Normandy - Part I

This is what I saw when I first arrived in Caen.  Nice eh?

My original reason for going to Normandy was to check out the D-Day landing beaches and other WWII-related sites.  However, I will cover all that in a separate post because I really enjoyed my trip to Normandy even excluding that stuff.  Normandy is apparently known for cows and ciders, as it's a bit of a agricultural region in France.

My first meal in Caen.  Chevre SALAD.  Yeah it's got bacon and cheese, but still SALAD.  Delicious!!!

Veal frites, the rest of my meal.  You didn't think I'd JUST get SALAD, did you?  lol

What I did:

• August 12, 2012 - Train from Paris to Caen, arrived late at night.
• August 13, 2012 - Sarah arrived to join me, we went to le Memorial de Caen and Chateau de Caen.
• August 14, 2012 - Drove to Juno beach to see the Canadian landing site and the Juno Beach Centre, continued along the Normandy coast to see other war memorials and military cemeteries.
• August 15, 2012 - Sarah departed (but I stuck around for another day)

Had to split it with Sarah because I could only eat half.  And it only cost 2.5 Euros!

Highlights:

• Food - If they can get me to eat salad and like it, you know the French are doing something right with their food.
• Bakeries - Boulangeries, as they are known here, are awesome.  I had baked goods for breakfast every day in France and usually ate enough so that I could skip lunch.  See the big-ass macaron above for an example.
• Small-town folk - People in Caen and around the whole Normandy area were so friendly, despite my horrendous French.  Getting around using mostly English was not a problem at all.





 

Modern art by a Chinese artist in the middle of a 11th century Norman castle.  What, you didn't expect this???  hahaha



Lowlights:

• Torrential rain on the morning of the 15th!  Also, everything (including the bakeries) was closed, so we wandered around in the rain for something like 20 minutes trying to find some place that would be open for breakfast before I remembered that it was a national holiday (funny enough because I had actually warned Sarah about that the week before).

Can't Miss:  Food.  Honestly, my blog format is pretty stupid sometimes.  You probably could have figured this out without me highlighting it in this section, no?  :)

 

More beef please!  :D