Normandy, France

We started our 2025 trip to Europe by flying into Paris and immediately heading to Normandy. We took a car from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport to Gare Saint-Lazare train station. From there we took a train to Caen, rented a car, and drove to Bayeux.

I would NOT recommend doing the same! After a red eye flight where we didn’t sleep well, it was exhausting. Live and learn! But the rest of the trip was amazing.

Bayeux and WWII Sites

Our first stay was at a B&B in Bayeux, Normandy, France. We had chosen Normandy because Pete was in the Air Force and wanted to see the World War II sites. Bayeux is a short drive from Omaha Beach, the American Cemetery, and other locations so it was a good base. I was also originally very excited to see the Bayeux Tapestry; unfortunately the museum needed renovations so it was in transit from France to its temporary home in England and we missed it.

I try to keep a positive outlook when things happen, so my response is usually “we’ll just have to come back later!”

We got there before check-in time, so our first stop was an English-style pub called Le Conquerant, named for William the Conqueror. Don’t judge – it was cute and they advertised that they spoke English! (Turns out almost everyone in restaurants/bars did, but this was our first real stop.) They weren’t serving food yet, so we just grabbed a beer. We strolled around a little, checked into our room at Le Castel Guesthouse, and then went for dinner at a restaurant called Le Domesday.

Here we tried some of the specialties that Normandy is known for:

• Calvados – Normandy is a great region for apple-growing, so their special alcohol is apple brandy, or calvados. The first syllable is stressed; for Spanish speakers it looks like cal-VA-dos, but it’s actually Cal-va-dos. It’s very good!
• Galettes – these are thin, savory buckwheat pancakes filled with any number of ingredients. In this specific instance, it was filled with:
• Andouille de Vire – a sausage that originated in Vire, Normandy, and
• Camembert – Normandy’s most famous cheese. And this was real Camembert de Normandie. You know how true champagne only comes from Champagne, and everything else is sparkling wine? A cheese can only be called Camembert de Normandie if it’s from the village of Camembert and meets other specific criteria. France has various Appellation d’origine contrôlée (AOC for short) that govern wine and cheese.

After dinner and then catching up on our much-needed sleep, the next day we enjoyed the included breakfast at our B&B and then drove to the American Cemetery.

To be continued…still writing!