Au revoir Paris

After some very busy days and the loss of internet access I have to somehow condense our last few days in Paris into this post. We took the kids to Disneyland. It was an easy 35 minute train ride directly to the front gates. The kids enjoyed it but I thought we had just as much fun at the Jardin d' Acclimatation, a children's park with small rides and other attractions catering to mostly under 12's.
Jay picked up our van that we are leasing in Paris and we headed up to Normandy. We stopped in Giverny, which is home to Monet's house and gardens. It was great stop. The gardens, ponds and bridges were beautiful. We continued on to Bayeux, which was the small, quaint and quiet town we would be staying in while we drove to the World War II sites. It was a very nice change from the noise and busy-ness of Paris. We stayed at the Hotel d'Argouges which we would definitely recommend. We ate dinner and called it a night as we were finally going to wake up early. I struggled with deciding whether to hire a guide to take us around and finally decided against it. I think if it were only the older two boys with us we would have done a half day tour but with the two little ones it was good to be on our own schedule. I won't go into detail but I will say that the kids found all the sites interesting. They are just sponges and are so eager to learn and it doesn't hurt that they are boys immersed in war, guns, army vehicles, etc... although I won't go into detail here about each place you can read that in my book once it's published :) but we started out at the Arromanches, a museum dedicated to the artificial harbor. We then drove to Coleville Sur Mer, the American cemetery overlooking Omaha beach, amazing. We headed up to Pont du Hoc and the Saint-Laurent-Sur-Mer museum. There were a few other places we had wanted to go, but I could see we could soon be pushing the limits for the little ones. So on a whim we decided to drive down to Mont St Michel a beautiful monastery which began construction in 1020. It was about an hour and half drive. I had wanted to go but didn't think we would have time. And even though it was too cold to walk around (as we didn't think to bring jackets) and the shops were closed, the sunset and the lights at night are breathtaking and we were there during the high tide. (If you don't know about this place you must go read about it. It is fascinating and the most popular tourist destination in France) Now I must say at this point in our trip, Jay's camera battery and mine had died so we were left with the kids cameras for the rest of the trip but I am sure they did it justice. ( I haven't actually downloaded them yet). This is definitely a place we would love to go back and tour.

We woke up the next morning and went to see the Bayeux tapestry. It is a 1000 year old tapestry depicting the story of William the conqueror defeating Harold at the Battle of Hastings. Grant and Victoria lost interest, but for the rest of us it was an excellent history lesson. On our way back to Paris, I had wanted to stop in Caen to see a peace museum that I had read was a must see but I had not done much research on. It was to be a quick stop and on to Paris. However as we entered and looked through the brochure, it read "What to see if you only have a half of a day..." Half of a day? We had only planned on a quick 30 minutes. So we did go for about an hour and a half but certainly did not do it justice.

We arrived back in Paris and the next day Jay drove back with Cameron and Victoria to Dublin. They drove 2 1/2 hours north and boarded a train through the Euro tunnel to England. They spent the night in Birmingham. The next morning they drove to Liverpool and got some much needed provisions from Costco. They took a ferry from Holyhead to Dublin which takes about an hour and a half. Meanwhile, the rest of us stayed a couple of more days in Paris. I had tried to change my Ryanair tickets to come home a little early but I will spare you those irritating details. Our trip was great but maybe a couple of days too long. Nine days would have been perfect.

So we are home again in Ireland getting ready to start school on Wednesday and by the end of the week I am sure I will be ready to plan our next adventure.