Trips, Pics, and Tales

After our visit to Bayeux we were off to our next stop, lunch.  We went to a little village, Beuvron-en-Auge, which is known as "One of the most beautiful villages in France". It didn't disappoint! It was quaint, and so picturesque! We had lunch at a little B & B called Aux Trios Damoiselles. We all ate together at a nice farmhouse style table in what I believe used to be a horse stable.   And it's no surprise that cheese was our first course!   I love cheese, I love France!  I've never had such amazing cheese.  We had a bit of a lesson on the cheeses too. The French cheeses we can buy here in the US are not the same as the French cheeses in France.  In France they are not pasteurized, which means they can't be imported in the US.  These cheeses are just amazing.   This one is a bit blurry, but we of course couldn't have cheese without some crusty bread, and our first bit of Calvados for the day. ...

Today was the day that many of the passengers on board had been looking forward to.  Actually, it may have been the reason they had chosen this itinerary!  It was the day that they had the opportunity to visit the Landing Beaches of Normandy.  This entire region has so much history from the German occupation.  History that I thought I may have learned in school, but until you walk in those streets, and hear the stories about towns that were nearly totally destroyed, you realize that what I thought I knew didn't even scratch the surface of the war I touched upon.   There were full day excursions to the American Landing beaches and also the UK-Canadian Landing beaches.   However, there was also a different type of tour available today as well.  This was the tour that Carol and I, along with about 20 of the other passengers decided to take.  This tour was called the Taste of Normandy.  Today we would be dedicating our day to the culture, histo...

After another lovely lunch on board the ship, Carol and I got ready for our afternoon excursion to Honfleur.  This was one of the optional trips.  We definitely wanted to visit this coastal fishing town!  The weather was definitely not cooperating today though, so we knew this so called "picture perfect" delight may not quite be as picture perfect as its expectations!  But we grabbed the umbrellas and piled onto the bus and off we went!  Those who didn't choose this optional excursion could stay on board, or maybe walk into Caudebec and see the Cathedral.  But it was quite a gray and rainy day. We had a great group though and once we arrived in Honfleur we had a tour of the area and then some free time to wander through the cafés and specialty shops and just soak in all of the charm! During our tour, we learned about the town and some of the original buildings. All of the streets were just like this, narrow, winding and c...