Day 1
We got on the bus and headed out, I think going north out of Paris. We arrived on Bastille Day, so not much was going on. I’m told there were fireworks in Caen (where we stayed) last night, but I did not hear them. Most of us didn’t.
Anyway, our first stop was Monet’s home in Giverny. Monet, as you may know, was an impressionist painter most famous for his picture called Water Lilies. The garden he painted is at his Giverny home, so we got to walk around the lily pond, taking pictures of all the flowers. I walked with Larry Smith and Tom and Jeanne Gee, and they are very knowledgable about the flowers. We went through the house, seeing Monet’s first studio and some of the Japanese prints he collected. Looking at the gardens from the upstairs windows was lovely and peaceful. I could imagine getting up in the morning and seeing the flowers.
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| Some of the flowers alongside the path in Monet's water garden at Giverny |
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| More flowers by the pond in Monet's water garden |
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| Tom Gee and Larry Smith look at the garden as Jeanne Gee (back) takes a flower photo. |
I was wearing my CIT t-shirt (because it was comfortable to travel in), and in the gift shop a couple came up to me and said they were 1973 graduates of Concordia. We agreed that it is a small world.
On the way from Giverny to Caen, we stopped at Pegasus Bridge. The site was where glider units landed after D-Day. They landed about 50 feet from the bridge, which was one of the first sites liberated. The original bridge is at the museum across the street, but the bridge over the river was replaced with a copy. It was neat to see both.
According to wikipedia, "In 1944, the Bénouville Bridge was renamed Pegasus Bridge in honour of the operation. The name is derived from the shoulder emblem worn by British airborne forces of I Airborne Corps (United Kingdom), which depicts Bellerophon riding the flying horse Pegasus."
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| Walking to the Pegasus bridge |
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| The memorial monument |
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| This is the original bridge. We didn't go into the museum so couldn't get up to it, but there was a gate in the hedge we could look over to see it. |
We finished the day at Caen where we’re staying for the next few days. We had dinner at the hotel and then crashed - big time.
More to come as the adventure continues.
I remember the Memorial Monument! The remains of the Nazi bunkers remain as scars upon the beach. Otherwise it was a beautiful beach and difficult to reimagine the bloody carnage that took place there! I was amazed at the actual film of the Rangers repelling up the cliffs on either side of the beach, to be shot at from the machine gun nest at the top, but they kept coming and kept coming while losing many along the way. It made me cry, and only God knows how they made it to the top and out manned the Nazis in their taking the of the cliffs! It makes tangible the tremendous sacrifice not to be taken for granted. Deb Avery
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