Normandy B&Bs and Irish Ferries

After leaving Mont Saint Michel, we returned to a British-run B&B well after midnight which was really too bad since we missed seeing our hosts on our last night there and we needed to get up early the next day to make our way to the Irish Ferry in Cherbourg....but I'm getting ahead of myself.

If you're in Normandy and you yearn for a conversation which is more complicated than, "With ice, please," you are well served to stay in a British run B&B.  We found a lovely B&B on a farm near Hambye through the Holiday Lettings website for $85 Euro/night and since it was conveniently located half way between the Normandy Beaches and Mont Saint Michel (a little over an hour in both directions) we were able to sleep in the same bed for three nights in a row.  It was also located only 1 1/2 hours due south of Cherbourg which was convenient since we booked passage on the Irish Ferries line from Cherbourg to County Wexford. 

You might think that the farm's location was the main attraction of a B&B like this, but it was really the conversation and the farm itself.  When we first arrived, the proprietors invited us inside for tea and we had such a good time talking--and the children had such a great time running around the farm--that we didn't ignore the children's pleas to visit Mont Saint Michel on a different day.

The kids quickly made friends with the farm's ponies, dogs, and turtles, and picked plums from the trees steps away from the door.  The girl also ran to the duck/chicken coup first thing in the morning, last thing at night, and nearly hourly in-between to find fresh eggs which tasted like butter when fried up.

One night, we stayed up until 1:00am chatting with a lovely family from Holland about WWII, European travel, and how Snooki is ruining America's image abroad.  Speaking of which, did you know that many Europeans think the Jersey Shore and Housewives depict the average American?  I swear it's true.  The Dutch family seemed sincerely surprised when we showed the smallest interest in their culture, history, and in putting together complete sentences.  They also thought most Americans were likely to pretend acquaintances were their best friends and end each conversation with the words  " I love you."  I would reiterate my "call to travel" to all Americans whose children are better behaved than mine, but I have great potential to sound tiresome quickly.

Let me just say that the American trophy wife who called the B&B to cancel her reservation because she discovered that the farm was too far from her husband's meeting in Paris AND that Normandy Beaches were NOT in fact in the northern suburbs of Paris didn't help the cause any.  Now, you may be thinking that this is a judgmental statement from the woman who didn't know (until college) that the National Mall was a grassy area with no stores, but I know well enough not to call Europeans and publicize my stupidity.  So, my real problem with the trophy wife isn't so much that she didn't know her geography, as much as she decided to share her discovery with non-Americans.  After all, would it have killed the woman to just pretend her trip was cancelled?

So, as you can see, we spent a lot of time explaining that phony, under-educated Americans were the exception and not the rule, and much of the night was spent explaining to the Dutch family that the lack of American tourists in rural Europe is in no way a sign of disinterest, but a product of short vacation times and a mobile populace.  After all, if you have 2 to 3 weeks of vacation a year and you live 1,000 miles from your extended family, much of your vacation time will be spent traveling to see that family at the expense of international travel.  I think we made some in-roads here, but someone has got to keep trophy wives away from international phone lines, and American reality TV away from the Europeans!

The Irish Ferry:
There are two ports in Northern France which run ferries to Ireland--Rosscoff and Cherbourg.  If you're visiting D-Day landing beaches, Cherbourg is your port which happened to be both the second to last scheduled stop by Titanic, and the tip of the peninsula isolated by the D-Day Allied troops.  The port was destroyed by the Germans before they gave it up, but it will be in good condition when you visit.

You have several choices for ferries from France to Ireland:  Celtic Link Ferries, Brittany Ferries, A Ferries, and Irish Ferries.  Each have a different schedule and cost, but we chose Irish Ferries because they traveled during the night, the sail days fit our schedule best, and we wanted to support the Irish economy.  However, if you expect Irish citizens to greet you once aboard the ship, you will be disappointed.  If you think they must be French then, you're wrong again.  The truth is that Irish Ferries employs--by and large--Eastern Europeans which in theory is not a problem, but if you expect to be embraced by Irish warmth and witticism, you'll need to wait until the ferry docks in Rosslare.  On the positive side, the staff cleans up the product of sea sickness with efficiency and little or no emotion.

Now, the ferry is no bargain.  We paid about 900 Euro for the car, two adults, two children and a four bed stateroom with a private bathroom.  This is roughly double the cost of flying RyanAir from a suburb of Paris to Dublin even after you add all of RyanAir's fees, but if you add the cost of airport parking, renting a car in Ireland, and a hotel room for two nights (the ferry is underway one night there, and one night back), you may decide that 200 additional Euros for the experience of sailing the English Channel and Irish Sea is a good deal.  This, of course, assumes the seas are calm and you do not suffer from sea sickness--which was the case for us in only one direction.

Gross aside:  There are two things you don't want to forget when you visit Europe--a Phillips head screw driver (I'll explore this in future posts.  It has nothing to do with this one) and Dramamine (this drug has everything to do with this post!)  If you think you can buy Dramamine onboard an Irish Ferry, think again.  Our ferry only sold sea sickness wrist bands which we purchased for everyone except my husband (who is maddeningly immune from sea sickness--doing nothing to further my claim of genetic superiority),  however, the wrist bands were no match for a ferry diving through gale-force-wind-fueled seas.  If you've never been aboard a ship that comes to a dead stop when confronted by a wave that explodes off the bow and sprays the windows up to the eighth deck, completely obscuring the horizon, riding an Irish Ferry--whose captain is a madman (and surprisingly Irish)--is your chance.   However, you can only stay in the common areas of the eighth deck for about an hour before the smell and sight of sea sickness brings forward a bout of your own, causing you to abandon your work via Wifi and use your personal shower for a purpose for which it was never intended.  As a further aside, if you think your husband can't hear you in the bathroom, you're wrong.  He won't comment on the inhuman sounds you make, nor the unexpected use of the shower, but your son will as soon as you come out.

Speaking of coming out, I can't post this without mentioning once again the inappropriate humor of my son.  See, the name of our ferry was "The Oscar Wilde" and a few years ago we saw an Irish Candid Camera-type comedian tell tourists in front of the Oscar Wilde monument in Dublin that he had to warn them that Oscar Wilde was gay.  The tourists were predictably annoyed that this was an issue, but ever since then, we can't mention the name "Oscar Wilde" without saying, "I have to warn you that Oscar Wilde was gay."  So, my son was enormously amused when we booked aboard the Oscar Wilde which happens to have a public area named the Gaiety Lounge (he snapped the picture below).  He also snapped the picture of the menu from the Gaiety Lounge which is blurry (also below), but legible.  Before you ask, yes, we know we have failed as parents.

© 2012 Nicole Wirth
Author of:  Letters to Salthill 

Mont Saint Michel - Tides, Drunks & General Custer

If you're planning to visit France's most popular tourist site during the summer, there are a few things you should know:

First, you need to have a backup plan when the line to the new parking lot (which is about a mile away from the island's land bridge) extends down the highway at least two miles.

Second, if your backup plan takes you to the lovely Brittany towns nearby, then back to Mont San Michel just before sunset, you should know that that is just about the time the tide comes in "like a galloping horse", flooding the mud flats and the entrance you raced through just before the water.  Now, you can say the tide will recede from the stone arched entrance before it's time to go, but we stayed until 11pm and the tide was still lapping through the main entrance like a thirsty dog.

The word "main" above is telling and you should assume there is at least one backup exit, so don't let the piles of garbage dissuade you from exploring service alleys which may lead to a door which may lead to the land bridge back to the parking lot.  Also, just because a drunk was escorted to the flooded entrance by security (in the form of a well-dressed elderly man) five minutes after he fell out of a restaurant doorway into a menu board which crashed in front of you and your children, doesn't mean security expected him to use this exit.

As you stare at the flooded exit--dark water surging toward you like a scene from Titanic--the same drunk may brush against you, drooling, "I know another way out" --which doesn't sound any classier in drunken tones of French.  Even though the man's nose is still bloody from the fall and his eye is winking at you like he thinks you're still available, doesn't mean he doesn't know what he's talking about.  However, be prepared for your husband to declare that everyone will follow him through the exit and into the water as soon as sees the drunk invading your personal space.  The fact that your husband can't swim, nor that he can't possibly know how deep the water is beyond the archway will fall on deaf ears because he knows all about General Custer and he will say so.

Now, if you're wondering what General Custer has to do with a family stranded with a friendly drunk on the wrong side of a flooded entrance to a medieval French city, so did we.  Apparently, General Custer--annoyed by lengthy deliberations by his fellow soldiers during the Civil War regarding the depth of the river in front of them--rode into the middle of the stream and declared, "It's about this deep." 

So, here we were, the only four people in a crowd of over a dozen who were silly enough to roll up our pants and wade through shin deep water in search of the flooded boardwalk connecting the main entrance to the land bridge.  As an aside, I discovered that jumping through water makes one 50% less dry than just walking normally. 

I have to admit the drunk man looked sad as we left him on the lit side of the wall, but as luck would have it, we saw him less than 10 minutes later when he emerged from the service entrance door leading directly to the land bridge--shoes and pant legs dry and himself smelling like alcohol instead of the dead fish smell coming from our shoes and socks. 

I won't go into the sound of the eight squishy sneakers running for the parking lot shuttle bus which was farther away than its red lights appeared.  I also won't go into how dark or windy the land bridge was, nor how the cold eventually worked its way from the wet to the dry area of our jeans as we waited for the next shuttle bus. The beauty of the city distracted us every few minutes from the discomfort and the kids' new nickname for their father--Custer--caused new waves of laughter each time it was mentioned.  Additionally, the darkness of the causeway allowed the boy to test the importance of peeing downwind and our shuttle doors closed just before the drunk made his way on board.  So, all in all, luck was on our side. 

Before you think I've given short shrift to France's most spectacular medieval city, look at the below pictures.  They should really do the talking.

(Below): The pre-flooded boardwalk to the main entrace.

(Below): The streets of Le Mont San Michel

 (Below): Joan of Arc in Le Mont San Michel

(Below): The tide coming in.

(Above and Below): The tide racing in.

© 2012 Nicole Wirth
Author of:  Letters to Salthill 

Normandy, Part II - The Beaches

D-Day (6 June 1944 - 0630 [aka H-Hour]):

The Germans knew an Allied invasion was coming, but they were out-flanked, out-witted and in some cases out of luck on D-Day.

Fake invasion plans washed-up on an Allied corpse in France. General Patton gave a glorious and well-publicized speech in Dover surrounded by his "Ghost Army" (aka First US Army Group [FUSAG]), fueling German suspicions that Patton would lead the invasion, and that invasion would begin in Calais.

Rough weather on the English Channel convinced the Germans that--wherever it began--an invasion wasn't imminent. So General Rommel went home to Germany for his wife's 50th birthday, coincidentally on D-Day itself.

German troops weren't trained to engage the Panzer units without the authority of either their General or their Führer--the latter took a sleeping pill the night before and couldn't be disturbed.  

In preparation for the invasion, the French Resistance gave the Allies German troop levels, ammunition dumps, fortifications, and the location of German guns. They also pulled down phone lines, blew up train tracks and were otherwise annoying to the Germans both before and during the invasion.

At 0630 on June 6th, 1944 it all came together in the largest amphibious assault the world has ever known. French Commandos invaded Juno Beach with the Canadians. The British and Australians invaded Gold and Sword Beaches, and the Americans took Utah and Omaha beachheads.



The kids say I've been obsessed with D-Day since we visited the Normandy and that may be true, but in truth, I was half-way there before we arrived, and I'm pretty sure any person would be obsessed with Operation Overlord (wickedly cool name) after visiting the beaches where the land invasion began. 

Although some beaches now host resorts, swimmers, and sail-driven beach craft, there are still landing areas that look no different now than they did the day after D-Day.  Pointe du Hoc is one of those places.

Pointe du Hoc:

Pointe du Hoc is the highest point between Omaha and Utah Beaches, and was the focus of a US Ranger operation early on D-Day in order to both deprive the Germans of this vantage point, and destroy six German guns capable of firing upon invading Allied troops. 

Pointe du Hoc is still littered with craters from Allied bombs which carpeted the area hours before the Rangers landed on the beach; scaled the side of a 90 foot cliff; and threw incendiary grenades into the pill box machine gun nests at the top.  There are still burn marks on the pill box ceilings and the area is considered a cemetery since remains are assumed to be present in the craters. 

This sounds pretty gross, but it didn't keep the kids from running up and down the craters yelling, "Yay!" or running from opposite sides, and colliding at the bottom.  When we corrected them--albeit halfheartedly since other people's kids were similarly disrespectful and no one seemed to care--the boy reminded us that if there were human remains at the bottom of the craters, they were from the wrong side of the war, so there was really no reason to show restraint.  I'm not saying we necessarily agreed with the boy, but just let me say it was hard to be indignant on a German soldiers' behalf after seeing Mauthausen. So, we forgot our humanity and gave the kids free reign to run and explore Pointe du Hoc craters, bunkers, and pill boxes, and, sadly, they had a marvelous time.   

Half of the Rangers' mission was to disable six large guns on Pointe du Hoc, and you can almost hear them cursing when they found the gun mounts empty.  In fact, I believe I cursed even though we never expected to find the guns (we read ahead).  Now, before you blame the French Resistance for not telling the Rangers the guns were gone, you should know that they did tell us, but the message never made it to the Rangers. It should also be noted that the French made the invasion of Pointe du Hoc possible by providing needed reconnaissance (I wonder how you say that word in French...) using the measurements and observations of a blind man (a piano tuner, in fact) who walked around the fortification freely since the Germans didn't find him threatening.  (I promise I'm not making this stuff up.)  We also need to thank the London Fire Brigade for lending us some ladders to get up the cliff (also a true story).

Most of all, we need to thank the 200 elite US Rangers (2nd Ranger Battalion) as well as their leader, Colonel Rudder, and the British Commandos who trained the Rangers because unlike the German forces, the Rangers were trained to act with minimal direction, modify their strategy as circumstances changed, and complete the mission even if the reality looked nothing like the plan. And the reality of Pointe du Hoc looked nothing like the plan or the map, and this is not a slight against the blind man. 

Now, I've never run onto a beach while someone shot at me. I've also never climbed up a cliff while bullets rained down on my head, knowing I had 30 minutes to make it to the top before the tide drowned me, but I know enough to know it wouldn't be the job for me. I also know that once making it to the top of the cliff and disabling a gun nest or two, I'd call it a day instead of following tire tracks a half-mile inland to find the guns missing from their mounts. Now, if I did find the guns, I'd go back to the beach once I noticed their proximity (100 yards) to German troops of overwhelming numbers. To be sure, I don't see myself sneaking up to those guns and using incendiary (aka thermite) grenades to fuse the traversing mechanisms the way First Sergeant Leonard Lommell did. I agree that this was the right thing to do. I just don't see myself doing it. Now, before you call me a coward (which I am) you should know the Rangers were running out of ammunition. (And did I mention the cliff and the gun nests?!)  I'm also going to throw my daughter under the bus and tell you that she has PTSD from the tent blowing over in Switzerland. So bravery clearly does not run in our family (no offense to my big brother who may be reading this.  He's much braver than we.  Much, much braver. [Hopefully, this will save me from a serious noogie at Christmas time]). 

So, although "Operation Overlord" is probably the coolest name ever given a military endeavor and the title "Supreme Allied Commander" is at least as cool as "Holy Roman Emperor" (whisper:  it's actually cooler but I don't want to get yelled at by the Medieval Lobby), I deserve association with neither.  I'm not fishing for compliments here.  It's something I've come to accept and freely admit.  In any event, they stopped giving out titles like "Holy Roman Emperor" a long time before I was born.  So, maybe one can't really reach one's full courageous potential until these titles are dangled like a carrot in front of one's nose, but I doubt it.  This sort of bravery comes naturally and the US Rangers just had it.

The point of Pointe du Hoc 

The monument to the Rangers at the top of the point.

 The German pill box at the top of the point.

Looking down the beach from the pill box.  The Rangers would have climbed over the nearest ledge.

Craters around a gun emplacement at Pointe du Hoc.  The girl counted 67 craters before she became tired.  We also found that one would need to stand in a 6" x10' area in some places to avoid getting hit by the bombs that fell before the invasion, not to mention the shrapnel.  So, the Germans who survived the bombardment outside the bunkers were either very lucky, or very skinny.

A nearly busted bunker

An empty gun emplacement.

View from inside the gun emplacement

I promise I won't go into this much detail for Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword Beaches.  First, because you probably know more about them than I do, and, second, because--with the exception of the anti-ship debris in the water of Omaha Beach (see below picture)--the state of the beaches doesn't evoke scenes of battle as clearly as Pointe du Hoc or as clearly as the Hollywood movies you've already seen.  In fact, The Longest Day (a term coined by General Rommel) is a lot closer to reality than you expect from a John Wayne movie (No offense to John Wayne, but the movie where he pretends to be an American Indian [braids and all] is madness!).

What I will say is that it's hard to imagine sailing from the US to England two years before the invasion on a flimsy ship which was quickly riveted together (my grandfather's words) with the knowledge that a U-boat attack would sink the ship quicker than your drills showed you could make it above decks (also my grandfather's words).  Add sea-sickness.  Add not enough shelter in England for two million US troops, so you're bunking with the locals (this part actually sounds alright).  Add fighting with the British troops at local dance halls because they say you're "Over sexed, overpaid, and over here," and you counter that they're "Under sexed, underpaid, and under Eisenhower" (actually, that sounds kind of fun too).  Add numerous drills where real people die (see below monument to 946 men lost during a mock invasion the April before D-Day [many drown after falling off of Jacob's Ladders wearing heavy equipment]).  Add waiting in staging camps for days before being briefed on Operation Overlord and on intelligence provided by the French Resistance and aerial reconnaissance flights.  Add embarking from England in high seas.  Add decks filled with the sick and the product of their sickness.  Add fears of U-boat attacks on the English Channel. Add non-sick troops on deck marveling at the number of Allied bombers above them and Allied Bombers marveling at the number of ships below.  Add transferring to Higgins Boats in high seas and the threat of falling overboard.  Add more sea sickness.  Add landing on a beach a kilometer away from the spot you're meant to land.  Add men in heavy equipment drowning when dropped too far from the beach.  Add barbed wire, 88mm German guns, land mines, and trenches.  Add anti-tank defenses, fixed fortifications, and general confusion.  Add limited communication with the ships and, therefore, no hope of relief via ship fire power.  Add waves of men running into previous waves pinned-down on the beach by "walls of lead" in front of them.  And I believe you have a rough outline of what the invading Allied troops experienced on and before D-Day.

There were 200 deaths at Utah Beach (the beach where Teddy Roosevelt's son landed); 340 were lost at Juno; 1,000 lost on Sword; 1,000 lost on Gold; and 2,000 lost on Omaha Beach.

(Above and Below):  Utah Beach

(Above and Below):  Monuments at Utah Beach

1st Engineer Special Brigade Monument at Utah Beach

Memorial within a German bunker at Utah Beach.  Picture of General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr on the right.  He landed with the troops on D-Day carrying only a cane and purportedly stating, "Let's start the war from here."  He died of a heart attack about a month after the landing, and he is buried at the American Cemetery at Omaha Beach. 

A Sherman Tank pointing inland from Utah Beach

(Above and Below):  The American Cemetery at Omaha Beach

(Above and Below):  The British Cemetery at Bayeux.

The British Cemetery at Bayeux.

Memorial park near the British Cemetery at Bayeux.

If you visit Normandy and you're frustrated by the missing weaponry at Pointe du Hoc, there is one place where you can see what German guns looked like on D-Day.  This place is Longues-sur-Mer.

A perfectly preserved gun at Longues-sur-Mer.

A not-so-lucky gun at Longues-sur-Mer.

Eisenhower prepared his resignation before D-Day in case the invasion proved a failure. Visiting Normandy beaches reminds one that because of the efforts of our grandparents and the grandparents of our allies, that letter of resignation was never deemed necessary.  

© 2012 Nicole Wirth
Author of:  Letters to Salthill