Rouen Rest Day

Wonderful Midievel Rouen
Breakfast with Joan of Arc
King Richard
Museums

Bayeux To Rouen

Parting of the ways
Wind and Rain
Ride along the touristry seaside
A brief glimpse of Honfleur
Lucky Guess
On Time arrival in Rouen

St. Laurent To Bayeux

Uneventful ride
Midievel Bayeux
The Tapastry
Nice Meal + Festival

St. Laurent - Point Du Hoc and the American Cemetary

Emotional Visits
Point Du Hoc
The American Cemetary

Sainte-Mere Eglise To St. Laurent

Along the D-Day Beaches
Nice B&B
Omaha Beach

Coutances To Sainte-Mere Eglise

Should have stayed longer
Through the countryside
Memories of the WWII
Tourist Town

Avranches To Coutances

Our own route
easy riding
Handy Market
Hilly Coutances

Avranches To Le Mont Saint Michel and Back

Early Start with a nice downhill
Pretty scenery along the shore
Magnificent Mont Saint Michel
The ride back
Wonderful diner

Saint Quentin-en-Yvelines to Avranches

Train ride to Paris
Flat tire in Paris
Train ride to Villedieu les-Poeles
Wrong way out of the station
First McDonalds Stop in France.
Nice hotel and Calvados.

Saint Quentin-en-Yvelines Day 2

Saint Quentin-en-Yvelines Day 1

As the sun comes up the pilot starts talking about the approach to France. We soon catch site of some small islands off England and then we are over France and making our approach into Charles De Gaul airport. With all the time changes it is 7:45AM when we touch down. Let’s just say that being 6’1” spending 8 hours in economy class is not fun but finally arriving in France makes it all worthwhile. Once on the ground we gather our suitcases off the carousel but there is no sign of our bikes. After speaking with several people who spoke English only slightly better then we spoke French, we found our bikes safe and sound. Our biggest fear was to have the bikes lost or damaged but now we could relax and start enjoying ourselves.We headed up to the lobby to find a taxi. We had landed at Charles De Gaul which is north of Paris and had to make our way to St. Quentin-enYvelines which is south and west of Paris. We found a hatchback taxi and managed to squeeze in the two bike boxes, two suitcases and two carry on bags. It took about 50 minutes to make the drive through Paris rush hour traffic to our hotel in St. Quentin-enYvelines.St. Quentin-enYvelines is not a quaint French village but a small modern business center. A tourist would not normally choose to come here but it is the starting point of PBP and the hotel Campanille is one of the three hotels in town where most of the Americans stay for the event. We were booked for twi days now and for the week of PBP. They were going to store all of the luggage we didn’t need while we bicycle toured through Normandy for 10 days. The cab let us off in front of the hotel and we got checked in an hit the sack for a couple hours.We woke up around noon and were hungry. We decided to do our first reconnaissance of town. Across the plaza was a large mall called Carafour. It contained everything we would need for the next couple of day. We managed to order lunch at a small take out and sat outside to take stock of what we needed to do next.While we were eating we realized it was cool. The temperature was just over 70 degrees at noon in early August. We watched the flow of the local business people as we finished eating and then headed off to find the train station. We located it fairly quickly, got a schedule and took the long way back to the hotel. We note the location of the tourist office and get back to our hotel.My wife headed back up to our room for another nap and I pulle the bikes out of their cases and started re-assembling them. After a couple of hours I have two working bicycles and my wife is still sleeping.I head back to Carafour to forage for dinner. I fill my basket with wine, cheese, bread, fruit and pastry and head for the register. It must be quitting time because the lines are very long. I wait my turn and the cashier starts to ring me out. She picks up a bag of fruit says something I don't understand, shows me the fruit and says something else. She is very pleasant but I can tell she is thinking "Stupid American, can't even buy fruit". Obviously I have broken some protocol and using hand motions make it clear that I will pass on the fruit. When I get back to the room my wife looks at what I brought back and asks where the fruit is. I told her they wouldn't sell any to stupid Americans. We figured out later that in France you weigh and tag the fruit before you get to the register.We eat, check emails, call home using skype on our Nokia internet device and turn in for the night

Flight to Paris

It is 9:00AM EST and we were on our way to Bradley Airport to start our 3 week trip to France. We get to the airport and check our bags and bikes. We have a short wait untill we board and finally take off. This is a quick connecting flight to Philidelphia (yes from Bradley you fly west to Phili and France is east but all US Air flights to Europe hub out of Phili) . Now we have a long layover and we pass the time by going over details of our trip to assure ourselves we haven't forgotten anything. We finally board the airplane and take off at 6:10PM to start our 8 hour flight to Paris. The early part of the flight was fun, we made it over the East Coast while there was still day light. Many of the places we were familiar with from sailing were now visible from a different vantage point. The Connecticut River, the Thames river, shelter Island, Block Island, Naragansett Bay, Marthas Vineyard and Nantucket rushed by. Soon the sun was setting and for the next couple of hours we catch glimpses of light dotting the east coast and then finally darkness and fitful sleep for the next several hours.