Nathan Dancing

Not much to say about this post. We woke up this morning and Nathan felt like dancing. Thought you all would enjoy...

Sometimes you just have to stop and smell the roses

I thought that everyone might enjoy this clip. Isn't he so adorable!

Rouen!

Suffice it to say, Rouen was the best trip that almost never happened. We drive to Rouen to check into our second hotel after leaving the beaches of Normandy. As we arrived in Rouen, without the aid of modern navigation or a decent map of the city, we had quite a difficult time finding the city center and our hotel. Once we were in the greater Rouen area we lost all sense of direction with its winding roads. We had absolutely no idea where we were.


Being the patient soul that I am, I became frustrated very quickly because I had no idea where I was, what direction to go, and none of the streets had street signs, so even if I had a map I would be completely incapable of locating myself on it. So, I did what ever guy dreads to do... I stopped at a convenience store in the middle of a strange city in France and asked for help. It turns out that we were not so far off. The Hotel was located just about a 1/4 of a mile away. So I got back in the car with my bearings straight and headed toward the hotel. Now it is about 8:00 at night and the sun is at just the right angle that I am doing well enough to see the road in front of me with the glare from my windshield. That 1/4 of a mile ended up taking another 45 minutes to navigate after missed turn upon missed turn.



This is why Rouen was the best trip that almost never happened. At this point, my BP is through the roof and I am 2 seconds from getting back on the highway and heading to the one place I know how to get to... HOME! Instead, Stephanie does her best to calm me down and we find the street that we were looking for. It turns out that our hotel is actually very conveniently located if I just knew where I was going, or if I had a GPS.

After the experience at the hotel the night before, my expectations were not very high for this place. After checking in, the receptionist instructed us that we have to go back outside and down the road to the 1st door past the restaurant. I am thinking... here we go again. When we get up to our room I am pleasantly surprised. The room is quite nice, very clean, and one heck of a bargain for 80 bucks a night. Plus the view from our window was spectacular (see the bottom right photo of the cathedral lit up at night). We even got to enjoy a little music from the restaurant below. A little band was playing great musical selections like the Macarena until all hours of the night... seriously.



I had never really heard of Rouen until Stephanie brought it up a week before our trip. It turns out that it has quite some history. Rouen is the capital city of the Normandy region. In the late 1300's the city was hit hard by the bubonic plague and the majority of its inhabitants were wiped out. The city has an incredible number of cathedrals all within a short walking distance of one another. I am not talking small churches either, but rather huge cathedrals. Here are a few pictures of the ones we visited:



































In addition to the impressive cathedrals, Rouen is very well known for its well preserved half-timbered buildings. It is quite impressive to look at these buildings that have endured some 6-700 years. You can tell the years are really beginning to wear on them though because some of the main support beams are starting to bow. The atmosphere with these buildings, the cobbled stone roads, and the lack of automobiles in the city center really makes you feel like you are walking down the streets in the 1400's.

As we continued on our walking tour, one of the points of interest was a courtyard of what is now an art school. The courtyard was used in the 1300's to pile bodies that had died from the plague. To really give the courtyard an erie feeling, the townspeople had carved signs of death in the wooden beams. It kind of felt like the scene of a horror movie.

To end our walking tour we went to the location that Rouen is most well know for - the site at which Joan of Arc was tied to a stake and burned alive for heresy. In the 1400's Joan of Arc led the French to several victories during the Hundred Years War. Her actions during this time led to the coronation of King Charles the 7th. However, some Duke in France had already claimed the thrown, so to undermine the legitimacy of King Charles' rule, he denounced Joan of Arc as a heretic and had her burned at the stake. Today there is a memorial at the site where she was burned and a church has been built in her name.

Continued from below (Read that post first)

... I just realized that the timing of this post is perfect because today, June 6th, is the 65th anniversary of the landings at Normandy.

To continue from below, after leaving Bayeux we headed up to Utah Beach. It is difficult to explain the feeling that you have when you arrive at this location and you are walking on ground that has so much historical significance. The beaches today are quite beautiful and serene. Today Utah beach is essentially a quiet beach front that reminds me a lot of an East Coast beach in the US. Below is a picture of the entrance to the beach. The only building in the area is a museum that has some left over War memorabilia and a memorial to the troops that landed there (also pictured below)

After leaving Utah beach, we drove about 10 miles or so to a section of the coast line that is ideally situated between Utah beach and Omaha Beach. The location is called Ponte du Hoc. It was here that that Germans had built a number of fortifications and placed huge cannons that could reach both Utah and Omaha beaches. Both Stephanie and I really found this site interesting because it has been very well preserved since the war. The land is filled with craters from the bombings and many of the German installations are still in tact. Below is a picture of Stephanie standing in one of the craters and a picture of one of the fortifications. This particular location was not very well protected by the Nazis during the invasion becasue it is situated on a rocky cliffs and they thought that there was no way the Allied forces would attempt to scale the cliffs. In fact, a small group of 90 Army Rangers did just that and were able to take control.

Continuing on our tour of Normandy, we left Ponte du Hoc and arrived at Omaha Beach. Today, Omaha Beach is a residential area. The day we went it was a little chilly with a breeze, but the water was still quite warm, so Nathan got to experience his first steps in the ocean. We spent the time just walking up and down the beach and letting Nathan play in the water. From the ocean looking inland it is easy to imagine the obstacles that the troops must have had when they landed. The beach itself is probably about the depth of 2 football fields and the advantage that the Nazis had on top of the hills explains why more than 500 troops were killed in the first 5 minutes of the invasion.

Our last stop on the beaches of Normandy was the American Memorial Cemetary. The cemetary is situated on a cliff on the edge of Omaha beach. Here it really hits you the price that was paid to liberate Europe from the Nazis. Stepping onto the grounds you immediately see rows and rows of crosses each a burial ground for the men and women that gave their lives. It was of course a very somber moment. It was cut short though because at this point, Nathan had pretty much had all of the sight seeing that he could handle and began to lose it. We decided to let all of the people pay their respects in quite, so we packed it up and headed to the next hotel.

Up next.... Rouen!

Beaches of Normandy

Things around the Baylor household have been pretty busy lately with Sean working crazy hours and Stephanie keeping up with Nathan, so we apologize for not keeping our blog updated. 2 weekends ago Sean had an extended weekend so we decided to take a nice roadtrip to Northern France and the Beaches of Normandy! It turned out to be a little longer of a drive than we expected but a great experience nonetheless. We decided to make a couple of stops along the way becasue Nathan usually starts to lose it around the 3 hour mark in the car. So we stopped in a town called Reims just across the German boarder. There was not much to see in this town, but they had a beautiful cathedral where we learned that all of the Kings of France were crowned after the 1800s. Like most of the towns and cathedrials in France, this one was mostly destroyed in WWII. They rebuilt the church, but all of the stained glass was lost.

We only stayed in Reims long enough to see the church and stretch our legs, then it was time to get back in the car and make the long haul to Caen where we would stay for the night. On our way, we ended up taking a wrong exit and without a GPS system had to use a map to fugure out how to make it the rest of the way using back roads. Somehow, after spending an extra hour or two winding through small French towns and back roads we made it to Caen. I should mention at this point that Stephanie planned the entire trip including booking the hotels and she did so the cost effective way. However, once we arrived to our hotel in Caen we quickly realized why it was only 48 Euro a night. Even by Motel 6 standards, this hotel was quite a sight. However, after driving all day we welcomed the bed - however, neither of us could build up enough courage to use the shower.

The next day we awoke after only a decent night's sleep and headed out for Bayeux, France a little town that is minutes from all of the beaches. Bayeux, like just about every other French town had a beautiful Cathedral at its center. The town itself if absolutely beautiful. The buildings in the entire area do not look like they have changed since the war. They are all made of grey stone and as you are walking around you really feel as though you are taken back in history. Below are some pictures of the city and the church in Bayeux.

I think I hit a limit for this post....