London and Omaha Beach, Normandy France 2012

Sunday morning we got up early, not much sleep since I was up so late packing.  We drove to a train station in northern France about 3 hours away and boarded the train to London!  Once on our way I realized that I forgot to pack any socks for Amber.  The train ride was 1 1/2 hours.  We picked up some sandwiches at the train station before we left and then just ate lunch on the train.  The kids and I sat at a family table.  And Jason sat behind us.

Once we arrived in London it was pouring so we just got one of their black cab cars and took that to the hotel which was no more then 10 min. away.  These cabs have no trunk and can seat 5 people.  3 people on the bench seat in the back and then 2 jump seats that fold down and face the bench.  Good thing we only had 3 bags otherwise we wouldn't have fit.  Here are some cab pictures.

And the buses.

The cars here drive on the opposite side of the road and the driver's seat is on the opposite side of the car.
We got to the hotel and our room was ready so that was nice, but none of us liked this place.  Let me just say it was all I could find when I booked in March or so for 5 of us.  It was a very expensive room and it looks like a boarding room.  It has 2 double beds and 2 single beds.  The light bulbs are just hanging from the ceiling.  The bathroom is very tiny, smaller then a cruise bathroom, and always smells.  The whole bathroom is a plastic inlay.  One person fits in at a time. You step one step in and you are at the sink, you turn right there is your toilet, you turn left and you can step in the shower cube.  Jason's head was about at the ceiling and that is around 6'1"  Anyone taller wouldn't have fit!  The key to the room is attached with an old fashioned huge green plastic rectangle.  It has 2 keys, one to unlock the door to the outside house and one to unlock the room.  The hotel is made up of 2 row houses that it looks like they sort of remodeled into hotel rooms.  There is not even a dead bolt on the door.
Here is a picture of Jacob pretending to pass out on the bed from the room!

So since we didn't care for the room we got out of there pretty fast.  We found the nearest underground, about a 10 min. walk and took the subway and then changed trains at another station and then got off at our stop and walked over to the London Eye.  This is like a big ferris wheel but it is all enclosed with a lot of room.  It is about a 30 min. ride.  It started raining again once we got in our little egg pod.

 



In looking at all my pictures from this past year as well as this trip I think I either have on this orange jacket or my red jacket, b/c it is either cold or raining!

 

From here we walked to a park near by since it had stopped raining and let the kids play a bit.  Then we walked on a bridge across the Thames River and got on the underground again and got off near Buckingham Palace. 

Kids on the underground.

You actually enter Buckingham Palace from the side and you exit the tour from the back so we never even saw the front of it, or the guards, bummer.  The area surrounds many blocks and when we were finished with the tour no one wanted to walk back around. ):

So there were no lines to buy tickets. They had all these line gates set up and there was no one there.  We bought tickets and the tour started about 5 min. later, great!  You can only tour here in Aug. and Sept. when the Queen is on holiday.  You can't take any pictures inside.



 
This is a picture of the front of it from the website.
The inside was really neat. It was a audiotour self guide through the rooms.  You got headphones and listened to the tour.  They even had a kids version that the boys did.  Inside the palace was pretty crowded with people taking their time to hear certain things.  The tour was just the 1st and 2nd floor rooms.  Mostly state rooms, music, dining, etc.  Very beautiful.  The tour ends at the back of the palace and you walk through the garden area to exit.

This is the room you exit from that is behind the kids.  Here she had beautiful china displayed!

From here we walked to one of our favorite travel restaurants- Hard Rock Cafe.

We only had to wait about 10 min. for a table, crazy.  So Jacob and I walked over to their store and he wanted a T-shirt so I told him we will save it for a b'day present since it was over $30.  Dinner was very good and Amber was very tired.

Jason was reading somewhere that tourism was down by 40% in London.  People who were visiting in town were mainly staying near the olympic stuff.  So this works out great for us to see everything.  The whole time we were here we never waited in line to see anything.  It was great!
Here is a picture of their famous telephone booths.  They are actually going to make them into WiFi spots.

After dinner we walked through a park and picked up some ice cream.  Then an artist was selling these great painted pictures of Paris and London so we bought 2.
We then took the underground back and stopped at my one of my favorite Ireland, UK stores, Tesco.  This store is similiar to a Target.  But since we are in the city it is an express one and they don't have too much stuff.  But we did pick up a few American products they sell like certain granula bars, nutigrain bars and mustard!
Then we walked back to our lovely room.  I was saying to Jason I feel like we are walking into the bad part of town.  There weren't too many people around but it really doesn't look bad. 
We did a lot of walking today.  The kids did well with it.  Amber gets a bit whiney at times and Jason ends up putting her on his shoulders.  The underground here is great and we got around very easily on it.

Monday.  The kids slept for 12 hours last night.  We actually had to wake them up and that was after Jason and I had been making noise showering and I had blewn my hair dry in the room and no one was stirring.
For breakfast which was included in our price, we walked out of our house and one house over to the main hotel and into their "breakfast room"  It looked more like a break room.  It had 4 tables in it.  2 tables sat 4 people and 2 tables sat 8 people.  They were all crammed together. They had 3 kinds of cereal and apples on the counter for you and then 2 women in a tiny room would bring out toast, milk and OJ.  Welcome to the "English Breakfast"  I guess.
After breakfast we walked to the underground and went over to the London Tower.  This place was like a whole city.  It was very neat and it used to have a moat around it and it is also right along the river as well.  And there were no lines we just went and bought our tickets and then went right in!

The tower was built in 1080 and then added on to and remodeled over the years.  But it isn't just one tower like I mentioned there are mulitiple buildings inside the walls.  The tower is a famous place where a lot people lost their lives, or should I say heads!  The ax was very popular then.

Here is where they also have a building to hold the jewels called The Jewel Tower.  And look who is guarding it!

So we went in and you can see past crowns people wore and then the current crowns.  It was really neat but we couldn't take pictures either.  The room with the actually crowns in it was through vaulted doors.
After this we ate lunch here.   They had a really nice cafe/restaurant.  One of the Kings that lived here used to get and/or recieve as gifts wild animals.  They had polar bears living here at one point!
Here is the guard house by the exit.  Look it has new guards!

From here we just walked around and then just outside the other side of the Tower is the river and the famous London Bridge.  Right now it has the famous Olympic Rings on it.

Here is a picture of the boys at the gift shop around the corner.

So we walked over to the Bridge and there were no lines, we bought tickets and up we went.

The lift takes up to the top of the bridge where there is a walkway.  It was really neat.


This famous bridge was built b/c they needed more bridges to connect the 2 pieces of land so they had a contest to see who could come up with a design.  They had over 50 designs submitted.  In 1884 one was chosen.  It took 8 years to build. 
So now the walkway is enclosed, but it used to be open and people would actually use it if the bridge was up on the bottom.  Here are some pictures from us up there.

At the end of the walkway they have a little game for kids.

They have a few other things to see up there then you take the lift back down and finish crossing the bridge and go down in the old engine steam room.  The bridge used to be controlled by hydraulics using steam to power the big pumping engines.  Now the bridge still uses hydraulic power but with oil and electricity.  So the old room is on display.

The kids at the finish line of the tour.

From here the tour ends in the gift shop.  I found some socks for Amber since she was on the second day in the same pair.  They were so funny.  They had a map of the underground stations on them.  Jason wasn't excited about spending over $5 for one pair of socks! 
Here are pictures of the bridge from the other side.

There was a police man in the first picture.  In general there were alot of people around town with shirts and at points asking if you needed help.  Not police but a lot of people.  Even in the underground if we were stopped just looking at a map someone would come right up and ask if we needed help.  So they definately had a lot of people around town trying to make sure everything was going ok.
Right along the river here is also the Mayor's office building.

Behind the Mayor's office building on the left you can start to see this large building.  This is called the Shard.  It was just finished in April this year and opened up the beginning of July.  It has offices in it, a hotel, 10 apartments, restaurants in it and a viewing deck.  It is the tallest completed structure in Europe.



Along the river was also the HMS Belfast.  It was a destroyer from WWII and it was opened as a museum.  Jacob was very excited.

From here we walked up to the underground and took 2 trains.  The second one took 30 min.  So Amber got a little nap in!  We were going way out.  We had tickets to see the Woman's Olympic Soccer Game!  We had no problems getting there with the crowds.  But once there we had to go stand in a long line to pick up the tickets.  That took about 10-15 min. 
We had great seats- 24th row and on the end.  By the time Jason bought the tickets all the cheap seats were sold. 

There were over 61,000 people at the game.  The game was good and between France and Japan.

The boys enjoyed it.  I had brought some things to keep Amber busy.  I don't think she watched any of it.  It was 2 hours long and Japan won.  Around the statium there were no trash cans except once inside by the food.  Even around town we had trouble finding trash cans.  They had checks going into the game and you couldn't bring any liquids in.  You just had to dump them out on the ground b/c there were no trash cans.  They would give you these clear plastic bags you had to put your empty containers in.  Then once in you had to give them your lids to the bottles.  I guess it is so people don't throw them on the field.  After the game everyone was headed to the same place.  They had closed some car parks by the events so people had to take the bus or the underground.  It took us about 40 min. to make the 10 min. walk to the underground b/c of this.

All the people headed to the underground.  It was packed.  Thank goodness it wasn't raining and it was all done in an orderly fashion.

This is a picture of the people behind us, the other pictures were of the people in front of us!

The police were monitoring how many people entered the underground.  Once we got in we got right on our train and were off back to the hotel.

The kids with their USA shirts on!


Tuesday after breakfast we took a different underground and went to St. Paul's Cathedral.
St Paul's is the fifth cathedral to have stood on this site since 604, and was built between 1675 and 1710, after the last cathedral was destroyed in the Great Fire of London.  This is where Princess Diana got married. 
 
Here is the outside of it.  You couldn't take photos inside. We spent a couple of hours here.
The bottom of  the big dome we climbed there inside and the little circle above the dome is where we walked up to outside and then another little circular walk on the point we walked out on as well.
So inside we did those self guided auto tours.  The boys did the kids one.  The boys were really into it walking all around.  The 1st floor is beautiful and a very long walk to the alter.  The dome is richly decorated on the ceiling and had a lot of gold. 
From the 1st floor we climbed 250 stairs to this round circular observatory that looked straight down to the 1st floor.  From here we climbed another 150 stairs and went to that first outside round deck around the dome.

Then we climbed another 50 or so stairs to that tiny round platform on the top of the cathdral.  We had great views.

From here we walked back down all the steps to the 1st floor and then went down to the basement where they had the crypt.  It had some tombs down there.
After we finished we got back on the underground and decided to go see the Olympic Park.  It was a very crowded area.  Unfortunatley we thought you could just go in this area and walk around.  Not the case.  I guess you need a ticket to get in.  Jason said he never saw any tickets for sale to get in there, so maybe you can only get tickets if you are seeing an event inside there and they must have sold out early.  So kind of a bummer.  And I didn't get to see my Today Show people.  So there is a huge mall area outside the Olympic Park and we found a Mexican Restaurant and had lunch there.  Then we walked around the mall.  I found an H and M store so we bought Amber some socks.  The Disney store had Mickey dressed as a Buckingham Palace guard- too cute!  A lot of the stores in the mall were high end stores.  We found a sports store that had a few Olympic shirts left for sale.  Then we got back on the underground. 
Since we now had some extra time we took the subway to Westminster Abby.  We didn't tour the inside but it is a very beautiful Church.

Here is a picture of the front of it.

This is where the coronation of Kings and Queens has taken place since 1066, and many of the nation’s Kings and Queens are buried in the Abbey.

Here is a picture of a little church on the same property as the Abby.  We went inside here.  It was very pretty.

Across the street from here is Big Ben and the Parliment buildings.

The name Big Ben is often used to describe the tower, the clock and the bell but the name was first given to the Great Bell.
The Clock Tower was completed in 1859 and the Great Clock started on 31 May.  The first bell cracked and had to be replaced.  The second bell cracked, but they fixed it up there and it has been ringing every since and that was in the the 1860's!
Between Big Ben and Westminster Abby is a roundabout,  If you ever saw Chevy Chase's European Vacation.  He can't get off the roundabout and he kepts saying 'Look kids Big Ben" every time they go around until night time, too funny!
From here we got back on the underground and went to the area of Picidilly.  It is an area where they have shops and kind of a touristy area.  We walked down the street.  Pretty crowded around here.  After walking for a bit we saw this big green open area with beach recliners all over it and people around.  So we went and sat down in the chairs.

We weren't really sure what they had been put there for, but about 10 min. later a staff guy comes up and tells us that we have to pay to use the chairs.  So we just got up and left.  We went back to the underground to our stop by the hotel.  About half way between the underground and our hotel was a park so we let the kids play here.  And we sat on the benches for free!  This park has a gate to it and someone standing there.  There is a sign there that says An adult can only enter if they are with a child.  Interesting.  It was a big area and the kids had fun.

From here we walked back to our hotel.  More USA shirts!

We waited here a bit until something opened for dinner.  We ended up just going to a pub down the street.  We all had good soup.  Not the warmest weather there.

Wednesday we got up early as we were leaving here today.  We went to breakfast at about 7:20 and they didn't even have the ladies in the back yet.  They say they open at 6am for breakfast.  So I was in the back finding milk and juice, ugh!
This hotel was in London so a good location, but this was double the price per night of any normal hotel room we have stayed in and we stayed 3 nights and it was lousy!
So we packed up, hailed a cab and went back to the main train station.

The train headed back to France.  It wasn't full so Jason and Jacob got a family table across from the 3 of us so we were able to spread out a bit.  The 1 1/2 hour ride went well.  The train goes through the chunnel under the English Channel.
Someone first thought of the idea in 1802!  It never actually began construction until in 1988 and opened in 1994. The project came in 80% over its predicted budget.
We arrived back in France, picked up the car and headed over to the Normandy region in France.  This was a 4 hour drive.  The worst part was Jason was on conference calls for about 3 1/2 hours of it so the kids couldn't make any noise!  Good for me, but not so easy for them!
When we arrived in Port en Bessin, our town, we found a Carrefour store.  These they don't have in Lux, but I used to shop at this store when we lived in Brazil.   It is kind of like a Walmart store.  This one looked better then I remember the one in Brazil looking.  We needed to buy a sleeping bag for Amber.  I forgot when I booked it that I couldn't find anything for 5 people so I booked it for 4.  It looked like a nice place so I booked it just thinking we would bring the travel cot and her sleeping bag.  They said they wouldn't allow any extra beds in the room for 5 people so I would just bring her own bed.  Well since I booked it awhile ago and then we were only home for a day and 1/2 I forgot to pack those things, along with the socks I guess!  So this store had a small purple one for her- perfect.
We checked in and it was a nice hotel.  Our room is tiny, so the cot wouldn't even have fit very well.  It is a duplex, but narrow.  When you walk in you have the bathroom and then the main bedroom and an desk.  Then there are these narrow stairs that basically go up to a tiny atttic room that has 2 single beds and that is all there is room for.  It has a skylight that can open.

The hotel is really close to Omaha Beach which is why we came here, to see all the D-Day WWII history.  The hotel has a nice pool, but the water was pretty cold even though it is heated.

This is the view from our room. You can see the fog blowing in.  We are at the northern part of France and it was about 10 degrees warmer then in London.
Amber lasted for about 10 min. in the pool before her lips started turning purple.
For dinner every night we ate at the hotel restaurant that overlooks the golf course and you can also see the beach from afar.  It was a fancy restaurant and we were there for 2 hours.  The kids got a ton of food and ate it all up- a 3 course meal!

Flowers by the hotel.

Tonight I squeezed Amber's sleeping bag next to the boy's beds in the loft.  We will see how this goes!

Thursday.  The sleeping up with the boys lasted until about 1:30 am and then she was in our bed.  She sleeps like a fish, flip flopping around all night.  So since we kept being hit with arms and legs Jason and I didn't sleep well.
Breakfast here was very nice and we all enjoyed it.  They even had pancakes which you don't get very often in Europe.
After breakfast we went over to the American Military Cemetary on Omaha Beach.  It was very educational.  They had a museum and a movie they showed about the D-Day attack here on the Germans. 
""D-Day" and "H-Hour" are general terms used for the day and hour to mark the beginning of an important event.  The most well-known D-Day is June 6, 1944, when the Allied invasion of German-occupied France began in WWII.  Because D-Day of Operation Overlord was the largest amphibious assault in military history, it became the popular expression to refer to June 6, 1944, and was not used to mark the first day of an operation thereafter."  From Wikipedia.
Jacob is very into history and really enjoyed this.  From here we visited the cemetary.  Very beautifully done.
The cemetery is located on a bluff overlooking Omaha Beach (one of the landing beaches of the Normandy Invasion) and the English Channel. It covers 172 acres, and contains the remains of 9,387 American military, most of whom were killed during the invasion of Normandy and military operations in World War II.

You can start to see the fog rolling in.

From here we climbed down to the beach.  It is crazy to think that almost 70 years ago there was a war on the beach here.  The beach was very neat.  A lot of sand and very shallow until way out in the low tide.  The Americans tried to come in during low tide so they could see all the obstacles the Germans had put in the water, so they came in at 6:30 am from England.  But the tide was rushing back in when the 1st set of troops landed.
Here is a view of the beach from the top of the cliff in the cemetary.

Here is the beach.

The kids wanted to stay and play but it wasn't really a play beach just people walking around.  The stairs down were in a cliff and the brush was so thick and the fog was coming in thick that we were afraid if we stayed out here too long we wouldn't find our way back up.  The cemetary was way up on a cliff.
From here we drove to the Omaha Public Beach and had lunch outside near the beach. 
The Public Beach.

From here we walked up to the Omaha Beach Musuem.  It was very neat.  They had a bunch of equipment from German and American troops.  They had scenes set up, photos of the fight there and a movie of D-Day as well.

After this we walked back to the beach.  It was only in the mid to low 70's and there were a lot of people swimming at the beach.
From here we went to Pont du Hoc.  Here is a beautiful area of cliffs that the American troops scaled to invade all the German bunkers that sat atop here.  There are huge craters in the earth here where the bombs were dropped.  The whole area is very uneven.  A lot of part of the German Bunkers are still there so you can still go in and see what was left.  So it was a bit of a walk through craters and out to the look out point.  Beautiful views.

After this we just drove around some roads by the beach and countryside and back to the hotel.
Jason's windshield had a ton of bugs marks on it so these are a bit smugdy.

The roads in the countryside were narrow and these old, old stone buildings were right along side the road.  It reminded me of parts of Ireland.

Once back at the hotel I took the kids to the pool.  They had fun playing.  The baby pool was the perfect size for Amber to hop and float around.  I just got to sit in the somewhat warm sun in my clothes.  Jason worked in the room.
For dinner at the restaurant last night they had this great buffet so we were excited to see what they had on it tonight.  They didn't have it.  Only a dessert buffet.  A European dessert buffet consist of  a lot of puddings, mousses, fruits, 3 different kind of apple tarts.  I got one of the last pieces of a delicious brownie like pie.  Not a common thing.
It was a very educational day!

Friday after breakfast we wanted to take the kids horseback riding.  The tourist book for the area said there were 4 of them.  We thought we had seen a different one closer so we first tried to find that one.  But it seemed to just say horse trail in French.  Jason drove down it a bit, but it was a gravel like road.  And we saw no end in sight.  So we turned around and tried to find the next closest one in the book.  We drove for awhile and never found that one either.  The GPS said we were there and we were on again a gravel path in the backyard of someone's house with no horses in sight.  Rats.  We had now spent like an hour driving around.  We tried calling this one and another one but no answer. 
So instead we drove back to the town we were staying in and went in the downtown area by the port.  They had a nice port and boardwalk area.  We walked around a bit.

It is a fishing port.  We had lunch outside at a nice place along the sidewalk.  Jacob had seen people here at the restaurants having a pot of mussels.  Very common thing here.  So he said he wanted to try them.  So he ordered that for lunch.  After eating maybe 2 of them he said he didn't really like them, and they only came with fries and it was a big bowl of them.  The rest of us had some except Amber but didn't really like them either.   So we all shared our lunch with Jacob.  Glad Jacob was willing to try them.  And he likes trying other foods in general too so that is good!  He loves food and preparing things.  He would make a good chef someday!
After lunch we walked to the point of the port.  I was very nervous with the kids since there was no railing on one side.

Look at the drop off if you fall off!

From here we decided to spend the afternoon at the public part of the Omaha Beach we had seen yesterday.  So Jason dropped us off and tried to find a parking spot and then take a call.  We found a nice spot in the sand.  The boys raced toward the sea to play.

It was mid to high 70's and breezy and the water was cold.  But the boys loved it and the beach was crowded.   You don't have many warm beach days like this in Northern Europe so you have to take advantage of it!  Amber enjoyed the sand.

The beach here had no bathrooms anywhere or people or stores selling things.  So of course soon after we got there Amber had to pee.  So Sean had already dug a deep hole so I put her butt in it and that was that.
Jason came to the beach after his call.  The tide was out at first that is when the boys were on that sand way out there, then the tide came in and it got covered up so the boys decided to bury each other in the sand. 

We stayed for about 2 1/2 hours or so and then I needed to go potty so time to go!  We went back to the hotel and the kids went right in the pool.  Then we did our usual 7:30 dinner reservation.   Tonight for dinner I tried the plate of prawns.  They are like bigger shrimp but come in their whole body from head, eyes to tail.  You have to break them apart to get the meat out.  So I wasn't doing it right and one of the older men waitors came over and showed me how to get them open the right way- ha!

It was a nice relaxing day to end our trip.  I had wanted to go and see La Mont Saint Michel, but it was a 2 hr drive away and it was going to be a long drive home tomorrow so we didn't end up going to see it.

Nice way to start our 2nd year back in Europe with a European vacation!

Sat. we got up and we left around 10:30 or so.  We decided to try and find another horse place that was kind of on the way out of town.  So about 35 min. or so later we were able to find this one.  It was crazy busy.  There was one guy working and trying to get everyone loaded up with their ponies and horses.  So when I finally get his attention he says that b/c the trails go down to the beach all the horses are booked before the tide comes back in, but he has some ponies that the kids can ride and we can walk them.  Not exacetly what I had in mind but ok.  So we had to wait about a half an hour for him to get the "ponies"  for the kids.  After he got everyone else saddled up.  Amber's was a tiny one and blind in one eye.

Sean had a nice size pony. 

And Jacob's had to be a small horse.

I could have ridden on that one.  So the guy gives Jason the rope to Jacob's "pony" and I have the rope to Sean's pony and he ties Amber's pony on to the back of Sean's.  I asked him where do we go since there is no guide.  His English was ok and he is trying to tell us where to go.  He probably figured he would never see us again since we didn't really understand what he was telling us to do.  Finally he says "if you can't find your way follow the horse shit!"  Ok we got every word but the shit part.  We couldn't figure out what he was trying to say.  Finally after he said it the 2nd or 3rd time Jason got it.  Too funny.
So I did fine with the 2 ponies, but Jacob's "pony" didn't really seem to like Jason too much.  Jason said he was taking more snack breaks then Amber!  Jason looked so funny trying to pull the rope on Jacob's huge "pony". So we found the trail and walked them down to the beach.

We got to the beach and it was nice.  The tide was out so there was a lot of room to walk.  And there were not a lot of people around.  A few other horses.  We had them for an hour so we walked down to a point and then back.

We had tried to get the horses to jog a few times but they didn't seem to like that idea and of course they only speak French!  So once we turned around they seemed willing to run.  But mind you it is me running with my 20lb back pack on and pulling 2 ponies!  Not my idea of a horse ride on the beach!  But the kids were just giggling.  They loved it!  There was one part that was a pretty wide stream when we walked down the beach the first time and I didn't take a running jump so I kind of ended up in the edge of it and the ponies just walked through it, so this time I took a running jump and to my surprise so did my ponies.  We almost lost Amber with that one!
So we walked back down the beach and back to the place.  The kids had a great time!
So now it was around 12:30 or so and we were just heading back to Lux now.  It was a long drive and we didn't get home until around 8pm- ugh!  The traffic wasn't bad at all except on the big long bridge.

There was a $7.00 toll at the end of the bridge so it backed up for awhile and took us 35min. to get through it.  No I-Pass here.  I think in France we went through almost 10 tolls.
So we had a very nice vacation and enjoyed our 2 places we saw!