffs and how they overcame them on D-Day.

Unfortunately due to Covid we couldn’t go inside the bunkers themselves, instead having to rely on the view from the outside and Adeline’s commentary to fill the gaps on how the battery looked back then and what the combatants would have seen during the campaign

Omaha Beach

After Pointe du Hoc we headed to Omaha Beach, the landing site of the American troops, and the one with the highest casualty rate. As depicted in Saving Private Ryan and other movies, the bombardments of the coastal defenses wasn’t as successful as on other beaches and so the landing went slower and with a higher casualty rate. When you’re there you can see why. The bluffs from where the embedded German forces fought truly dominated the beach front from where the American soldiers came ashore.

What struck me as strange was that one of the units that came ashore was from the National Guard – not a branch of the US military that I expected to be in a front line role.

American Cemetery

After enough time to explore on our own and grab a snack or coffee if you wanted to, we headed back to the van for our second to last stop. This was the American Cemetery at Normandy, including the Garden of the Missing.

A wall of the soldiers missing in action in the Normandy Campaign with their rank, unit and state showed all those whose remains were not able to be found.

When the wonders of modern science made connecting the remains with the missing soldier possible, instead of scratching off their name from the Garden’s walls, they tastefully placed a little marker next to their name to indicate that they’d be able to find their remains after all.

Around 60% of the families of the dead soldiers wanted their bodies to be sent back home, so the remainder were buried here in the vast fields.

Between the Cemetery and the Garden was a memorial showing the progression of the Normandy Campaign, from the landings to the extinguishing of the Falais Pocket, and it was fascinating seeing the representation of the campaign from such a different orientation.

Longues-sur-Mer

Our final stop was at the battery at Longues-sur-Mer. Here the gun emplacements hadn’t been bombed into oblivion like those at Pointe du Hoc, instead the fortifications and all bar one of the guns remained. It was interesting to get a better picture of what they would have looked like in situ.

We also paused briefly on the hill overlooking Arromanches/Gold Beach to view the remains of the breakwater for Mulberry B – the artificial floating harbour that the allies constructed after the beachhead was secured, an incredible feat of engineering!

With any tour you’re never going to have the right amount of time at every stop you make. In our case I’d have liked more time at the Utah Museum and possibly less time at Saint Marie Eglise, though if I was a fan of The Longest Day that might have been different. Our guide was good though, Adeline was knowledgeable, had a great binder with pertinent supporting photos and documents and genuinely knew her stuff.

Normandy is not well served by public transport, so you’re always going to have to trade off the convenience of visiting all those attractions in one day with a less than ideal proportion of time spent at each one. I think we were well served by Adeline and would recommend the tour to anyone.

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We didn’t spend nearly enough time at Chateau des Monts, a lovely old chateau five minutes from Bayeux in the heart of Normandy. The approach is up a tree-lined driveway, the branches above forming a canopy which perfectly frames the first views you get of the main building of the chateau.

Inside we’re taken up two flights of stairs and along a corridor to our room #1 because we are the only guests staying in the place. Online it says that there are five rooms available with room for eighteen guests, but as we ascended the stairs I could see some doors had #9 and #10 on them. So I’m not sure if they only have five at a time or if there is more capacity should they need it. Because the place is huge. It sits on 90 acres of private gardens with a lake and flower gardens and dates back to the 18th Century.

The Room

Our room was enormous. Lit by a chandelier and decorated with period pieces, it was an exercise in tasteful restraint.

In the bathroom was a super shower that we quite frankly couldn’t figure out how to operate. I stood there clicking every button and moving every knob around but it was only when our host explained that the bottom dial was also a lever which needed to be lifted, that we got a steady stream of water coming through the rain forest outlet in the ceiling.

I think you’d really need to stay a little longer just so you could enjoy all the different combinations that the power shower/bath is capable of!

There is so much room in the bathroom – opposite the vanity are three wardrobes – plenty of space to unpack all your luggage!

Back in the room we noted the TV tucked in the corner – I don’t think many would watch TV when there is so much to do at the chateau, but I also noticed the almost invisible door leading to an adjacent room. Locked and a table in front of it indicating that it was off limits, but also indicating that you could have a large family here and with the interconnecting rooms you could have your space and still be connected.

I called out to Ange: “What is black with blonde hair, exposed breasts and one cloven hoof?”

Ange frowned, and responded “I don’t know, what?”

“I don’t know either but three of them are holding up our table.”

Breakfast

In the morning we headed down for breakfast. Now on our arrival the night before we had a conversation with the host. She didn’t speak much English and my French is… limited, shall we say? But despite that, as usual with good humour and all the best intentions we muddled through.

She’d asked us what we wanted for breakfast and I, more as an excercise in showing off my vocabulary, rattled off all the words for breakfast food I could remember.

“Les cereals, pain, baguette, pain du chocolate, croissant, yogurt, cafe, jambon et fromage pour le pain, les fruits, cafe et jus -“

“Quelle saveur de jus? Orange?”

“Oui, jus d’orange.”

I trailed off, racking my brain for any other words which were appropriate.

“L’ouef?” she prompted.

“Oui! S’il vous plait”

I realized then that my laundry list of breakfast demands was probably bordering on excessive, but she took it all in good humor, noting that I was a large man and needed to keep the engine running. I also think it helped that no one else was staying so I could get away with demanding enough food for five!

So in the morning when we made our way into the breakfast room we could see that the table was figuratively groaning under the weight of all the food.

The sideboard had a selection of three cereals, and the panels on each side turned out to be doors into the kitchen beyond.

There were even things we hadn’t asked for, so I guess my demands….er requests…may have exhausted my French vocabulary but certainly hadn’t exhausted our hosts capacity for breakfast.

There was:

Dried prunes, dried apricot, yogurt, apple conserve and strawberry jam, croissant, baguette, les madelines in single serve plastic wraps, bananas, apples, plums, kiwifruit and a peach. Two different cheeses, including Camembert, ham and butter, three cereals (oats, toasted muesli with fruit or chocolate bits). Hot and cold milk for coffee and cereal respectively. And two freshly fried eggs each.

What I loved about the Chateau was that as any large building gets bigger the rooms and their functions get extremely more narrow – if you have enough room for three dressing rooms off a bedroom, for example, you might decide to have one specially for shoes. In this case there was an anteroom before the breakfast room which held a single circular table with a guest book on it, with good wishes and thank you’s from other guests.

Just off the main staircase was the petite salon complete with coffee and tea making facilities and a leisurely place to sit and relax, and the views are quite spectacular – our morning visage could have been straight out of a painting.

Speaking of paintings, the decor was impeccable with tasteful decorations and artwork adorning the walls.

The entrance was actually a conservatory with a pair of large dogs who refused to fetch the ball, regardless of how long I threw it for them. They just stood there staring down the driveway as if watching for someone. Good listeners though…

I’d definitely go back, this time for a bit longer. The staff are welcoming and we’d only just begun to scratch the surface in discovering the facilities. A perfect base for exploring the D-Day Beaches, Bayeux and beyond.

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You can’t do better for location than the Churchill Hotel in Bayeux. It is perfectly positioned across from the Information Centre, literally beside the local Carrefour if you want ready to eat meals, directly opposite takeaways and bars if you want cheap eats and on the main road with a selection of restaurants of various budgets if you want a bit more upscale dining.

It’s also local for the Cathedral, the Tapestry Museum and the pickup point for the various tours which go to the D-Day Beaches as well.

We had two separate stays booked at the Churchill and stayed three nights in total. The reception area is what you’d expect from any hotel in France, but the staircase is where the hotel decor starts reflecting the namesake. It’s plastered with photos of Winston Churchill on his visits to France and the WW2 motif is repeated throughout the hotel.

First Room

Our first room was a standard, with a good sized bed efficiently positioned in the space available and the window overlooking the entrance. The floodlights outside illuminated the hotel a little too well on the second night and we had to ask them to turn off the outside lights which they did straight away.

A lovely little desk sat in the corner allowing you to get some work done and the TV was a good size for watching from the bed – not so much if you were foolish enough to try to watch it from the chair at the desk.

The bathroom was newly renovated and had the static pump dispensers so I couldn’t quite see what brand of toiletries they had.

Breakfast

We’d been spoiled for breakfast in our trip through France and the Churchill was no exception, even under Covid conditions.

Individual baskets of yogurt and breads were provided for each table, with single serve butter, jams and marmalade. A coffee machine, water and juice jugs were the available for self service as was the cereal station with two choices plus individually wrapped madelines.

They also brought a plate of jambon et fromage – no Camembert this time but they did come with some mini tomatoes.

Second Room

We’d arranged for the third of our three nights at the Churchill to be in a Deluxe room, but upon checking in found that they had upgraded us to a Junior Suite. The biggest difference as you would expect was the size – the standard room had been a snug 14 sqm, but the Junior Suite was a very roomy 23 sqm! From the pictures I’d seen the Junior Suites were decorated with a different featured picture – ours could very well have been called the Jeep Room.

The Junior Suite certainly felt a lot more like a posh hotel than the standard room, with robes and additional pillows in the cupboard.

The bathroom was brand new, with good water pressure in the shower. Again the dispensers were the mounted type so I couldn’t see what kind of toiletries they’d stocked them with.

An impressive array of windows allowed natural light to flood the room, and the curtains were thick enough and well designed enough to totally block the light at night, which allowed for a very good night’s sleep.

The chaise longue was a nice touch and the decor was as modern as the standard room was classic.

Special mention must be made of the staff member who was on each of the times we checked in or out – so much so that I asked him if he ever went home. He laughed and said he was on from 7am to 8pm – a long day indeed. I regret not asking his name – he was always responsive, friendly and helpful. He also seemed to understand my attempts at French, pausing more to figure out the answer rather than decipher what I had tried to say!

You’d be hard pressed to find a better place to stay in Bayeux – the location as mentioned is superlative and the service is a cut above. Definitely worth a return visit!

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Arnaud is a friendly sort. I like to think he’s always smiling but it’s hard to be sure because of the mask as we stay with him for two nights under Covid conditions. We’d received good communications with him leading up to the stay at his AirBnB in the small hamlet of Beauvoir, on a slight rise overlooking the bay containing Mont Saint Michel (MSM) on the border between Brittany and Normandy in France.

We’d taken almost every form of transportation to get there from Edinburgh: a flight to Jersey, a ferry to Saint Malo, a train to Pontorson and a bus to La Greve which turned out to be a cluster of restaurants on the main road to MSM, a ten minute walk from Beauvoir.

When we arrived we could see a family enjoying the late summer sun in the orchard under the apple trees and Arnaud came bustling along to show us the facilities and where our room was.

The Room

I was surprised by the room: it was exactly as the photos had shown it but the photos did not show the size and airiness of the room. There was a very comfortable couch beside the open air wardrobe. I wasn’t sure if Ange liked it because it was so comfortable or because it matched the palette of her clothes: muted aqua and stone marl.

The bed was huge. The flatness of the pillows wasn’t an issue, and I couldn’t figure out what the effect he was going for with the four posts, but there was no disputing the comfort or the size of the bed, we slept well both nights we stayed there.

The bathroom again was huge and new. We could have done with a soap dispenser of some sort in the shower, but it was easy enough to take the pump dispenser from the sink inside when we washed. The shower itself was close enough to brand new and the water pressure good.

Breakfast

Breakfast time is where Arnaud shined. He put on an impressive spread with cereal, yoghurt, croissant, rolls, pain du chocolate, baguettes, some sort of sweet loaf, an assortment of jams and marmalades, camembert with freshly made coffee and juice. Just what you need before walking the thirty minutes to where the free shuttles take you the rest of the way to MSM.

We were impressed by Arnaud’s flexibility also. When he discovered we’d exhausted what we wanted to do in MSM, he suggested we have a free late check-out to enjoy the comforts of our room before we headed off for the train station in Pontorson. No attempt to squeeze money out of us for the privilege, just being hospitable.

I’d definitely return if I was to visit Mont Saint Michel again. It’s far enough away from MSM to not have the premium that places try to charge, and yet it’s close enough to make it to the free shuttles without any fuss. While there aren’t any restaurants in Beauvoir, there are plenty a mere ten minute walk in La Greve. But mainly I’d return because of Arnaud and his hospitality.

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In early 2020 the coronavirus hit and lockdown began. News stories started using the word unprecedented because a global pandemic causing such an impact on humanity’s health and economic well-being was certainly not within most people’s living memory. The earliest precedent being the 1918 Spanish flu. As time went on, and more and more was written, the use of the word turned into abuse.

Having such a change to your lifestyle certainly allowed you to see where your self-identity lay – to see what was important. While people contracted the virus and died in their thousands, and others furloughed or got laid off and joined the ranks of the millions unemployed, I, a travel blogger, waited for word on when we could travel again.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m grateful that I have my job, if a little jealous of furloughed people publishing accounts of all the skills and projects they were undertaking. I’m also incredibly grateful to have my health, and doing my bit to make sure I’m not an inadvertent vector of transmission (mask? no problem! social distancing? I’m your man).

The tatters of the plans for travel in 2020 look at me accusationally. Will we just slide them all to 2021, or will a year make a difference to the things we want to go and see and do? Will we get all the refunds for everything or will certain airlines need the threat of civil proceedings before they release undeserved cash from their grasping little hands?

Pre-Corona I added a widget to the site to show the upcoming locations we’d planned on visiting. Something to allow others to share the anticipation of the trips, but life, it laughs at the planning of mortals, so I’ve removed that widget.

The plans are dead, so here are their eulogies…

The Baltics

In April we were going to head to the Baltics, taking in the current capitals of Finland (Helsinki), Estonia (Tallinn) and Latvia (Riga), plus the old capital of Russia (St Petersburg).

The medieval old towns and diverse backgrounds would have made a fascinating opportunity to contrast the different cities – especially given their connection to the Hanseatic League.

Normandy

Early May was going to be spent visiting the Normandy beaches, away from the bustle accompanying the D-Day celebrations in June, and accompanied by a trip to the abbey at Mont Saint Michel.

Cornwall

In late May we were to walk the Cornish coast from St Ives to Penzance. Just a snippet of the walk described in The Salt Path _{(not an affiliate link)}, it would have taken a little over a week of between 5 and 10 mile daily hikes.

Staying in AirBnBs, and featuring Lands End, the Wizard of Oz performed in the open air Minack Theatre and ending with a trip to St Michael’s Mount, it was going to require a level of fitness we were well on the way to achieving before the ‘Rona.

Český Krumlov

In June we were going to go to the Five Petalled Rose Celebrations in Český Krumlov. This sleepy bohemian Czech Republic town comes alive as everyone wears period costumes and celebrates their history with a weekend of medieval feasting and fireworks.

The heat of June was going to be alleviated by a leisurely river rafting experience. This is getting taken an hour upriver of town and placed in an inner tube with a box of beer and letting the current take you home as inebriation intensifies.

Manchester & Liverpool

In July we were going to go for a quick trip to Manchester and Liverpool to take in the homes of the Industrial Revolution and the Beatles respectively. Oh and attend a Crowded House concert, as you do!

Africa

In August and September we were planning to go on our first African safari to see the wildlife in Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, ending up at Victoria Falls.

Trying to pack in the Dali-esque Namib Dessert, the Diamond coast, as well as the National Parks and Game Reserves was going to be a challenge, but the prospect of seeing lions, elephants, zebras, giraffes and other wildlife would have made for a once in a lifetime experience. And at those prices they would be once in a lifetime!

New Zealand

And then we would have been heading home to New Zealand for Christmas. We’re still hopeful for that to come off, but nothing is guaranteed. We are, after all, living in unprecedented times.

The post Unprecedented: 2020 Travel Plans Dashed! appeared first on etrip.tips.

It was a balmy summer’s night when we landed and although it was an international flight, the smallness of the airport and the speed at which we were able to get through customs meant that it felt like a domestic one.

We were picked up by Ange’s brother-in-law’s father and the laid back French approach to life was immediately apparent as the car was parked in the middle of the single lane, blocking traffic and waiting for us. No one beeped or raised their voice – this was the pick up lane and everyone was here for the same thing.

We shared a hurried greeting, got the suitcases into the boot and squeezed into the compact car before buzzing away through the rural streets from the airport to the town of Maugio.

Maugio is a town with medieval links with maybe 18,000 occupants, separated from the much larger city of Montpellier by the latter’s airport, and separated from the Mediterranean Sea by a huge saltwater lagoon and miles of beaches.

We were staying with Ange’s sister Tania, Tania’s husband Stephane and their one year old daughter Chloe in an AirBnB close to Steph’s family. Not long after arriving we took ourselves off to bed, eager for a good nights sleep in readiness for the next day.

Aigues-Morte

In the morning we all piled into the rental car and headed to Aigues-Morte. I got Stephane to repeat the name a few times to see how to say it and when he told me that it meant “Dead Water”, I mentioned that I would have thought that the French for Dead Water would be something like L’eau de Morte.

Ah, he smiled, it’s Dead Water in Occitan, not French. After seeing my blank look he continued and told me that Occitan was the French dialect in Southern France and was a different offshoot of the Latin language from that of French, spoken in the southern third of France, the northern parts of Italy and the northern parts of Spain.

The penny dropped for me: Aigues-Morte sounded sufficiently like Agua Morte to make the leap that Occitan was kind of like a mix of Spanish and French.

Arriving at the city itself we got out of the car and marvelled at the ramparts. Built in the 13th Century, the medieval city boasts 1,650m of ramparts in a roughly rectangular shape and a museum allows access to the walkway on the top for a fee.

Even though it was only €8 each, we didn’t really have time to explore the complete wall, and Chloe was in a stroller, so we moved on from the museum. The staircases spotted sporadically around the interior of the wall had been bricked up so that you can’t avoid the fee and get to the top at a different location.

We did have time to grab a coffee in the main square and took a photo or two of the statue of King Louis IX, otherwise known as Saint-Louis: his connection to Aigues-Morte? In 1248 he had left from here for Egypt on the Seventh Crusade.

On the way back to the car we wandered the streets. I was reminded of Venice – every other shop was a restaurant or sold tourist tat, and even the ones which didn’t fall into that pairing were focused on serving the visitor.

As we left via the great medieval gate we marvelled again at the sheer size of the walls.

Unlike Carcassonne, 2 hours to the west, the walls here were original and hadn’t been renovated in the 19th Century. A road train trundled by – not a bad way of seeing the complete circuit of the walls without having to walk around them all.

On the way back to the AirBnB we noticed piles of white sand – actually it turned out to be salt. The same industry which the city had been built around: mining the salt from the salty marshes still continues to this day.

Aniane

In the afternoon we headed inland, away from the sea and up into the mountains above Montpellier. We were following the Herault River, stopping off at the small town of Aniane for a coffee on the way.

We picked up some pastries from the bakery and took them to a cafe. I asked Steph if it was ok to take food bought elsewhere to a cafe, but he said it’s fine as long as you don’t leave your wrappers for them to clean up.

Almost like it’s OK to cheat on the cafe as long as you don’t rub their face in it I guess. Anyways, we enjoyed our meringue mini cakes and washed it down with the local orange fizzy drink.

Ange commented on the interesting shade of orange – different from the vivid colour of Fanta. I had the answer to that one courtesy of my brother who had lived in Italy.

Apparently in the EU there were rules around fizzy drinks and that if they looked orange then they had to have a certain level of orange juice in them, and weren’t allowed particular food colourings or additives, which meant a slightly more natural hue.

Saint Guilhelm le Désert

Anyway, suitably refuelled, we headed back to the car and onwards up the river into the hills.

Saint Guilhem le Désert sits astride the Gellone river just before it reaches the confluence of the Herault River, and there is a carpark at the top of the town, allowing for a leisurely stroll down into town…and unfortunately a slightly less leisurely stroll back uphill afterwards.

A central square with an enormous tree commands the village, with a couple of cobbled old roads snaking between suitably ramshackle medieval houses up and downhill alongside the river.

Restaurants and tourist shops compete for attention on the periphery of the old square and a sizeable church lurks in the corner. We head over to the church and nosed our way through.

The Abbey of Gellone is attached to the church via an internal cloister but when we make it to the entrance to the Abbey which houses the museum, it’s closed for lunch, so we retrace our steps and return to the central square for lunch ourselves.

La Source is one of the restaurants facing onto the square and we browse the laminated menus before settling on what to eat. Steph elected for the steak tartare, and the other three of us elected to be healthy with salads.

But salads can only be so healthy – Tania’s Salade de Fromage Roti included a whole roasted Camembert, my Assiette de Froie Gras featured foie gras and fig jam while Ange did the best with grilled chicken and an egg with hers.

All tres delicieux, but I had to wonder how vegetarians get on in France!

After lunch we succumbed to dessert, and a mixture of waffles, crepes and ice cream were dispatched with speed. My almond sauce on waffle sounded better on paper than it tasted, so I had super food envy on the waffle smothered with Chantilly cream. Mmmm!

Ready for a nap, but cognisant of needing to see the rest of the town we went for a wander while we waited for the museum to open.

We headed down hill, cobbled streets benign underfoot during the day, but looking like they’d be treacherous when the rains came. The streets were  barely wide enough for a car and the houses and shops were all made from the same stone and in the same style so looking every inch the picture perfect medieval town.

We nipped into a few stores to check out the local wares – a boutique brewery selling elephant beers made locally, a boutique honey shop selling royal jelly, honeycomb and mead amongst the standard honey and candles, plus a boutique shop selling boutique soaps and lotions.

Everything was authentic and locally produced and well presented in stores tucked into the arches supporting the buildings.

The shopkeepers (when the shop was open) would park themselves in the sun outside their shop and read a book or chat with their neighbours until one of the dozen or so tourists wandering the streets went into the shop, and then they would follow them inside in a relaxed manner and wait patiently at their till for the possibility of a sale. No pressure, very relaxed.

As we reached the bottom of town and turned around to come back up, I noticed that there was a recurring theme through the town.

Above the road two emblems hung from cast iron hooks, emblems repeated on doorways and in all manner of decorations through the town. They were a scallop shell and a stylized cross.

I couldn’t figure out how the scallop shell could be the insignia of a town so far from the sea, halfway up a mountainous gorge. The stylised cross was easy – that was the emblem of Occitania, the French/Spanish region with its own dialect. Academics of course disagree (as they tend to) on the significance and meaning of the 12 dots on the cross.

St James’ Walk – Camino de Santiago

The mystery of the scallop shell was solved instantly by a quick google search. Back in the day there was a pagan pilgrimage route to the northwest corner of Spain – the Via Finisterre (the way to the end of the world) where pagans, Celts and others would travel to see where the sun disappeared.

After the remains of Saint James were discovered in Santiago de Compostela, the pilgrimage route was taken over by Christians and renamed the Camino de Santiago. The different overland walking routes take many different ways to get to Santiago de Compostela but somehow the main route from Italy came through Saint Guilhelm.

The symbol of the scallop shell is associated with Saint James the Great, and medieval pilgrims would be given a scallop shell upon completing the pilgrimage. Though I was also told that pilgrims would wear a scallop shell while on their pilgrimage too.

Hardly seems a good reward upon completing a multi thousand kilometre trek battling disease and robbers and then being given a shell. Oh thanks, I actually already have one of those…

Pilgrims were also given food and shelter for free on the route, and the shell would be their dish to eat from, their cup to drink from and also an indication of how much food they could have.

People still do the pilgrimage now, some for religious reasons, some for pagan reasons and some just for the experience of doing a trek. Experiences are naturally mixed but I did read an entertaining story of one man’s experience on the route.

If you did find yourself in Occitania and wanted to visit Saint Guilhelm without a car, there are five buses a day which go from Montpellier via Aniane, (visit here for the schedule).

The local tourism board can also arrange tours for you with various combination of options.

Suitably impressed by the authenticness of Saint Guilhelm, we briefly stopped off at the playground beside the carpark before heading back to Maugio.

Mauguio

We hadn’t really explored much of Mauguio itself, and resolved to rectify this. I thought the small town to be built around a castle, stronghold or church, but any fortifications on top of the motte in the centre of the town had long since disappeared.

Instead, a spiral walkway lead uphill through a garden to a clearing on top with views all the way to the sea. A tower with access to the water reservoir beneath the motte skewered the centre of the clearing.

The roads leading from the Jardin de la Motte back to the open square in front of the town hall held all manner of shops including specialist butchers, one of which specialised in horse meat. Apparently a big enough market to justify a whole shop!

We spent a little more time in town, shopping at the local open air market, but then it was time to wander home.

The route we chose came close to the arena where the bull fighting occurs. You can see the arena below.

As explained in the Guardian, Spanish bullfighting differs significantly from that practised in France, the key differences:

“There are connections with Spanish bullfighting, which is also performed in the big southern-French arenas at Nîmes and Arles and many fans follow both activities. But there is a world of difference between Course Camarguaise [in France], a genuine sport, where man faces bull on equal terms and the spectacle of the corrida [Spanish bullfighting], where the bull is intentionally weakened for the matador and death is a relief. Instead the bulls only go into the arena for about 15 minutes each and as the men tire, the bulls become fresher. The bull always lives to fight another day: a famous bull demanding equal, if not superior billing to a famous raseteur. What’s more, the most vicious bulls will often be saved to last, when the sweat-drenched raseteurs seem almost on the point of collapse.”

Despite these differences there are still protests against the sport, with Pamela Anderson being the highest profile American celebrity getting involved in recent years.

I find it interesting to see the different arguments against the French bullfighting – to hear the Guardian tell it, the bulls almost seem to enjoy attacking the players, and any sport where the animals aren’t killed or even damaged would surely be ok?

Montpellier

It was blisteringly hot when we headed into Montpellier to see what this University city had to offer.

Three universities and three other higher education institutions meant that fully one third of Montpellier’s population are students. When we arrived into town there was a large market in the centre of the huge square between the Tourist Information Centre and the Opera House, and we wandered from shady spot to shady spot for protection.

After the main square, we headed up well populated side streets, lead by Steph who kept a running commentary and pointed out the interesting shops and buildings.

Steph gave a coin to a street performer who had brought sand with him and was modelling a photo realistic dog out of the sand on the street. He looked up with a grin and smiled his thanks before turning his attention back to his task. The dog was spookily realistic and I half expected him to leap up and bound away down the street.

We paused briefly outside a chocolaterie and I marvelled at how, with so many delicious foods on offer, the French people weren’t obese. Mireille Guiliano, a French author, examined this in her book Why French Women Don’t Get Fat. One of the clues was in the size of the portions on sale. Easy to maintain your shape when the treats you have are tiny.

Montpellier is a truly charming city, and we enjoyed the twisting narrow streets as much as the broad shopping boulevards.

I was taking a photo of a building built in the local yellow sandstone because the contrasting blue of the window shutter matched the colour of the sky. However, I realised that, while the sun was still out and bathing the city in sunshine, in the distance the horizon had turned black, and the shade of the sky I was trying to match was a dark and thunderous hue.

Assured that it would take some time for the rains to arrive, we continued our tour of the city.

St Peter’s Cathedral was built in 1536 and was used as a fort in the religious wars in the mid 16th Century, but due to the colour of the sand stone it looked nothing if not a castle made of sand.

Surrounding the cathedral were buildings of the various universities and students carrying books or taking a football to the park for a kick around gave sharp contrast between the weight of history and the promise of the future.

We came then to the golden entrance to the Promenade de Preyou. There were three entrances: two matching side corridors faced with marble stairs and grand cast iron gates atopped with golden armour allowed access to a long but narrow boulevard with stunted trees.

While opposite the Arc de Triomphe the main entrance welcomed dog walkers, students and tour groups into the Promenade proper.

The main section of the Promenade was a huge plaza with a statue of Louis XIV in the middle of it. The central section of the plaza was bordered with matching wooded sections, impressive in their size and well used by a large group of students with all manner of musical instruments, enjoying the weekend sun.

Beyond the wooded area was a dual level Roman aqueduct, blocked off from pedestrian access by an iron and glass gate.

A chateau d’eau or water tower was built where the aqueduct joined the promenade and between that and the wooded area sat a large pond.

The views across the city were amazing: doubly so now that we could see the extent of the thunderous rain clouds which were threatening. The contrasting colours of the yellow sandstone buildings of the city bathed in sunshine, the green of the water in the pond and the dark slate grey of the impending rain-clouds really crystallised the moment.

Now starting to get a little worried about the ferocity of the rain that was coming, we started to head back to where we had parked the car, pausing briefly to check out the triumphal arc the Porte de Peyrou (1692). Porte de Peyrou, Promenade de Peyrou, I was beginning to wonder who this powerful family of the Peyrou were. I found out later that Peyrou is Occitan for stony.

We made good time, dodging other pedestrians and avoiding traffic and reached the main square via a pedestrian-only tree-lined street. The market was starting to dissipate, but there were still florists set up under umbrellas doing a good trade.

We still had about ten minutes to go before we were at the car when it happened. Me being taller, I felt it first. A single, huge rain drop. “Uh… did anyone else feel that?” I asked, switching up a gear in my walking speed.

Ange turned around frowning. “Feel what?” She said. A second later she said “Never mind” as we all as one accelerated to a run and dashed across past the shopping malls towards the car.

In the distance thunder rolled as fellow pedestrians clogged the entrances to the malls. We could have joined them but were heading home anyways so thought we’d make it to the car and dry off when we got there.

We were within sight of the car when it really started to come down, rain not so much falling as angrily pelting the ground as we packed up the stroller and gratefully climbed into the car after it.

The rental car we had featured a sunroof. and it was strangely calming after the mad rush to the car to see the trees lining the roads pass accompanied by the monotonous thrum of the rain.

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Day Zero

It was difficult to decide what to see this time around – like Rome, both Ange and I had been to Paris a few times and so we were looking for a mix of old friends and new experiences.

I’d switched from flights to the Eurostar, so rocked up to Gare du Nord and headed downstairs to the Metro. A few minutes later I was striding through the touristy areas of Monnaie to end up at the Hotel Marignan.

Day One

We checked out and headed over to our next hotel. As you would expect, the room wasn’t ready, so we stored our luggage and headed back out

Though the day dawned damp and overcast, we headed out to Versaille. It’d been 6 years since I’d been and about 20 since Ange had, so even though we knew it wouldn’t have changed, we thought it a good idea to go. The appeal of Versaille goes beyond it’s historical significance – the rest of Europe uses the palace and its grounds as a touchstone of grandeur. Many a time I have visited palaces elsewhere and had them described by guides as “the Versaille of…”. So to refresh our memories, away we headed.

Depending on which station your train goes to you can have either a five minute or ten minute walk to the palace. Ours went to Gare de Versailles Chantiers so we enjoyed the slightly longer walk, pausing to poke our heads into a truly amazing antique book shop.

Magazines from the 1930s were just lying around, in perfect condition. Everything was in French (as you would expect) but the place was huge, and filled to the brim with leatherbound books, furniture and assorted bric-a-brac. I couldn’t figure out how they could stay in business, as the rent must have been enormous.

Ange and I continued our stroll down the road, discussing whether we should get something to eat before heading inside. We’d decided that it would be better to get something before entering the palace because it would surely be over priced in the palace, and were discussing what we would like to eat. We agreed that something like you would get in an English pub would be perfect, and the words “Yes, but the French don’t have English pubs” had just fallen from Ange’s lips when we came upon an English pub. Right there on the boulevard leading up to the Palace,

We stuck our head in and had a look at the menu – surely it would just be a facade with French food inside? No – although the staff were very French, the food on offer was English and reasonably priced too! So we sat and ordered.

I had the Croque Madame, and Ange chose the tapas platter. Now I have an almost religious reaction against tapas. I think the serving sizes are too small to get a decent meal and I also have an unfortunate approach to sharing food coming from a childhood upbringing which was long on siblings and short on food.

But I bite my tongue – maybe the tapas platter would be good value, and I would look  a fool. But no. The food came and my croque was perfectly adequate. Ange’s platter was like something you’d get from a Wetherspoons (discount pub chain in UK favourite of students and the elderly), which to be fair is what we had just finished asking the universe for. But not a very satisfying meal.

I was generous with sharing my croque – poor choices shouldn’t mean you go hungry, and we made sure we had dessert: splitting a good sized waffle with chocolate sauce and whipped cream.

And then on to the Palace. Or at least on to queueing for the palace. Which took an hour snaking across the cobbled entrance. Last time I had done a tour and so had waltzed up through the group tours door, and I weighed up whether it would have been worth the additional expense for the time spent. I didn’t quite get to work out that particular piece of calculus, as we finally got to the front of the line and entered the complex.

The audio guide. Hmm… what to say about that. It was supposed to be triggered by entering a room, automatically starting the relevant commentary which is a great idea. I just found the commentary a touch on the verbose side and the value started to trail off. To really get full value you would have to spend far more time than we had available.

The palace itself is amazing, as we remembered from all those years ago. We noticed some familiar faces and names from our time in Vienna and Schönbrunn and a few of the design features also looked familiar from there also. It was particularly interesting how the palace managed to survive through the various republics and expulsion of the monarchy – the seat of power remaining in what back then would have been at best a place on the outskirts of Paris.

After we finished meandering through the galleries and halls, we headed out to the parklands in the rear of the Palace. We hadn’t splurged for the all inclusive tickets, so could go no further, but by then it was fast approaching closing time and the heavens were darkening at a worrying rate. The clouds made for some good photos, but promised at some point to drop a torrential deluge somewhere, and with a trip to the station approaching it would most likely be on us as we departed.

Thunder began to roll across the sky as if to press the urgency. As it turned out we managed to take a step into the nearest train station the second before the heavens opened.

Unfortunately, by waiting for so long and taking our time through the palace, we had managed to leave bang on closing time, meaning the station was chock full of returning tourists. We got into a line and I sent Ange off to rest her foot. The line moved slowly forward as tourists attempted to navigate the automated ticket machines, and eventually I was about three back from the front.

The line stopped as an American family tried over and over to buy the tickets, failing each time. Before I could get angry or step up and attempt to help though I noticed that the line beside ours was going really fast for some reason. And then I saw why. The machine was no longer working. It had stopped mid transaction, the little light illuminating the “machine working” sign had died and so people were getting to the front of the queue and then, realising their queuing time had been wasted, moving to one of the other queues.

Ange rejoined me and the family which had been holding our line up moved off to queue for the manned booth. We then made good time and I, worried that our machine would pack up mid transaction, stabbed the machine meticulously in an attempt to execute the purchase without any wasted time. Success! Ticket in hand we got through the barriers and ran for the train waiting n the platform. It was packed! We kept moving forward until we found seats and finally exhaled.

We checked into our new hotel and then left to seek out a place to eat. Now if you are of a sensitive nature you may want to skip ahead. I’ll mark where to start reading from again with a club().

So we head out and find a clump of restaurants near the metro station Nation. Some of them look too touristy, some don’t have anything interesting on the menu and some we just don’t like the vibe. We’re being fussy. Ange has been having severe food envy and has decided that I am going to order for her cos she’s sick of me choosing better than her.

Or, I say, I could choose two things and you choose between them, how does that sound? Fine, she says and we eventually choose a smaller restaurant that seems to have a good selection of real French dishes.

We settle in the back room and peruse the menu. There are a few people around, most are outside under the awnings smoking, hence our choice of seat, and a TV on the wall is showing the news with the sound off.

I narrow down the choices for Ange to two items and she chooses the canard which I tell her is a fowl smaller than a standard chicken but turns out is actually duck. The waiter comes over as we decide and we order but I realise I don’t really know what I want so I panic and select the local sausage – Chitterling, thinking even if it’s not bangers and mash it comes with fries so it’ll be fine.

Ange’s food comes first – a sizeable leg of duck with some potatoes and gravy, nice. Good choice. We smile and nod at each other – we broke the curse of Ange choosing food poorly. Yay us.

Then a smell hits us, making me wonder: did someone fart? The waiter puts my order on the table, I look down and raise an eyebrow. Hmmm…that sausage looks comically phallic. And my god it pongs. The waiter returns with mustard, and we set to our meals. Cutting open the sausage reveals… let’s just say “not meat”. White rubbery not meat in little rings, like calamari but smelling like ass. I plow into it, hoping that it tastes better than it smells…and looks. It doesn’t taste of much but the smell is really off putting.

I’m tempted to smear my upper lip with the mustard so that I can’t smell it. Ange asks what’s wrong and I say that I’m just trying to get through my meal, and she looks concerned. I offer some to her and she picks at the morsel I give her for a bit and then tries it and spits it out, “nah,” she says, “I’m good thanks”. She asks if I have food envy now and I grimace while responding that I would have had food envy even if she’d ordered baked beans on toast.

I force it down and we order dessert – some sort of flan that we split. I don’t quite gargle my beer but certainly make sure there’s no remnants of the “not meat” before we head off. Back at the hotel I do an internet search to see what I had just eaten.

Chitterling, otherwise known as Andouillette, a French delicacy. The clues – looks like dick, smells and tastes like ass. And yes, it turns out it was ass – the lower colon of a pig. The other commentators have various funny stories of their experiences, and one even mentions that their waiter tried to dissuade them from ordering the dish. My question is why didn’t our waiter try to do the same? Lol!

Back? OK let’s continue.

Day Two

We checked out of our hotel and made the move across Paris, ending up much closer to Gare du Nord as we were heading back to the UK by Eurostar. On the way down the hill from the metro to the hotel we passed a cute little square – actually it was more of a triangle – with five or six restaurants on it. The heavens were threatening to open, but at best it was drizzling – a fine mist which was actually refreshing to walk through.

After the usual conversation at the hotel – “Is our room ready? No, it’s too early. OK we’ll come back, can we store our luggage? Sure”, we headed back up to the square/triangle for a spot of lunch. We were spoiled for choice of cuisines but Ange still wanted to try some French, so we chose the most obviously French of the restaurants on offer, and settled in. Outside the rain started getting a bit heavier, and the dark grey of the cobbles was frequently punctuated by the bright colours of the umbrellas.

Ever the optimists, we tried the tourist menu and for once were pleasantly surprised. We both finished with the very rich strawberry cheesecake, but I had the steak and Ange had the veal with chorizo sauce. Not bad!

We struck up a conversation with the elderly dears at the next table and my attempts at French were well received.

After lunch we completed the check-in and then headed out to visit two icons of Paris – the Arc di Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower. By the time we got to the arch the rain had broken and the clouds started to clear, so by the time we waited twenty minutes for tickets and then climbed up to the top, the views were quite amazing and the afternoon light made for some great photos.

On the way down we stopped off at the memorial to World War I with the selection of uniforms used by the combatants.

There are no metro stops near the Eiffel Tower, so regardless of which line you take there’s always a lengthy walk at the other end. And then the decision of which side to approach from. We queued for the security check on the river side, and then after that queue had to choose which leg to go up. The South West one was reserved for groups, and the North West one was only for those who wanted to walk up the leg, so we went over to where the South East and North east queues met and chose one at random.

Ange went over to the concession stands and got some hotdogs and chips for us while we waited, a bit of forethought which proved invaluable as we waited…and waited…and waited. I usually like to get t0 places early, that way you avoid the longest queues and biggest crowds. We’d managed to not only go at the busiest time, but also when the weather had cleared which had brought out additional crowds.

We watched the sun go down from the line, and then only just made the lift going up when the light show started; bright lights flashing on the outside of the tower. As soon as we got to level two we got into the queue for the lift to the very top, and were watching the clock very closely as we were approaching cutoffs for when the lifts to the level 3 platform would stop running.

Everyone in the queue was tired and hungry and there were some people there with kids who were having meltdowns. Not recommended! The stress of perhaps missing our slot also made tempers a little frayed. We did manage to get into the lift and reach the top in the end, and were rewarded with views out across the city which really brought home the fact that Paris is the City of Lights.

We then joined the crush of people waiting to go down the elevator, but when confronted with the hordes of people waiting for the lift down to ground level, we decided to walk down instead. The night was still very warm as we followed Google’s advice and headed towards the bus stop for our bus home. We walked past what seemed like an interchange station like they have for triathalons and there were portaloos and sealed off sections which made us try and figure out what was happening – maybe the Triathalon for Brugge was following us?

We got to the bus stop and I saw a sign in French saying that the bus stop wasn’t in use. Great I thought, as we navigated towards the next bus stop along our bus’ route. Again, not in use because of some event.

Muttering to myself we headed even further along the route, this time walking along the river towards the next stop which was on a bridge. Near to the bridge was a train station and while it would be touch and go whether the trains would be still running at this time, I suggested that if that bus stop was also not served, then we’d try our luck with the RER.

Quite a crowd of people joined us at the bus stop, my guess being all previously visitors to the Tower, all exhausted and heading for home. I don’t think any of them had tickets for the bus and when it did show up, to visible looks of relief, Ange and I were two of maybe six or seven people who actually validated their tickets.

It was so bad the driver played an automated message “reminding” people to make sure that they travelled with validated tickets. Nobody moved. So we drove off, the driver probably instructed not to confront people at 1:30am in the morning when he’s alone. It was quite the relief to get back to the hotel at last!

Day Three

Museums in Paris are free on the first Sunday of the month, so we decide to go to the Musee d’Orsay and the Pompidou Centre – two art museums. After queuing a reasonable amount of time at the Arch de Triomphe and a ridiculous amount of time for the Eiffel Tower, we’re kind of over queuing, but as we approach the Musee d’Orsay and see the line snaking across the plaza in front of the museum we roll our eyes and relax into the inevitable.

A coffee kiosk which is a part of the queuing route remains inexplicably closed, even though there’s a person inside, cleaning. It’s not raining but feels like it will very shortly, so I would have thought people would have snapped up the opportunity for a hot coffee while they waited. Anyway, after about an hour we got inside.

The Musee d’Orsay has an impressive collection of art. So much so it’s almost impossible to take it all in at once – it overwhelms. There are some really heavy hitters in there too, with some of the paintings having a ring three or four deep, all trying to take photos of the art, most humorously using large iPads, which of course block the views of those behind.

We got a map form the front desk and sat down to plan out what we wanted to see. Our choices ranged form the incredibly popular Van Gogh, to the less popular but impressive collection of Art Nouveau.

We made sure to head up to the top floor to see the Impressionists and also to check out the clock faces both in the cafe as well as at the far end of the museum.

We’re just starting to get weary when we decide to move on, fully aware that there will likely be a queue at the Pompidou Centre also.

Lo, and there is too, snaking over the plaza alongside the centre and reaching the square next door. We decide to take lunch at one to the restaurants on the square and sit down at an Italian restaurant (Al Solito Posto). It’s amusing the combination of the languages – English and French and Italian all combining while we order. I have one of the pizzas and Ange has the spaghetti. It’s a well deserved rest from the queueing and art appreciation, and sets us up nicely for the afternoon of the same.

The Pompidou Centre, like the Lloyds Insurance building in London has pipes, escalators and elevators on the outside of the building, playfully turning the infrastructure of the building inside out. Inside we’re interested in the contemporary and modern art floors and I find myself asking what the difference between the two are. It turns out Modern art covers the period from the turn of the 20th Century to the 1960s when Contemporary art began.

Basically Modern Art leads to the point where art stopped looking like art. I must admit to being more comfortable with the Modern art floor and by the time we get to the Contemporary floor we’re pretty much exhausted. Like Musee d’Orsay it would really help to consume the art in multiple sittings.

We head back into the centre of Paris for the last things we wanted to see and do – Ange wanted to see the Pyramide du Louvre and then try a dessert from Angelina’s pâtisserie. I’d been to the Louvre Museum before and had found it’s enormity to be overwhelming, but needing an edit. There was just too much of limited value – it did  have the effect of making the gems stand out more though!

Above ground we took photos of the famous Pyramid and marvelled at the smallness of the queue to get in – if we weren’t so exhausted it would have been very tempting to head down for a taster selection of the best that the Louvre has to offer. Instead we capture ourselves in full tourist poses (so hard for me to get up onto the plinths!) and then head back through the Jardin des Tuileries to the Rue de Rivoli.

We duck scaffolding and find the entrance to the pâtisserie. I’m surprised that there is a queue out on the footpath, and take my place. Ange nips to the start of the queue to make sure I’m queueing correctly – she knows that it’s possible to make a booking to actually eat in the tea room, but also knows that there is a shop beside the eating area for takeaway.

She comes out and collects me – this looks like the queue of people without reservations that are queuing in the hope that someone doesn’t come to their reserved time slot! Thats how popular the place is! We skip ahead to the takeaway shop and marvel at the different coloured macaroons and selection of desserts in fine jars and tins, all tastefully designed and impeccably detailed.

It really is a throwback to the early 20th century, of style and service and in addition to celebrating over 110 years in business, they have also expanded to over 30 other locations. After a long and careful deliberation Ange selects a mille feuille and I elects to try the strawberry eclair. Hard to know who chooses better – a competition with no losers!

We made our way back to the hotel and then went out to dinner nearby – literally less than 200m from the hotel. We elect to sit inside to get away from the incessant smokers – it’s the bane of the non-smoker that although it might be uncomfortably warm inside, you end up having to choose to be able to breathe or be cool. Nevermind. There are a fair few customers in, but the staff handle the rush well enough. I have the egg mayonnaise and Ange has the onion soup for starters, and for main I have the burger with fries and a side salad which is suitably tasty, while Ange has the onion soup and salmon tartare.

The waiter goes to some trouble to make sure she knows what she’s ordering – raw salmon, and Ange assures him that she knows. I don’t think she’s prepared for the quantity that is delivered though, and there’s a fair bit left on her plate when we finish. For dessert we share a slice of the lemon meringue pie I had been eyeing all night, sitting on a refrigerated shelf in the front counter.

Day Four

We get up too early for breakfast at the hotel and head to Gare du Nord for the trip back to the UK. Paris is always a feast for the senses and the iconic locations to visit never get tired. The queuing though makes me wonder if guided tours (which usually have separate entrances) might just be worth their price for the time savings alone.

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Location

Situated a short bus ride (two stops) or a choice of two metro lines from Gare du Nord, Hotel Antin doesn’t have the price tag of a hotel right beside the international train station, but certainly has the convenience of one. The area surrounding the hotel is upmarket residential, and very well served with assorted restaurants.

We arrived too early for our room to be ready, so dropped off our bags and went out for some lunch. The heavens had opened so we dashed back up the hill to Place Gustave Toudouze where no fewer than five restaurants sit on a triangular town plaza.

Room

Upon our return we were able to check in and went up to our room. We had the choice of a tiny 3-4 person lift or the stairs. Since we were on the top floor, we opted for the lift.

Our room is under the eaves, meaning that we enjoy a slightly sloping wall with a low ceiling on that side of the room. Definitely Ange’s side! Like all the rooms in cheaper French hotels, our room is on the small side.

Just enough for a double bed and not much more, while the bathroom actually has a little more freedom of movement in it. The shower is a bit temperamental, but has reasonable pressure once you get the temperature you like.

Breakfast

The breakfast is a surprisingly good effort – classic continental (breads, cold meat, cheese, fruit, cereals, juices and coffee) with the addition of the egg boiler which we’re getting used to.

Facilities

I find it hard to get my head around the custom of surrendering your key when leaving the hotel. I guess it makes sense if people keep losing the keys, but it just seems to me to be a good way to keep tabs on guest movements. Surely better to have a penalty fee to replace the key should someone lose theirs? Anyway, one morning when we were leaving there was nobody around so we kept our key. The world didn’t end.

Pros and Cons

Would I Go Back?

Hmm… it’s a self professed 2* hotel in Paris, so it’s small, light on facilities (no sauna or pool) and is feeling its age. But it’s clean. It’s a good location, and breakfast was good. So while it would be tempting to try to find something cheaper or nearer to the station, you run the risk of getting something even smaller or worse – not as well cared for. Maybe a case for better the devil you know…

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Location

Hotel du Printemps is handily located very close to the Place de la Nation – a roundabout celebrating the birth of the nation of France and the site of a particularly busy guillotine in the French Revolution.

More importantly today, the metro station under the roundabout serves four different lines and the bus stops above ground make this a very well connected location. Surrounding the hotel itself in the neighbourhood of Picpus are many restaurants, bistros and other eateries. On our many strolls to familiarise ourselves with the area it came across as catering to locals – always a good sign.

Closer to Place de la Nation there are even more restaurants, these ones feeling more touristy, though still with a large contingent of smoking French people with an assortment of dogs, big and small.

The hotel used to be the stables for the local mail station and if we stood very still we could faintly hear the rumble of the RER just below the surface.

Room

Upon our return from Versailles we collect our luggage and head up to our room. French hotel rooms are small as a rule and ours is no different. It’s big enough for a double bed and little bedside table. Also in the room is a wardrobe and a TV mounted on a wall bracket above a desk. The bathroom is an L shaped room with the shower as one branch and the toilet in another.

It’s a clever use of space and the shower is actually bigger than it looks from the outside. The tiling goes all the way up the walls and the ceiling is very high meaning that if you’re 7’+ tall you should be able to shower just fine! Most importantly, the bed is very comfortable.

Facilities

Outside the breakfast room there was a deck with tables and chairs. The inclement weather meant that nobody was using it, but nice that it was there.

To get to our room we had the choice of a small lift or the stairs, and whenever you left the hotel you had to drop off the key to reception. Reception also let us borrow an umbrella when the heavens really opened up, which was appreciated.

Breakfast

For such a small kitchen area, the breakfast was surprisingly substantial. It was a continental one with a good selection of breads and cereals and they had the egg boiler that we’d noticed from other hotels in France.

The obvious coffee and juices were also complemented with an array of yoghurts. The breakfast itself was served in a dining room over looking the street and was alongside a lounge area complete with fireplace, big screen TV and various newspapers, magazines and tourism brochures. A great place to contemplate the world’s events and plan your sightseeing in Paris!

Pros and Cons

Would I Go Back?

Sure! For an inexpensive stay in a less well-travelled suburb, you could do a lot worse than the Hotel du Printemps.

The Hotel du Printemps supported our Summer 2017: UNESCO tour by providing a complimentary stay. All opinions remain our own.

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