We walked to class that morning with our hiking backpacks on and pencil cases in hand, garnering many funny looks trekking up the stairs of our building with backpacks we could fit in, we didn’t care. We were starting Spring Break! The first stop on our Spring Break trip was to visit Normandy in France. Travelling by train from Glasgow to London, where we switched to the Chunnel train, we spent our first night in a hostel in Paris before taking a bus and a train to Bayeux.
We had chosen to stay in Bayeux because we had thought there was a bus direct to Omaha beach. The adorable airbnb just outside of town was also a plus. We dropped our stuff at the airbnb and then tried to get on the bus. Unfortunately we ended up visiting three weeks before the bus started running so we had to take a cab to the beach. Omaha beach is the code name for one of the five beaches used in the allied invasions of France while it was occupied by the Germans. Omaha was of particular value as it linked many of the other beaches. It also featured contributions from the American, Canadian, and British navies; making it a good compromise for our travel group.
We visited the American cemetery memorial first. As we visited later in the day, we were lucky enough to see the flags removed from the flag posts before we walked along Omaha beach. A hike through mud, a cab ride from the middle of nowhere, and a walk around town, we were then ready for dinner.
For dinner we went to Le Domesday. I got a Hawaiian pizza and an apple cider crepe which were amazing! Then it was back to the Airbnb for a viewing of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1. Waking up the next morning, we didn’t want to leave. But we had tickets back to Paris for later that day, so it was back into town we went.
After a quick breakfast of cinnamon sugar crepes and fresh squeezed orange juice at Au Louis D’or we went over to the cathedral. The cathedral is a Roman Catholic church done in the Norman – Romanesque fashion. The cathedral is an instrumental place in the Norman conquest of England. It was fairly empty when we went allowing us freedom to wander. After a quick stop there it was back on the train and onto our second city: Paris.
