

Caen
Thursday May 4, 2017
I've left Paris on a two day tour of Normandy. We're staying overnight in Caen, but we don't actually get to see much of it.
Yesterday I met up with Priscilla for lunch. We had raclette and it blew my mind. I'm lucky I had someone to share it with because there is absolutely no way I could have eaten all of that by myself. I'll write more about it on my food blog once I get a chance to sort out all my photos.
I went to the Jardin d'Acclimatation afterwards, just to digest all the cheese I ate. Because the weather was so foggy and wet, there weren't many people around, but I found it peaceful walking through the park. There's a massive building there called the Foundation Louis Vuitton, commissioned by LV as a museum and modern art gallery, as well as a bunch of amusement rides and water features.
I ended up going to Chatelet to find a patissier that Priscilla had recommended, and stayed in the area for dinner as well. I continued walking around Le Marais, but didn't find anything interesting, so I went back to the hotel. I had an early start the next day.
This Normandy trip started at 7.15am this morning, which meant I needed to get up at 5.30am, to get out of the hotel by 6.15am, to get to the meeting point by 6.45am. We left Paris and headed to Rouen, famous for being the town where Joan of Arc was burned alive at the stake for being a witch. We continued northwest to Honfleur, a coastal town where the Seine meets the English Channel, where we stopped for lunch, and then to Omaha Beach, which was a landing point for the Allied Forces trying to liberate France from Nazi control during World War II. We also visited the nearby cemetery, full of fallen American soldiers; it reminded me very much of Arlington near Washington DC.
Tomorrow we will continue our tour of Normandy, heading further west to St Malo and the famous Mont St Michel, the tidal island with a majestic castle aesthetic, almost like Minas Tirith from Lord of the Rings. I'm looking forward to this the most, and I'm hoping the weather warms up too!
