Arromanches-les-Bains

Our first stop along the coast was a beach town called Arromanches-les-Bains, near what was code named Gold Beach.

We had some trouble finding our hotel – Hotel de la Marine – because it turned out to be off of a pedestrian only zone which greatly confused our GPS. We ended up dropping my brother off nearby and he went in search of the hotel. Their website says they don’t offer parking, but they actually have a few hidden spots that you have to drive through the pedestrian zone and along the sea wall to get to. We were lucky that it was an off-season, and I wouldn’t count on getting one during the busier summers. The parking area was tiny and pulling in and out of the spaces required quite a few back and forth passes. Getting to drive along the sea wall was kind of neat though, even if it was only for a couple hundred feet.

We were absolutely thrilled with the location of the hotel. It would be the perfect spot for a summer visit with its location right along the sea wall. We almost didn’t find it because we were doing all of our bookings through Expedia and it’s not listed on there. It wasn’t until I tried a search on Booking.com that I located it. I would strongly recommend doing searches on multiple websites to make sure you find everything available because no search engine is comprehensive. We had to have two separate rooms because they could only accommodate two people in each room, but the staff made sure we were right next to each other. We even lucked out with a killer view of the beach.

The hotel had a nice restaurant that we chose for dinner, largely because there didn’t appear to be much else open in town. It seemed expensive, but that was because we hadn’t had any other meals in France yet. (I’m not counting lunch at McDonald’s.) In hindsight, it was pretty much on par with the prices we paid elsewhere in France, and I’ve come to the conclusion that food just costs a fortune there. I ordered a creamy pasta dish that I didn’t particularly care for, but everyone else seemed quite pleased with their food. We split a bottle of wine and toasted to the start of another grand adventure.

Cheers!

Two for Tuesday: Arromanches-les-Bains

Two for Tuesday is a regular feature I'll be running with two random pictures that I love, but didn't quite make it into a blog post. This week, I picked two from my stay in Arromanches-les-Bains, France because even though I was only there for one day, it was one of my favorite stops in France. You can read more about it, and the mulberry harbor wreckage shown here, in my post coming a couple days from now.

Caen and Bayeux, France

We landed in Paris early in the morning - I am a huge fan of overnight flights when heading east - and grabbed a rental car and hit the road to drive up to Normandy. I’m a big history buff and I’m particularly interested in World War II because my grandpa fought in the European Theater. We sort of inadvertently ended up following in some of his footsteps on this trip, which made it even more interesting than it would’ve been otherwise.

Our first stop was, embarrassingly, a McDonald’s we found along the highway. I’m normally very opposed to eating at places like that when overseas, but we were starving and needed something fast if we were going to get to do anything in Normandy that afternoon. We did enjoy the novelty of getting to order a “McBeer” with our combo meals though. American readers will be happy to know that Mickey D’s chicken nuggets taste the same in France as they do back home.

We once again hit the road and made it to Caen, a city whose pronunciation we debated until finally looking it up on Youtube. None of us had been right. Though our stated purpose for visiting Normandy was to see WWII attractions, our first stop on vacation was a step much, much further back in history. We were going to see the Abbey where William the Conqueror's tomb is located.

Admission to the abbey was free, and there was also a small art exhibition going on in one of the wings. We wandered through the cloister for a few minutes before setting out to actually enter the main building. In order to get inside, we had to walk back out the front entrance we had come in through and go all the way around the outside of the church until we found a tiny, unmarked door. We would’ve missed it if another group of people hadn’t exited as we were walking by.

The cloister

Pilot

Welcome to the world of my wanderings as a professional nomad. I’ve always had a travel bug and was unbelievably lucky to get to travel all over as a kid. A few years ago, I took a job that involved almost constant travel throughout the United States. I've been to all but six states so far, and am on a mission to cross the remaining ones off of my list in between taking vacations overseas whenever time and money permit. I'm alone most of the time, but I've never let that stop me.

I don’t always get to go to the most fascinating places, and I’m usually only able to explore in the evenings when the best stuff is closed, but along the way, I’ve managed to find a lot of cool stuff. No matter where you may be, there is always something interesting or beautiful you can enjoy if you do just a little digging.

My camera is always at my side, and I take an obscene amount of pictures. I'm getting more into photography as a hobby and recently splurged on a better camera for myself in preparation for my big trip in a couple of months.

I'm a Michigan girl who grew up in the Detroit area. I love going out and finding new things to do around my hometown as well as in other parts of the state.

I’m in a bit of a slow period for work travel right now, but I’m going to kick things off with some posts about my last vacation: to France, Luxembourg, and Belgium.