Normandy and the Eiffel Tower

 Tuesday - 23 Sep

We broke into two groups for the day, the older 2 couples to Normandy and the younger 3 to make a “gastronomical tour” of Paris.

The drive from Paris to the Normandy coast was about 3 hours. We used the navigation in the car to make our way through the horrendous Paris morning traffic. It finally led us to what we thought was a really good museum but turned out to be a very minor one and the 5 euro entry fee was a rip-off. 

But we did get to the  right museum at Utah beach. We had lunch in the Le Roosevelt cafe and bought a book and some postcards in the gift shop.

The museum was fantastic. It had a good mixture of artifacts from both sides of the war along with vehicles and even a bomber. Theron and I toured quickly while Gayle and Cindy went on the guided tour, which took about an hour. I lost my patience with the whole experience and was grumpy for a while but eventually got over it.  

We visited the cliffs at Pointe du Hoc where Rangers lost over 50% of their group trying to scale the cliffs and take the bunkers, where ultimately they were successful. Then we went to Omaha beach but didn’t take in the museum there. So it was just a big, wide beach that we took a few photos of. We stopped at a store for a lite dinner and then tried to go to the American Cemetery but it was closed.

So we got on the road for Paris about 7  pm and the trip computer showed us arriving at 9:45 pm at the Eiffel Tower. But there was one problem, we would arrive with only 50 km left in fuel. We debated but ultimately felt like we had to get diesel. That put us down to 5 minutes before the hour. We tried any ways and arrived in time for everyone but me to go up the tower. I had to drive around and for a while and eventually picked them up a little after 11:00 pm.

The Paris traffic is quite difficult because they have stoplights on crosswalks as well as for the roads. So I didn’t know where to stop and when to go. It was quite taking. But we made our way back to the apartment only having run a few traffic lights. But it all came out well.  

Everyone that went up the Eiffel Tower had a really good time. They enjoyed the views from the second level but some express fear of heights. It’s a good thing we didn’t get tickets for the top floor.