W8 of Y3

France: Honfleur, Normandy, Mont-St-Michel, Nantes, Dijon

All packed up and ready to go! 1 mini-van, 3 kids, 1 dog, tent, stove, sleeping bags, lawn chairs, etc...
This is going to be fun!!

Playing at a rest stop on PJ's. Love it!

Honfleur

Outside our home in Honfleur. Doesn't look so great from the outside but the location is great!

Inside we were pleasantly surprised.



View from our window
Playing downtown

Honfleur is famous for the tall (6-7 story) homes in the background. Such a charming city!



You can see the restaurant we ate dinner on the right end


Omelets and fries, crepes, fish and steak. Great dinner!

The owner of the house delivered a French breakfast to us in the morning. Crepes, croissants, and a French baguette - yum!

Getting some goods for the road on our way out of town

They taste as good as they look!

Normandy

Setting up camp!

Whitney walked around all day with her baby on her back. Such a little mommie!

On our way to the pool and park for a well deserved break!





Jeremy and Connor made dinner that night. Chili and brats.

Gotta have smores!
Whitney didn't like the marshmellows. She just ate all the chocolate.

All snuggled in bed for the night.


I must say - it's so nice camping with Jeremy. He does all the work! He got up early to make breakfast for everyone. Scrambled eggs with sausage and hot chocolate.

I was still shivering from being cold all night!

Port-du-Hoc

This was where the Germans would look out and could see Omaha Beach and Utah Beach at the same time. The cliffs were rugged and steep so they thought it was impossible for anyone to climb up them. But that's just what happened on D-Day!

I was totally amazed at these craters that are still here 67 years later from bombs dropped by planes and ships.

Utah Beach in the distance

A bunker that got destroyed
Here you can see the cliffs that the rangers had to climb up while being shot at.


This was a storage for guns and ammunition that was destroyed

Omaha Beach

3000 scouts gathered here on the beach to send a human message "Normandy Land of Liberty" to UNESCO to keep this beach protected as a World Heritage Site. It was truly such an honor to be a part of this.

The Air Force band was there playing patriotic music for all of the countries that fought on D Day

Finding our letter. Our family made up almost the entire right side of the first letter N in Normandy

While we were waiting for the helicopter to come and take our picture, 3 jeeps carrying vets from the war drove by. Everyone was cheering and waving. Even the boys were really excited to see them!

The helicopter took several pictures.... finally! We waited on the beach for almost 2 hours.

Click on the link to see the actual picture that we made:
Normandy Picture

American Cemetery

That night we went to the American Cemetery in Normandy - the largest outside the US.

The scouts sponsored a group dinner here.







It was time to hit the road again. Driving through France was beautiful. Normandy was so green and there were cows everywhere!!

Mont St Michel

This place was so interesting. There were signs letting us know the latest that we could leave because when the tide comes in the entire parking lot is covered with water and there is no way off Mont St Michel. I was told to leave a couple of hours before the tide comes in or you will be walking through water to get to your car even!


There were signs outside warning of quicksand. The boys were very interested in this and kept wanting to try the quicksand out. Boys!

Ice cream

Shopping

The view from only half way up. Amazing place!

Nantes

We realized we were going to be so close to Nantes where a couple of my college friends lived growing up. Just my luck one of them was there staying with her Mom so we decided to stop and see her.

She has 4 boys so all the boys had TONS of fun!!

These 2 were in love at first sight! So cute.


She took me to see where our other friend grew up as a child. This is the little chapel that was part of her house.

Her house was gated so we couldn't see too well. But we did sneak a peak even though there were cameras on us.

Outside her house. All the years I knew her in college we would always talk about me coming to Nantes to see her. I couldn't believe I was there and she wasn't!

All the boys eating breakfast in the morning

On the road again. Whitney liked to pass the time playing dress up with clip on earrings, headbands, and play make up. Such a girl! She also loved our apples from Normandy!

Dijon

I loved all these beautiful yellow fields on our drive to Dijon. I found out it was not mustard growing though - it was Colza oil. So beautiful anyway!!




Being in the Burgundy region, Dijon is a big wine producing city. Vinyards for miles!!!


We were lucky enough that my cousin and his wife live in Dijon. My cousin used to work in these vinyards when he first moved here. We were very impressed and learned a lot about growing the grapes.

My cousin said these vines were at least 80 years old. They've been making wine here for a loooong time!


All the kids piled in the back of their station wagon. Just like the good ol' days!

After walking through the vineyards we had a quick tour of one of the most famous wineries in Dijon.

Some of the bottles were so old they were covered in dust!

My cousin really went all out for us! He bought some Escargot for us to try. Connor wasn't so sure about it at first but then he and Aiden both had seconds!

Eating Fois Gras on toast.

We had a wonderful French dinner! I really want one of these grills!


Dessert, of course!

After dinner the kids had fun coloring with the black light

French breakfast in the morning

Saying goodbye to sweet little Max

Then it was back home! Google clocked our total trip at almost 23 hours (which is quite more with all of our stops). I thought it would be interesting to show the route we took.

View Larger Map