him from his cars. After nearly a whole week without driving, sitting
in one, smelling gas fumes or fondling a steering wheel we had to get
our fix. So, we took the Metro to the SW corner of Paris and rented a
smart looking Nissan Micra and prepared to battle the traffic of Paris.
Now, I had been watching the driving techniques of my French
counterparts for the past few days as I pedestrianed my way around
Paris so I had an idea of the driving skills I would need to bring to
bear if I were to be successful. It seems to me all it takes is a
rauchishly heavy foot on gas and brake, unrelenting nerve at cutting
off other drivers and adroit skills at negotiating tight spaces.
As I sized up my rental car, a short little 4 door, I made note of
it's corners, clearances and blind spots so I could thread it through
the eye of a needle if need be.
While Sally finished up the paperwork with the rental agency, I
studied vociferously the maps, trying to figure out how to get out of
Paris and out to the Normandy beaches. It took a while to distinguish
road numbers, but a quick check of the key in the corner of the map
helped me figure it out.
Sally was the assigned navigator, so I quickly briefed her on what I
had discovered. She said she was ready, so I waited for a break in the
flow of traffic and zoomed into a tight hole. I quiried her as to when
my next turn was. Her reply "I can't find Paris on this map!".
The map was a 2 foot by 3 foot sheet of paper with a 10" diameter
bright yellow circle in the middle representing Paris. My confidence
in the navigation department was shaken.
But, she quickly redeemed herself and we navigated our way out of
Paris to a main freeway and headed toward Versialles. From this point
on we could have been in Washington state. We were on freeways,
negotiating traffic jams and road construction and jumping into quicky
marts at the freeway exits for pop and goodies. The only difference
was no one spoke the same language as us so we were reduced to
"bonjour" and "merci".
Following the advice of our personal guide Rick Steves, we made it to
the WWII museum in Caen (pronounced "coh") on the Normandy coast.
Great display showing man decending into war and all the aspects of
this terrible conflict. It was a spectacular exhibit especially
because it was presented from a nuetral point of view, that is a third
party. Did not have the usual "raw, raw" patriot ferver when presented
by the US nor the down with America attitude of the Russian side. It
was very refreshing.
Camping for the night was the plan, so as we left the museum at 7:45PM
on our way to the D-Day beaches we were on the lookout for places to
camp. We drove by a sign advertising camping, did a u-turn (I am
getting good at those by now) and pulled into a quaint French chateau.
The proprietor, a sandled, t-shirted man of 50ish greeted us in the
room of the brown brick house that served as an office. A very
interesting French-English-hand signal-scribbling-pointing
"conversation" took place where upon a price of €15.40 for the night
for the three of us was decided. "Le Tour" followed. We pitched out
tent in the open field that served as a campground amidst an ancient
stone wall, farmer's crops and a few other campers and then headed for
Arramonches, a sea side town near Gold beach where the British landed.
A sunset dinner on the sidewalk at closing time, a stroll near the
beach and a look at some WWII military equipment and we returned to
our campsite by 10:30PM for bed.
Chuck
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