Southampton

We are trying to keep a lid on it here. It is cruise ship city. Last night there were distinctive Foghorn Leghorn sounds and each time you looked out the window a different boat was passing, including Queen Mary II.  There was another noise at 5:00am and our boat was parking at the Quay. We are in the Grand Harbour Hotel which is one street back however the Holiday Inn has taken over an old dock building and it has the best view.  The old town is next door complete with city walls and medieval buildings and a 21st century shopping mall.

Only eight decks?

City Walls and Shopping Malls

WW II sites

For some reason I thought I could find a remote WWII site that would not have too many people around. Wrong!  The cemeteries are huge and attract similar crowds but we went out to the end of a narrow creeping one way road and found 100's of cars scattered everywhere looking at German gun emplacements. We had lunch on Omaha beach and moved on to the American cemetery at Normandy.  Maintenance here never stops, like the guy who was immaculately washing the grave crosses.

Guns at Longue-Sur-Mer

9386 American Graves at Normandie

Train Spotting

We got up at 5:45 to drive to Gare du Nord in time to catch the Chunnel train at  11:13.  The driving was getting keener the closer to Paris.  Toll booths increased in frequency as did the traffic but finding the rental car drop off in a small alley down an underground ramp was a navigation triumph. The trains and the taxies were straight forward and we gained some time when at Waterloo station we got an earlier train to Southampton.

The Waterloo game board

Bayeux

There is an historic record of the Battle of Hastings and a lot more besides woven into a 68 metre tea towel that was once used to cover wagons during the French revolution.  It's  nearly a 1000 yar old and still very colourful and well worth a look. The town is also very historic with many medieval homes.  William the conqueror is descended from Rolo of Viking fame, the first of the Normans and William uses much of his inherited viking tactics to beat Harold in 1066.

Bayeux canal

Tapestry

Mont St Michel

Classic View

This is one of those bucket list items.  I have always said that if Europeans were in Australia  in the 10th century there would be a cathedral on top of Ayers Rock. This is a church built where it shouldn't be because it was hard to do, like Montserrat in Spain.  We needed 5 hours to check this place out.  It was as efficient as you could possibly get. All tickets queue jumped via the internet, the back passage negotiated where there were no crowds, but it still took 5 hours.  This small island can swallow thousands of people in one day but it demands a look see, even if there are renovations happening.

Nuns and Columns

Detailed Cloister work

Monk running rat trap

E Bike Revolution

Debbie liked these Electric Bikes.  We hired E-Bikes for a day. They have a range of 100km of assisted riding. The assistance kicks in automatically and you can set three levels of oomph.  We rode about 30km with the bikes. We walked about 10km in order to find them first.  We found a market where we bought an antique air loom.  The riding took us all over town to ancient carved rock engravings and to Towerful buildings.  Too bad they close at lunch time. No phasements!

Towers and Trinkets

The Old Town

Spent our longest walking day yet.  The sun came out which was a bonus as well.  It is around two km to Fort National from our hotel. The tides have been favourable so we could walk across to it on the sand.  There are many forts built on all the small islands here.  St Malo is a fortified walled town where you can still walk all the walls.  We climbed most of the ramparts and had lunch by the water.  We have now ventured inside to our high bay window after two hours on the beach.

St Malo low tide

Trees in the sand