July 11

We toured Versailles today. The gardens were windy and cold, but it's a magnificent palace. The king and queen both had waking and going to bed ceremonies which seems very invasive to me. We managed to lose two people from our group who never showed up at the bus - I guess we'll never know what happened to them. When we retuned to the hotel, we decided to take the entire afternoon off and try to recover a bit as we were due to meet up with our fellow cruise travelers at 645. It was killing me to rest on a beautiful sunny day in Paris, but I did nap for almost 2 hours. We had dinner at the famous. La Fouquet's on the Champs Élysées. We met a family from Hawaii and a grandmother from Dallas who is travelling with her 7 year old daughter. The little girl was bored out of her mind until Zach and Brett started teasing and playing with her. She finished dinner with a smile. We then did a nighttime tour of a few sites in Paris, then it was time for bed.

Yesterday we toured Paris with our guide, Rami, who told me I spoke the best French of any American he's met - yay! We saw Saint Chapelle with its beautiful stained glass and Invalides where Napoleon is buried in a red marble tomb. We then headed to the Latin quarter me saw the Pantheon where many famous French citizens are buried including the Curies, Rene Descartes, Alexandre Dumas, and Voltaire. Our walking tour took us to a medieval wall, by where Hemingway lived, by the church that Clovis was buried in, and we saw where parts of the movie midnight in Paris was filmed. We then headed to Montmartre where we climbed Sacre Coeur and walked the beautiful cobblestone streets passing by Picasso's first studio and Van Gogh's famous Moulin de la Galette. We watched the artists at work and had a great day. We then successfully tackled doing laundry in the laverie ate dinner and went to bed.

July 9

Yesterday we continued our Normandy tour visiting Utah beach and the town of St. Mere Eglise where paratrooper John Steele was entangled in the spire of the belltower of the church. He hung there for 2 hours and played dead because the town was full of German soldiers. He eventually had to move and was captured, but he escaped prison and survived the war. The church has stained glass windows depicting the brave paratroopers that liberated the town. We visited Bayeux cathedral and saw a wonderul exhibit depicting 2000 years of the history of Christianity. We headed out to the island of Mont St Michel. We walked thru the town and mounted the steps to the abbey only to find it closed - the workers are on strike. We had a lovely lunch and made our way back to Paris. We had some dinner and went to bed.

We took our time at the Caen memorial reading the informative descriptions about the world from the end of the First World War through the Second World War. The memorial spirals downward as the world descended into horror and atrocity. We were all moved and haunted by the exhibits, the stories, and the photos that must never occur again. We then visited Arromanches, Omaha Beach, and the American cemetery. The bravery of these young men who gave their lives for freedom will never be forgotten. We then went to Point du Hoc and the German bunkers. It was a moving, emotional day. We arrived at a magnificent bed and breakfast for a fabulous dinner and some much needed rest.

We arose early Sunday morning to leave London and take the Eurostar (Chunnel) train to Paris. All went very smoothly and going under the channel was actually a nonevent - we barely noticed ! We spent the afternoon lunching at a cafe enjoying snails and cheese. We walked the Champs Élysées and saw l'Arc de Triomphe. For dinner, we were to go to the Eiffel Tower, but first we walked around the gardens around le Louvre. The boys spent most of dinner trying to convince me to go up the tower, but the first floor was plenty high for me and I could see all the sights from there - no reason for me to go any higher thank you. We ended the evening with a boat tour of the Seine river seeing many of the highlights of Paris and waving to all the folks hanging out on the banks of the river.