Day 5 - Coffee at last! Normandy to the Loire Valley

This morning we had breakfast at the auberge and they made me a small pitcher of coffee accompanied by an even smaller pitcher of steamed milk. I had died and gone to coffee heaven. Finally I got the caffeine fix I needed for 5 days now. Happy happy. This place was awesome from every angle. They even had a yellow lab!

We drove through Creully which is a small town that was liberated by the Winnipeg rifles and there is a plaque in town commemorating that event. Also there was cool chateau there we had a look around.
We got back on the road, and with Joanna navigating we arrived at the Juno Beach Canadian War Memorial center.

It sure was cool being a Canadian and reading the accounts of the Canadian portion of operation overlord that commenced on D-Day. We purchased a few things to sponsor the center an walked the beach a little. I touched the Atlantic (close enough) for the first time, and we collected a few shells for Sarah and some rocks for Aidan.

It was hot.

We headed for Mt St Michel which is a castle on a rock on the coast. It s tryly a marvel to behold. It just appears out of the ocean.
It was hotter than hell. We walked around the castle on the beach and then went inside the walls to see what we could see. It was a tourist trap from hell, but still very cool all the same. There was a bunch of shops lining the narrow streets and steps leading up to the abbey. Every 3 rd shop was a souvenir shop selling the same stuff as the last shop - just in case you changed your mind.

We got some ice cream on the way back to the car, which was easy to find because of our newly purchased Canadian flag from Juno Beach which we put in our front window so we could find our silver Citroen. We then piled back into the car with our sights on th Loire Valley (France's Napa Valley) this is a couple hundred kms south of where we started the day. The drive continued to reveal amazing scenes of green country side, fields of corn, ancient stone walls, houses, and grand chateaus and churches.

The driving is fun on narrow country roads at good speeds - damn the French drive fast! I would pull over to let a faster driver by, and it would be two old ladies (ok and exaggeration) but you get the idea. I enjoyed it, jo doesn't care for the windy roads much.

We continue to have fun wherever we stop fumbling with our French, and we are finding the people switching to English for us less and less. Usually when you start murdering their language they switch to English for you, but now they don't speak English at all, which I find much better! My recollection and improvising in conversation is getting better with practice, but is still heinous.

With some skilful navigating ;) we found our way to the start of the wine country and bizarrely the horse capital of France. Realy, the French Calvary has a training school here plus there is a bunch of other equin e stuff. Plus there are mushrooms growing in caves. Yes, we passed the Musee de Champignons.

We are spending the night in the Hotel St Pierre after diving around looking for a place to stay here. Admittedly we left it a little late (7pm) to start looiking for a place, but we didn't want to top befor Saumur.

The AC must be shut off at 11PM and its 11:07 so time to open the window and turn off the AC.