This post actually marks a milestone of a kind - the very first post in this blog was about our anniversary in the Amalfi coast, and this post means that it has been a year for me in London. It has been a year on October 4 to be exact. Lots to reflect on, but that's another post all together :)
We strategically chose France for our anniversary as it offer the best of all worlds: proximity, food, great wine, sights and atmosphere. We also wanted to do something different from a typical city break, and landed on the idea of a road trip from Paris to and through Normandy with an overnight stay in a chateau. The trip turned out beyond lovely.
We kicked it off Friday night with a quick 2 hour Eurostar commute to Paris. I have to admit I love the fact that we live near King's Cross station. It literally took us 3 hours door to door from central London to central Paris. It still boggles my mind how we can go from one world capital to another so easily - one of the wonderful perks of living in London. It was a nice night in Paris consisting of dining in a classic French bistro and walking around L'Opera strolling past Moulin Rouge.
Day 2 was the official start of our 4 hour road trip through Normandy. I must say that I'm quite proud of us-the only time we ever got lost on this trip is when we had to find how to get to Hertz from inside the train station hehe. Having energized on pain au chocolat, pain suisse and croissant almond, we set off en route to Normandy where stop number 1 was the Caen Memorial - the biggest World War 2 museum in France. Normandy of course is the site of the battle of Normandy that lead to liberalization of France in World War 2, and the site of the infamous D Day beaches. Caen is the biggest city closest to the D Day sites, hence the location for the memorial. I must admit I was 50:50 about visiting D Day sites while on an anniversary trip, as Normandy has a variety of other attraction including Monet's gardens in Giverny, various sites of William the Conqueror such as castles and fortresses, and a myriad of medieval villages, however, visiting these sites was a very worthwhile experience. It is one thing reading about the World War 2, and it's another thing seeing the magnitude of the damage via displays and movies shown in the museum, and it truly makes you appreciate the peaceful living that we get to enjoy in Canada and the UK. The next site that we visited was Juno beach, where the Canadian troops landed for the battle of Normandy. It was quite impactful standing on this vast and bare beach, still littered with the remains of bunkers and barricades with a Canadian flag and a memorial to all the soldiers who lost their lives in the middle. The final D Day stop was the beach of Arromaches aka Gold beach that was used for landing by the British troops, which was quite spectacular in terms of the views if it wasn't for its somber history.
Our afternoon itinerary was more cheerful, and consisted of visiting Bayeux, an ancient Roman city that is now known for its beautiful Medieval look and feel and tapestries. This is where we took some time to have a late lunch of crepes and croque monsieur, buy some incredible and very cheap wine and champagne (i.e. going on a wine shopping spree bringing back 4 bottles and drinking 3), and checking out the cathedral. The next and final stop for the evening was our rest pit - a chateau in the middle of L'Isle Marie woods. I have to say that I loved driving through the French countryside (or loved being the passenger I should say, as Mark did all the driving except for the 2 hours that I did on our way back). You end up driving through dozens of small towns and medieval villages (each one of which is conveniently called out with signs depicting the major attraction), beautiful countryside pastures and forests.
Our chateau happened to fit perfectly in the local landscape. Tucked away a couple of hundreds of meters into the woods and connected to the main road with a beautiful alley driveway framed with ancient oak trees, the property consisted of 3 storey 1000 year old chateau, a bigger 30 room guest house, an ex chapel, a dining hall and a horse pasture. I thought it looked like something out of a fairy tale before I even walked in, but seeing it on the inside and hearing about its history has impressed me even more. The chateau itself is family owned and is around 1000 years old, dating back from the times of the vikings. It has survived viking wars, middle ages wars with Britain and World War 2. In fact, it was used by the Gestapo as headquarters with Hitler staying in the neighbourhood chateau, hence the 'ex' chapel as it was bombed by the Germans. The house itself looked like it belongs in the Versailles Palace, with furniture from the 1600's hundreds and family portrait from 1600's onwards decorating the walls. Speaking of Versailles, the destroyed chapel was actually designed by the Versailles architect who used the chateau as his family summer house. Being a big fan of history, I couldn't help but think that this place was the best place I've ever stayed in...not as luxurious as the W in Barcelona, but the history more than make up for it hehe. Our room was actually a suite completed with a 4 post bed, a fireplace, a divan and a reading chair by the window overlooking the woods. The bathroom was probably the size of my living room designed in the cutest French white and blue country style and overlooking the grounds in the back of the house. We spend the evening in the company of 4 couples who were the other guests, being entertained by the hostess of the chateau who described its history, fed us wine, and organized a private dinner in the dining hall. All in all, I felt a little bit like a princess for the night.
The next day we had our breakfast in a dining room that looked like it belonged in the Ritz hotel, at which point it was time to set off to our next destination - Mont Saint Michel. Mont Saint Michel is a small medieval town (population 41) and an abbey built on a rocky island situated in a very unique geographic position on the coast. The entrance to the island actually gets flooded every night with the tides and becomes clear every morning as the tides recede. The abbey was built in the 8th century and has been an important strategic fortification and a place of pilgrimage ever since. There are only 2 other similar structures in the world - one across the Channel on the English side in Cornwall, which is considered Mont Saint Michel's sister and is called Saint Michael Mount (how creative haha), and another one in Japan. This place is pretty cool as you have to drive through a whole bunch of 'in the middle of nowhere' to get to it.
The weather was not on our side and it was nothing but wind and rain when we got there. But, thanks to our travel jackets we were able to brave both and actually make it onto the island. It was just as cool on the inside as it was on the outside (minus all the tourists that cram up the place) - narrow winding staircases leading to the abbey lined by cafes and shops to keep all the tourists happy, the abbey itself with its many halls, a church where we watched a sermon, and a pretty impressive observation platform on the top floor where one can see the ocean and the swampy tidal area around the island. What was also cool (but messy) is that the wind was so strong, that it was redirecting the rain water flowing from the roof upwards, creating little geisers of water with every gust. We got lucky that day as the weather gods decided to get on our side and the sky got clear for about half an hour, allowing us to see te place in the sun and actually take some pictures.
It was then time to head back to Paris for our nice French dinner at Cendrillon in Paris (where Mark ended up having 'the best dessert ever'). The drive was eventful for me as I got to drive a car n Europe for the first time, and it was a manual car and I had to drive it on a French highway as well, so I was pretty proud of myself :) Eventful aspect number two is that we ended up driving on an empty tank through the city as we wanted to make the best use of our pre-paid tank of gas. The thought of being stuck in the middle of a main street in Paris surely gets the adrenaline pumping hehe.
This is what our anniversary trip looked like in pictures:
Mont Saint Michel in all its glory
Chateau driveway
...and at the end of the driveway
Breakfast setting
Dinner setting
My pretend reading chair
The chambre
Exploring the grounds
Aromanches beach
Juno beach
