Today’s post is a long one. Make yourself comfortable.

Oh my, the mornings in the French countryside are even more beautiful than the evenings….First, a towel warmed on a rack is simply amazing…. and a good cup of real French Roast in the garden on a warm spring day… oh my.   Jos (rhymes with “moss” and short for Josiah) waited for me to arrive downstairs as I had asked to come along with him to the bakery… his dog, Binker, came along too.  The town – completely rebuilt after being demolished by bombs in 1944 reminded me of Concord, MA – quaintly bustling around, but not in too much of a hurry.

On the way home, Jos let the dog out…  He knows the way home… at 30 miles an hour.  Awesome Dog….     Awesome Dog

As breakfast concluded, Jos brought in his famous WWII rifle.  He found it a couple of years ago as he was restoring a bog to its original pond status.  It’s located about 75 yards (68.58 meters) from the house.  After pulling it out of about 3 feet of muck, he had it appraised and determined that it belonged to a Canadian soldier – probably a member of a reconnaissance patrol who was killed on the property.  The Canadians and British chose to bury their soldiers in cemeteries near where they died – while the Americans were buried in large American cemeteries. This soldier is buried right up the street from the Haynes’ house.

Jos and Carol bought their property six years ago and have worked extremely hard to make it an incredibly beautiful place.  Pristine flower gardens, perfect fencing, mowed paths through the woods and to a river…  It’s just beautiful.  Our friend Rick Copland (who will be mentioned in a few weeks…) stayed here a couple years back and told us it was beautiful.  It was an understatement.  If you are ever in Normandy to see the D-Day beaches – this is the place to stay!!

Click on the photo to see the website!

Here are some photos of our tour of the grounds.  You can see Jos is showing us the pond where he found the rifle.

Another very interesting thing we learned from the Hayes had to do with the strange circular clumps we had been seeing in all of the trees.

The circular clumps are mistletoe! Yep, that stuff you hold over your significant other at Christmastime to get a smooch… you know, with the white berries….  Well it seems that the birds eat the berries and the seeds get planted on the branches of trees in their… uh… poop.  There I said it.  The seeds then take root in the tree and the plant grows right there as a parasite… Perhaps everybody but us knew this… Oh well, if you want to learn more click here.

After our tour of the property, we said our thanks and au revoirs and we headed out for a quick 30 minute drive to the D-Day Beaches. We had fun seeing more fields of oilseed rape, more beautiful villages, and finally we arrived in the town of Arromanches.  The beach here is known as Gold Beach and is one of the beaches where the Canadians and British landed.  The women are waving westward to all of their friends and relatives – and beyond them you can see the remains of the debris that was dropped in the sea in an attempt create a man-made harbor.

After seeing Gold Beach we headed west to Omaha Beach where the Americans landed and where there is a museum and a large cemetery.

These beaches are beautiful, even stunning in their beauty.  The sand is perfect, the water is warm – even in early May – and they are long, long, long areas for fun and frolic in the sun and water.  The girls thought they were great… and although Kathleen and I appreciated their beauty, there was just something wrong about these places as summer amusement areas.  You can feel the sadness in the air….

Here are some photos of Omaha Beach.  You can see the memorials in honor of the 3,000 men who were killed here, as well as some of the German bunkers and gun perches. It’s kind of a grim and beautiful place at the same time.  Caroline seemed to notice this, and didn’t like being here.   She wasn’t able to articulate why but she was clearly uncomfortable the entire time.  Unfortunately, we were pressed for time (needing to be back in Paris for Caroline’s on-line school) so we were unable to see the American cemetery or the museum.

The ride home was uneventful until the British GPS lady thought it would be just fine to have Bob drive through the “roundabout” that goes around some large arch in Paris…. Ugggh.  Even for one who manages the Concord, MA rotary every day… this is really hairy.  There are so many accidents here that French insurance agencies don’t even try to determine fault anymore.  They just split the damage 50-50 with the other driver’s carrier!  But we made it through unscathed.

Oh… Caitlin filmed this with the iPhone which was also running Google Maps.  The ugly American pronunciation is very amusing, but loud – beware – turn down your volume!

All in all the fitting end to an amazing two days!!