Start to finish today was a long one. I got up before six to make sure I was completely packed and ready because I would be taking several hours of trains to get to Caen (kind of pronounced like Khan from the Wrath of Khan but in that French cut off way). Reception didn’t open until 7 but I was pretty much there only a couple minutes after. I was not the first person there as someone was already having breakfast. I checked out and had the hotel call me a taxi which I took to the train station. He seemed to have started the fare before he got there but how can I argue with a guy that doesn’t speak English? In any event it wasn’t near as expensive as the rides to and from Pierrefonds. When I got the station I booked the trains I needed to Caen. One to Gare du Nord and from there I apparently needed to get to Gare St-Lazare where I would be able to get on a train to Caen. There was about 50 minutes to make the change from one to the other.The first train was an express to Gare du Nord and only took about 45 minutes from Compiegne having no stops. I tried to do what research I could on my cell phone through google to figure out how to get to St-Lazare. It turns out there is only one stop of the magenta line (not kidding, magenta) from Gare du Nord to St-Lazare. I was able to twist my way through Gare du Nord and find the metro station and more specifically the magenta line and purchase a ticket. Of course the metro at St-Lazare does not exit into the main train station but I was able to orient myself fairly quickly and get into the station where even though it wasn’t supposed to head out for half an hour I was able to already board the train to Caen because it was waiting at the track (voie).
I got situated and went through day 7’s pictures to orient them correctly as I hadn’t done that yet while I was on the train then I thought about writing the early events to that point but opted not to and instead tried to just relax and watch the countryside. There was a stop at Lisieux which had a very impressive moment apparently called the Basillica of St Therese up on a hill. I was surprised to find out it was built from 1950(something) to 1970(something). I am not sure if it was a rebuild of something destroyed in a war or if it was a completely new building. In any event the google search that provided that information from the phone made the concept less interesting to me so I didn’t read too deeply on it. There is also a very huge looking cathedral in that town but I wasn’t able to get pictures of either due to train movement or placement of the train in the station. I suppose it goes without saying the town had a huge church. So far I haven’t been to a town or city that hasn’t had several in France. The whole train ride was moderately uneventful but I did meet an American couple from Florida and gladly gabbed in English for a while with them. They have been to a few more places than I have. They were very nice and were also heading to the Normandy area though one stop up on the train line.
After disembarking I was able to get a taxi to the hotel. The map made the trip look really far and I wasn’t about to go searching for buses at that point. The ride wasn’t terribly expensive but I was right to not try to walk this one as there is a point where we crossed a highway with no apparent walking paths around it I could discern. The hotel is really just outside of town and meant for someone who has a car it seems. When I checked in they were still cleaning rooms because they had a full day the day before (probably due to the fact that the Caen Normandy Memorial is right up the road and it was Victory Day yesterday) so I was only able to drop my bags off and get on my way back out the door. My pictures of the new location do not start with the room for this reason, it wasn’t really cleaned yet. Fortunately, as I said the D-Day Memorial was right up the street in walking distance so I visited that for some time. It was interesting and in some respects it didn’t mince as many words (there were actually English signs and boards) about the French involvement in World War II. I had sort of expected some euphemistic texts but they admitted the French rolled over quickly and then ended up collaborating with the Nazis along the way. The monument is of course an international type thing and there were sections on the British and the Americans and their involvement as well. The was a movie about the Battle of Britain that was actually in English with French subtitles and in the area where they had letters from various soldiers in the war the audio sections from Americans and Canadians were read in English as well. I was a bit surprised at this but I was happy for it.
When I was done with the Memorial I had spotted a bus stop across the street. I checked the times on it and I had a few minutes so I took a short foray to see if there was actually a way I could walk into town. The distance isn’t really that far to the center of town it is just blocked by that highway so far as I could tell even after venturing to it. So I walked back to the bus stop and got on board. The Memorial stop is a terminus and starting point so I was able to tell the bus would be there in a few minutes because he was sitting at the end of the line coming in when I got back there. I rode the bus into the town to pretty close to the Caen Chateaux which was a fairly interesting old fort and castle which if it was still standing would have been from around the early times of the Normans. 11th century at that latest. The castle was however destroyed by bombing in the war and recent efforts to excavate have turned up a bit of interesting stuff around there. This area was all free to enter and I wandered around it for a bit trying to get everywhere I could and take all the pictures I could. I found the free Museum of Normandy inside and went through that. It was a collection of archaeology from the Norman areas here in northern France over time. I liked it a lot even though the building was small. It did house a lot of artifacts and surprisingly there was English translations for the placards on most everything here as well. The fortress walls also house a museum of bad art, sorry I mean modern art, but I didn’t remotely consider going in there.
By the time I was done with the fort and the ruins and the museum it was getting close to 5pm and I was unsure how to secure my bus back to Memorial if it was even possible. I started backtracking the route as best I could with aid from the GPS (it’s amazing how things look very different on foot than they do in a bus) and managed to find the Sabron stop where the bus had let some people on while heading into town. Across the street it had a return bus stop that did indeed head to Memorial and I only had to wait about 4 minutes for it. I took that and then I walked back to the hotel to relax a bit and get some of this written. Fortunately the hotel does have a restaurant and they serve dinner starting at 7:15 (yes later than the Campanile) and I will have to make use of that (or I would have to walk down to and eat at the restaurant in the Memorial if they stay open that late.
It occurred to me that I hadn’t consumed anything at all since the night before by the time I got to the room and I immediately drank several cups of tap water (by the way the only tap water I haven’t liked here is the Ibis Amiens. I am not sure if it was the water itself or their pipes but the hotel seemed newer so I will lean towards the water itself. After that I found the brewpot and made some Nescafe provided by the hotel to at least have something going into my stomach and then set about to writing this. The hotel again has wifi which is nice and I tested the speed of uploads and it looks like I might be able to get day 6 up if I am lucky but I doubt I will be able to get the 300+ pictures from day 7 up with the speeds I appear to be getting. Still it is better than nothing.
After relaxing a bit by watching the BBC on the TV in the room, The Weakest Link – a show I’ve never watched, I went down to the hotel restaurant for dinner. There was a already a fairly sizeable crowd of older Brits who apparently were in the area on a tour of some sort occupying the room. Nonetheless it was easy to get seated. Today I opted to have a started because I was starved to go along with a Leffe and the bread they gave. The starter was listed on the English language menu as eggplant crumble and it was very good. It was sort of like it sounds, a bread topped eggplant dish. I liked it a lot. For the main course I chose to have the sea breem with citrus sauce. It also was very good but perhaps I was so hungry I wouldn’t have noticed. In any event the sauce wasn’t very citrusy but I liked it. It was accompanied by haricots verts and boiled white rice. I wasn’t expecting plain boiled white rice but it was cooked correctly and an enjoyable part of the meal. I opted not to have a dessert because I had the starter and just finished off with an espresso which was a bit small for my taste before heading back to the room where I made a tea to finish off the night.
For the sake of mention for those who would understand and care on the BBC apparently there is a show called Tonight’s the Night and Captain Jack from Torchwood is apparently the host. I assume it is a basic talk/variety show but it was mostly over when I turned the TV on. They were having a contest to have an “alien” film a scene in the Tardis for the show at a later date. Then he finished off the show by singing and dancing. It was a bit strange because he doesn’t have a distinctive voice. It was not however surprising.
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