Meet Me Under The Arrivals Board

After almost nine months abroad, I'm back in the States! Although I just got home a week and a half ago, my trip already feels like a faraway dream. Everything here feels so familiar (except for the new development at Dunn Loring metro?!) that it's almost as though I never left. I'm so glad that I kept this blog ‒ rereading my posts is like a pinch reminding me that it all actually happened!

The last two months were a blur of travel, our engagement, exams, more travel, and the move, so I have a lot to catch up on, starting with the rest of my spring break in mid-April! After a wonderful trip to the Cote d'Azur and the Verdon Gorges, I spent a whirlwind week traveling in Normandy and the Loire Valley with the lovely Barbara Finkel! It was a tight turnaround: I said goodbye to Becky at an ungodly hour Sunday morning as she left for the airport and then caught the earliest train to Paris that same day to meet my mother.

Mom had already savored her first croissant and cafe au lait by the time we met under the giant Arrivals/Departures Board at Gare du Nord, so we hit the ground running! Stashing our luggage at the consign in the station, we took advantage of a blue, sunny sky in Paris to walk around a bit before heading to Normandy. We strolled from the train down to the Seine, past Notre Dame and the Louvre, stopped in the Shakespeare & Co. Book Store to purchase a guidebook for our trip, cheered for the participants doing the Color Run, walked over the famous love locks bridge over the Seine (just before the locks were removed!), and basked in the sun in the Tuileries Gardens. Not bad for a couple of hours in Paris!

Ready to hit the road, we picked up our bags from Gare du Nord and schlepped across to Gare Saint Lazare (word to the wise: Gare Sainte Lazare does not have luggage storage!) to catch a train to Normandy. Since the ticket prices from Paris to Bayeux are standard and don't go up as the date of travel gets closer, we'd decided not to buy the tickets in advance to give ourselves the flexibility to stay in Paris for a few hours if the weather was nice. We hadn't taken into account, though, the possibility that all of the second class train tickets would sell out! We ended up having to buy first class tickets so we wouldn't derail our itinerary. It was more than we had expected to spend, but once we found two seats on the train, our travel-wearied bodies were totally content to sit on the seriously plush seats in first class all the way to Bayeux!

It was windy and cold when we stepped off the train that evening. It was so chilly, in fact, that the first thing we did after checking into our hotel was buy Mom a hat! Bundled up in coats and hats, we walked around historic Bayeux a little bit before grabbing dinner at the hotel restaurant and promptly crashing for the night.

Boulangerie window in Bayeux

 

We woke up bright and early the next morning to give ourselves time to eat breakfast before heading out on our tour of the DDay beaches. Climbing into a minibus along with our guide, Yannick, two couples from Georgia, and a couple from Denver, we spent our first day in Normandy visiting the most important sites, from the American perspective, during the Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6th, 1944. We stopped in several places in the morning, including the Longues-sur-Mer Battery, Omaha Beach, the American Cemetery of Colleville, and Pointe du Hoc.

Longues-sur-Mer Battery, which was part of the German anti-invasion fortification along the Atlantic coast

 

Omaha Beach

German bunker on Omaha Beach

The American Cemetery

  

Map of the DDay Landing Beaches

Omaha Beach Stop #2 at Vierville-sur-Mer

 

Omaha Beach seawall

Pointe du Hoc ‒ The US Army Ranger Assault Group captured this outpost on DDay after scaling the cliffs

Pointe du Hoc

The view from the tip of Pointe du Hoc

After a full morning, we took a break for lunch at a small cafe in Sainte-Mère-Eglise (Mom is still raving about "the best omelette of [her] life!") and then picked back up with the town's WWII museum and church, La Fière, Utah Beach, and Angoville au Plain.

The Airborne Museum (to the left of the flags) in Saint-Mère-Eglise was very interesting!

The Sainte-Mère-Eglise Church has a memorial to a paratrooper named John Steele whose parachute got stuck on the spire of the church and was captured by the Germans. He was later able to escape and continued fighting during the war.

The stained glass windows in the Sainte-Mère-Eglise church honor the American troops who fought to liberate the town, the first one liberated in France during the war.

La Fière was one of two critical bridges providing inland access.

Utah Beach memorial

Utah Beach

Stained glass window at a 12th century church in Angoville au Plain that honor two American medics, Bob Wright and Kenneth Moore, who cared for 80 wounded American and German soldiers for four days after the invasion began.

Saying goodbye to Yannick, our excellent guide with Overlord Tours

It was a long but moving day. My grandfather was part of the first wave of soldiers to land on Omaha Beach on DDay (his story from the war is incredible ‒ he received a Purple Heart for his wounds and his bravery), so the tour was particularly meaningful for us. I'm really glad we did a guided visit of the area rather than trying to see it on our own because we came away with a much deeper understanding of and appreciation for his experience.

The Grand Canyon of France

My poor blog is so neglected. I'll catch up on it soon, though! I'm in Spain with my sister and her boyfriend until Saturday (That is, assuming the Spanish air traffic controllers' strike doesn't affect my travel plans. Keep your fingers crossed for me, please!), and then I fly to DC on MONDAY! I can't believe it's already been nearly nine months!

But going back to mid-April...When we were researching for our trip, Becky and I had fallen in love with the idea of hiking and kayaking in the Verdon Gorges, a rugged part of Provence famous for dramatic cliffs plunging down into a surreal, aquamarine-colored river. It was a little tricky figuring out how to get there without a car, but we finally found a bus that would take us from Nice to Castellane, one of the two gateway towns to the natural park!

Arriving in Castellane!

Such a pretty town!

We arrived in Castellane in the early evening, and, after dropping off our bags in our room at the adorable Nouveau Hotel du Commerce, we walked over to the Tourist Office for assistance in planning our day in the Verdon Gorges. It turned out that it was too early in the year to kayak since the nearby dam hadn't been released yet, but we decided to tackle the 14km Sentier Martel trail! The woman who helped us was wonderful: she made sure we had maps, contact information for a cab to get us to and from the hike, (there are shuttles in the summer, but it was too early in the season when we were there), and even a poster with the different birds we were likely to spot along the way!

Set for the hike the next day, we spent the rest of the evening enjoying Castellane. We relaxed in the comfortable lounge chairs on the hotel patio, went for a short walk up a path nearby to catch a sunset view over the mountains, and split a delicious pizza at the charming "La Main à la Pate."

On Thursday morning, we woke up early to give ourselves plenty of time to eat breakfast at the hotel before our cab came to pick us up at 8:30am. This place took continental breakfast to a whole new level! Homemade jams, juices, breads, yogurts, compotes, eggs (to order!), meat -- everything was delicious. We camel-ed up at breakfast, stopped to pick up some extra water and snacks at the little store across the street, and then left for the canyons. About 30 minutes later, we hopped out of our cab and were on our way!

Starting the hike!

 

 

That water was COLD!

The Brèche Imbert Staircase has 252 steps in 6 successive sets of stairs. Glad we were going down!

 

 

Entering the Baou Tunnel, with its 650m of pitch blackness. Hooray for iPhone flashflights!

It took us about 7 hours to complete the whole thing, and overall it was awesome! Great views, the rain held off, and it was very challenging without being too difficult. The only downside was that Becky banged up her shin pretty badly on the trail. Although she was able to finish, her leg was hurting a lot by the end. After putting some ice on it at the hotel, we ended up going to get it checked out to make sure it was just a bruise and nothing more serious.

Getting directions from the hotel, we walked to the clinic/hospital, where the doctor on call came back in to work to take a look. Thankfully, she assured us that nothing was fractured and gave Becky a prescription to fill the next morning before we left for Lyon. While we were there, however, in an episode reminiscent of my first day of my anatomy internship at an orthopedist's office back in senior year of high school, I actually came very close to passing out. (Apparently the sight of swollen, bruised legs makes me faint? And apparently, sugar cubes are the cure? The doctor gave me two of them and I was fine and on my way.)

It was pretty late by the time we left the clinic, but luckily we found a little restaurant that was still open. We had some delicious ratatouille crepes while talking to the man who owned the shop. From there we pretty much crashed into bed, exhausted but exhilarated from the day.

While the French have a reputation for being snooty, Castellane was a town full of the warmest, kindest, and most helpful people I've ever met. Everyone we came across, from the staff at our hotel, to the waiters at the restaurants we ate in, to the taxi drivers who picked us up and dropped us off from our hike, to the staff at the tourist office, and even to the doctor at the clinic, was so nice. Staying in Castellane was like getting a big comforting hug from a good friend.

Needless to say, we were pretty sad to leave Castellane the next morning. And not just because we wanted to stay and try "aqua-randoing." But Lyon was waiting. Slogging through the harrowing, winding bus ride to Grenoble, a covoiturage from Grenoble to Lyon, and a poorly timed cloudburst when we got off the tram, we finally made it back to my apartment. We had been invited to Shabbat dinner with a family in Lyon, so we didn't have long to get organized before heading back out. Racing the clock before Shabbat came in, we went food shopping, prepped some lunch for Saturday, and made ourselves look presentable for dinner. After the initial rush, though, we enjoyed a slow weekend. Dinner Friday night was lovely, and we spent Saturday strolling through Vieux Lyon and relaxing in the Parc de la Tete D'Or.

Dinner at my place with Becky, Leila, and Maria Daniella that Saturday night was the perfect end to a fabulous week. Becky left crazy early Sunday morning to head to the airport, but it was just a temporary goodbye because I went to visit her in Israel just a little under 3 weeks later. More on that to come!