Normandy ......

It was a lovely trip, sometimes sad, sometimes hysterical funny.... well it would be with my father there, he does come out with some pearlers at times....

The ferry across was like riding on a billiard table you wouldn't have even known you were on a ferry except for the "Brittany Ferry" signs all over the place... oh and the sea of course... 5 hour crossing and we emerged to blazing sun and a hot day.... I switched my Tom Tom on and within 10 minutes we were at the hotel.... We didn't do very much the first day, we just went down to Ouistreham beach front and wandered about having a look at this and that, eventually we decided to try out my mothers french speaking skills and got a remarkably strong french coffee ... then we drove back to the hotel and settled in for the night.....

Rabbits !!!

  

They are everywhere in Normandy, we had them outside the hotel, on roundabouts, roadside verges.... I have never seen so many BIG rabbits in my life, quite unafraid some of them....

The second day started relatively early, I was refusing to alter my watch to French time otherwise it wouldn't have been so early... We drove out to the local Carrefour and my mother bought a lovely floral display to put on Georges grave and after we had had a look around Carrefour for all of 20 minutes we set off to find Brettville-sur-laize Canadian war cemetery.... I have to say the cemetery is in the most peaceful and beautiful setting, it's very rural, no towns that you can see for miles and the cemetery itself is immaculate, it has lawns that are like billiard tables and there is nothing unkempt about the place. I was really pleased it looked so lovely.

 

I've uploaded the full resolution photographs so if you click them you'll see how well looked after the grounds are.... The one thing that really saddened me about the cemetery is how young practically all of the men here were. I only saw one headstone that had an age of 35, the vast majority were men in their late teens early twenties.... it really brings home how many died who were involved in the liberation of Europe... it's a really sobering place to visit..

We then went back to Hermansville sur mer and then onto Ouistreham again until the sun went down and then back to our hotel...