The Cannon Family's travel blog

Today marks the start of the real effects of the “European heat dome” – a strong ridge of high pressure parked over the continent that keeps temperatures 10+ degrees (C) above normal with none of the usual cooling at night. We awoke early to 28 degrees and that would be the coolest we’d see all day. Ugh.

But we had one official tourist thing to accomplish today: a visit to Mont Saint Michel, the abbey on the rock dating back more than a thousand years. We knew it would be brutal climbing around the rock so we set an alarm (!) and headed out as early as possible. Originally we chose our AirBnb because it was walkable to the Mont but if we walked there then we’d need to walk back – more than an hour in the intense midday sun. No thank you.

So we opted to drive the 10 minutes to the car park, cutting out half the walking distance. We did walk from the car park across the causeway which would be the bulk of our steps today. Once in the village, it was straight up to the abbey. We had bought our tickets online already so avoided the queues that were already forming. Then it was time to explore.

Luckily, abbeys are dark and the stone is cool so most of the visit was enjoyable. I won’t mention the rude tour group issue again. We’ve been through that and it was no different here. The building is impressive- mostly because of where it is. It’s not the most beautiful place we’ve ever been but was worth a visit nonetheless. Learning about the religious use with very little mention of the years it spent as a prison was an interesting PR choice.

The tide was out during the visit and you could see the sand flats stretching forever. We could see groups walking across them from the abbey and all I could think was Why? But then I may not have the right focus or imagination to spend that much time wandering the sand in the scorching sun.

By the time we were done with our visit, the village outside the abbey had gotten CROWDED! Like wall-to-wall bodies crowded. The queues for the abbey were long as they tried to keep the numbers inside to a manageable level. We worked our way down the cobbled street, stopping in every air conditioned junk store we could find. Once my crowd tolerance reached peak scream, it was time to head back. Now we greatly appreciated the shuttle back to the car park and our parking spot in the shade!

Change up for meals today- lunch at home. We had salad fixings and leftover chicken from the Father’s Day feast so it made sense to avoid the heat and other nonsense and grab something at home. Besides, we needed to get our swimming stuff. Yes, today would be beach day at last! A short drive east took us to Plage de Kairon, arriving just about high tide. We settled into the lovely white sand and waded into the beautiful turquoise water. It was quite warm in the shallows but got very chilly very quickly. Heaven!

We managed about 2 hours of alternating roasting and cooling off before the tide had receded so far as to make it challenging to actually get to water deep enough to swim in. Rough estimate: the water line receded more than 100 meters in the roughly 120 minutes we were there.

And then we were done with the sun. A quick gelato stop and it was back to our dark but cool cave-cottage to do some laundry in preparation for tomorrow’s transition. We opted to eat in again as the local market sold ready meal galletes – hame and cheese for me and salmon for Frank. With what I think was a French coke slaw (so many carrots!) along with local cider and white Bordeaux, it was just what the doctor ordered.

Data for today:

Steps: 11,645 or 5.1 miles (plus all the swimming!)

Floors climbed: 25

Measured high temp: 39c

Outdoor temp at 10pm: 32c

Even though it was quite a warm night in our cottage with no AC, we both slept well. In the morning we successfully navigated yet another tiny cooking area and figured out how to make an awesome fried egg sandwich for breakfast. Then it was off to find things that are open in France on a Sunday. When in doubt, go to a tourist destination where savvy local authorities are willing to suspend necessary rules to let the merchants take visitor’s cash.

Even though this is our last overnight stop in Normandy, we crossed the line and spent the day in neighbouring Brittany. First to Cancale, the so called oyster capital of France. (Not a Google Gemini hallucination – backed up by Wikipedia. Unless they are in cahoots. 🤔) Oysters weren’t the only draw though – it was market day! Another fantastic street market to explore. We made several purchases including a new tablecloth and local sausages and strawberries from the food stalls.

This wasn’t the only market in town. The oyster market operates in the seafront every day and sells local, freshly shucked oysters for what we would consider a pittance. Two dozen for about £22/$30. And if you were willing to do the work yourself, you could get two dozen No 3 size for about half that! So with half bottle of Chardonnay and our two platters of oysters, we joined the dozens of others on the waterfront enjoying the very warm day. With only a squeeze of lemon, the fresh briny taste really came through. Once done, we were told to throw the shells onto the small beach. It was covered in layers of oyster shells being carefully inspected by the local seagulls, some of which were Aberdeen worthy – think rugby ball with wings. The bonus was that we could throw shells AT the flying rats and make it look innocent! Best target practice ever!

We wandered about a bit more before heading across the headlands to another tourist hotspot: Saint Malo. It’s a port city with the old town surrounded by high walls that was once home to privateers – pirates with the royal seal of approval. Like Cancale, this place was jumping! All of the shops and restaurants inside the old town were open for business and there were plenty of people there to take advantage of it. It was a beautiful little spot and we thoroughly enjoyed wandering around the cobbled streets, popping in and out of shops, and looking over the wall to the receding tide. There were several stages set up where bands were playing and a variety of street acts performing in different places. This included the obligatory hen party who decided they really needed to do the Macarena in the middle of the street.

Because there is a beach accessible from the edge of the old town, we did the obligatory walk along the sand. It was broad and flat and sparkled with silica, beauty marred only by the vast amount of seaweed washed up on shore.

Eventually it was time to head out. While being close to the water helped with the intense heat, the sun had taken it out of us. We were hoping to stop at a less urban beach for a swim on the way home but the tide was going out. And when I say out, I mean WAY out. Like a kilometre out from the main part of the beach. So no swim today. 😢

Because it’s Sunday, the grocery options are severely limited so it was back to the local convenience store. As a Father’s Day treat, we decided not to walk back into town in the intense heat when the cafes finally opened at 7pm but instead picked up a rotisserie chicken and fixings to dine at home. (Side note on poulet rôti – they are EVERYWHERE here! There have been multiple stands at every market we have been too and every grocery store and corner shop sells them as well! Mental.)

I hope all the dads enjoyed their Father’s Day as much as Frank did!

Data for today:

• Steps: 16,637 or 6.8 miles
• Max temp endured: 31
• Layers of sunscreen applied: 3
• Bottles of water consumed: 5

Today would be our next transition day as we continue westward through Normandy. We are getting quite handy at packing up so we were on the road early for our first destination- Utah beach. The most westerly of the landing beaches, it was the last one to complete our D-Day beach bingo card.

It was the beach with the most visible scars from the engagement. Bits of German bunkers in the dunes and the remains of the floating bridges and heavy machinery ramps still in the water. Yes, there was a museum but we didn’t visit. (Point to note: all the museums tell the same story with the focus on different bits of detail. If you are like us and want the big picture but not the minutiae, then visiting dozens of these places is overload.)

Then we headed inland to Saint Lô, a victim of Allied bombing after the landing. Nearly the entire city was destroyed in the days after so the rebuilt city doesn’t have the same feel as some of the places we’ve been. The cathedral- another Notre Dame! – is the most visible evidence of the destruction and rebuilding. They didn’t try to restore it to its gothic glory. But instead left just one of the two towers of the 14th century building standing and adapted the rest. We weren’t able to visit properly as there was a mass going on so we observed mostly from the outside. There is still a shell casing stuck in the outer wall among all the bullet holes.

But we didn’t stop here just for the WWII history- Saturday is market day!! We explored the streets stalls and let Frank practice his high school French to help me purchase more cheap Italian linen! 😬 We availed ourselves of the gallette food truck and enjoyed a light lunch in the screaming sunshine- ham, cheese, and egg plus mushrooms for Frank if you are curious.

Moving along, we continued westward to the coastal city of Danville, which Google Gemini says is known as the “Monaco of the North”. If you ever wanted evidence of AI hallucinations, read some of Google’s AI summaries for searches!!

It is a very pretty seaside town, with beautiful aquamarine water but not necessarily beautiful beaches. We wandered the ramparts, saw the closing of the market stalls (darn – missed one!) and enjoyed the atmosphere in this lovely place. A couple of ice creams – for which I badly mangled my order because Spanish keeps creeping in! – and it was time to head to our new home base.

We are staying in a fairly new purpose-built cottage outside Mont Saint Michele. It has everything you could ask for including a private deck and washing machine. Clean clothes- yay! We are about 1 km from the car parks for visiting the Mont so there will be walking.

And it will be HOT 🥵! The forecast is for a dangerous heatwave over the remainder of our stay with temps possibly reaching as high as 40! And nothing here is set up for that kind of heat, including our cottage. So we may need to change our plans and do less walking and more relaxing… what a pity!

Data for today:

• Steps: 24,365 or 10.4 miles
• Tiny roads that made me panic: 6
• Mistakes made by Google maps: 4
• Landing beaches visited this trip: 5

Or as we should say in French: Allons sur les plages! Today’s plan (yes, there was one!) was to head back east a bit to Deauxville to see what the “posh” beach in the area looks like – and visit the street market that was scheduled to be there until just after lunch. Then we would wend our way back west making stops at the 3 eastern landing beaches – Sword, Juno, and Gold. We made cooked breakfast in our tiny cupboard of a kitchen before setting out for our adventures.

Because we wanted this to be a chill driving tour, we are very happy taking all the back roads and seeing the country. Well we are mostly happy – except when we hit the *really* back roads with no lane markers, no passing places, and insane speed limits for the conditions. There are lots of comparable B roads in Scotland (except they have passing places!) but when we drive down those roads, I’m comfortably ensconced on the verge side of the car. The trusty and talented driver (that’s Frank BTW) is the one closest to the oncoming traffic and can make the appropriate decisions when cars get too close. Here, it is me facing small French automobiles coming towards me taking up what seems to be more than their fare share of the road! We’ve only had one instance where we had to overcompensate for a road hog but that doesn’t make some of these travels any easier. Good thing my hair is already grey!

We arrived unscathed and headed to the market – one of our favourite activities. In addition to the requisite food stalls, there were a variety of clothing, jewellery, and household items that we thoroughly enjoyed perusing. I came away with a nice green and white shirt for €10. Yay!

Then to lunch! We found a lovely cafe with a variety of salad options – none of which involved fried Indian food items! I thoroughly enjoyed the Niçoise – including the anchovies! – and Frank opted for the Croque Monsieur (because who doesn’t like a pound of cheese melted on a ham sandwich!) Add the local cider and dessert (cheesecake and divine panna cotta) and it was a most sumptuous repast.

Then to the beach! Interestingly, it appears that this weekend is the Deauxville Triathlon- with a sprint, Olympic, and Iron Man distance on offer. So the beachfront had been transformed into different parts of the race which made it more difficult to appreciate the “glamour and luxury” that Google Gemini would have you believe is the norm. The beach itself is okay – broad pale sands strewn with LOTS sharp shells – but not the nicest we’ve seen this week.

Then it was off to the eastern D-Day beaches – lesser celebrated than Omaha and very different in both nature and commemoration. Sword is the furthest east and except for the obligatory museum and the statue of Piper Billie Mullins, you wouldn’t really know it was a special place. Families were picnicking and people were walking their dogs. Everything seemed very normal. The sand here was also coarse and full of sharp things so definitely not a favourite.

Next up: Juno beach – the Canadian one according to all the signs. Here was another museum along with bunkers, tanks, and other reminders of what came before. The beach itself was actually kind of gross with harsh sand and gobs of seaweed and other floaties. Ugh.

Finally to Gold beach which seemed to have almost nothing to mark it as being the next beach over from Omaha. Until we found the British Memorial nearby. A similar commemoration to the Normandy American cemetery, it is a memorial – but not resting place- for every British solo who died during the Battle of Normandy. Outside the columned structure are metal silhouettes representing each of the soldiers killed on D-Day. In the fading summer sunlight, it was incredibly moving. (Lest you think we don’t investigate, the beach was far less jaggy with much nicer sand but not necessarily better atmosphere.)

A stop at a large Carrefore on the road home provided all we needed for the evening meal. Our go-to AirBnb dinner of pasta and sauce- this time with loads of fresh mushrooms- and a lovely Cotes du Rhône (yup, €4). C’est magnifique!

Data for today:

• Steps: 18,790 or 7.8 miles
• Beaches visited: 4
• ATMs negotiated: 1
• Meals involving cheese: Yes

Today marked the first move from one part of Normandy to another. Being dab hands at the induction hob at this point, we mastered a wonderful breakfast including hash browns made with the leftover potatoes from our steak night. Then it was time to pack up and hit the road. We said goodbye to our quaint cottage on the hill and the village of Canteleu and began our trip west. Destination: Port-en-Bessin on the Atlantic coast.

But first, some history – the really old kind. We stopped for lunch in Caen, which is not old in itself but has a castle which is. We happened upon a cafe with a very simple lunch menu of 3 items: steak tartare (it’s absolutely everywhere!), a “smash burger”, and a salad. No tourist menu with 15 choices and English translations here! So the raw beef was right out but the other two were on target and with a bottle of cider, we enjoyed our repast.

I do feel the need to point out two things at this point. First, it was HOT. I mean searing sun and sweaty pits hot. The weather apps said it was 27 but the car thermometer and my clammy skin said otherwise. I’m so glad we chose northern France early in the summer to avoid the terrible temps. 🙄 We were appropriately dressed but still unprepared. The heat is part of the reason we chose this particular cafe as it offered the quickest respite from the roasting sunshine.

Which brings me to the next point: what do the French think is the definition of salad? I can tell you that Dictionary.com says “a usually cold dish consisting of vegetables, as lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers, covered with a dressing and sometimes containing seafood, meat, or eggs.” Nowhere does it say fried Indian fritter. Yet today I had a “salad” with cold asparagus and green beans, picked courgettes (zucchini), buratta, and PAKORAS! WTF?! I thought that my translation app was broken and that there was an obvious French veggie thing that was spelled like the Indian fritter. But no, my salad had two (admittedly excellent) Indian pakoras with the lump of Italian cheese and other vegetables. Delicious but the cognitive dissonance was palpable!

Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, we can move on. We wandered about the central district for a bit, checking out the other shops and restaurants before a quick stop in Saint Peter’s church. Can’t pass up a good Gothic edifice! It wasn’t particularly noteworthy IMHO so we moved onto the main event: Caen Castle. Originally built by William the Conqueror after the Battle of Hastings, parts of the castle from the 11th century still survive. Other bits date from the 100 years war (15th century) with more things being unearthed from different periods. Fascinating! The chapel of St George was a favourite for the beauty of its stark simplicity.

But after climbing all over the ancient walls in the scorching sun, we decided it was time to head to our next destination on the coast: Port en Bessin was the first village to be liberated after D Day which sets the scene for the next part of the trip. Our apartment is 100 meters from the seafront (all up hill of course!) and the sea breeze was a welcome relief.

We settled in and wandered about to pick up necessities and get our bearings. Then it was time for (more) food. As we are on the coast, seafood seemed appropriate. We chose a place that offered local scallops in calvados and leek cream sauce for me and the “every other seafood option besides mussels” platter for Frank. This plate of crab, oysters, langoustines, prawns and whelks was so enormous, the German couple at the table next to us asked if they could take a picture!

All in all, another successful day! Today’s stats:

• Steps: 17,385 or 7.6 miles
• Price of petrol: €1.82/litre (roughly $8/gallon for those in the US),or £1.56/litre
• Grade of hill outside our door: 18%
• Number of food items moved between apartments: 19 (not all cheese!)