family holiday – trippingdifferently

So we did not go to Singapore for the summer as we would normally do. Our annual trip to Singapore will be in November because Tobias has finished school and will be registering for National Service (military service, for those non-Singaporeans) after he gets his Swiss driving license (a process he had already started and should finish in October).

We thought we do a trip to somewhere in Europe and the husband suggested a visit to the D-day landing beaches and to visit some sights around Normandy. And that is what we did. Packed the dog and ourselves into our car and drove to Normandy.

It was a long way… made longer after we discovered how expensive the toll-roads (expressways) are. So after the first day, we took to the national roads (country roads). It takes longer, no service stops but was much more scenic.

Our first stop was the city of Orléans, its most well-known citizen is Joan of Arc. So we saw some sights that evening (see pictures below), and had take-away Chinese in our rooms (because the restaurant didn’t allow dogs 😦 ).

The next morning we headed to Caen, the big city on the Normandy coast, with a pitstop in Le Mans for lunch. We had a lovely light dinner at a pub. The next day, we set off on our tour of the D-day sights, starting at the Pegasus Bridge, onto Ranville Cementry to pay our respects to the people who gave their lives, finished at Sword Beach and Gold Beach.

Unfortunately, it was at Gold Beach that I injured my foot. There was a pothole in the street, which I didn’t see, fell, scrapped my left knee and hurt my right foot. We had to hobble back to the car and drive round to find a pharmacy. They were very nice at the pharmacy.

The next day, I stayed at the hotel with our dog while the husband and the son went to Mont Saint Michel. They said it was nice but too crowded. No pictures from me on this day besides one of the dog and I in the room.

On Day 5, my foot felt better so I decided I could go on this last day of sightseeing. We did the Overlord Museum, near Omaha Beach. Then to the beach and onto Pointe-du-Hoc. Unfortunately, we were finding France not as dog-friendly as we had hoped. No dogs on beaches even. Finally, at Omaha Beach Lexi was able to run around. She played with the waves, which was unexpected, it was so fun to watch her zooming on the beach.

We started our drive home that Saturday, with an overnight stop at Auxerre and arrived home on Sunday afternoon.

Despite the accident I had, it was a good trip. We might go back there again but maybe without Lexi because she really wasn’t allowed in many places.

Enjoy some pictures below.

syc

Yep, that’s what we did for the February sports holidays here in Switzerland. We went searching for snow. Why? Because global warming/climate change has meant that this alpine nation, once known for great skiing didn’t get enough snow for the season!

So we went up to a mountain we had never been to before, having heard that they might have more snow than others – we went to Crans Montana. Not somewhere we would usually go because it’s a bit further away and has been known to be expensive.

While there was little snow in the village, just a short up the way you could see the white stuff so it was not too bad. We had an okay time. The husband and son said the snow was not good by the afternoon, so they returned early and decided not to ski the next day. Lexi and I had a wonderful walk across the mountain; the views were amazing. But I took a tumble on an icy patch near the end of our walk; that sort of put a damper on things.

The hotel we stayed at was nice, the staff lovely and the food pretty good. So no complaints there. We left early on the 3rd day and made a pit stop at Fribourg, the university city in the French part of Switzerland. It was nice to see this city again after many years.

Here are some photos of our trip: