2nd day off we go to Juno Beach

June 16th
From Etretat to Le Harve to Hanfleur-Juno Beach

To make it more clear, I am bold letters and Alex Italic

Me cranky? Why do you think that? 7am, after sleeping on a rocky mountain for 6 hours maybe… yes of course I’m cranky. It was also so damn cold!

Ok so 8:30 I cleaned up the tent, Alex made breakfast and so we started our day. Again to the small town of Etretat. Hard to find just a cup of tea. After we found a spot, bought some postcards, we saw a great looking pastry shop. After all we were in France. We had to start our day with a chocolate croissant. Delicious. Crankyness was gone

Next Stop: Le Harve

We drove the winding roads to an area in Le Harve that we thought the first stop of the titanic was. After locating the official tourist office we found we were about 200 km off.

Oh my how could we forget strawberry picking. We see a sign for Fraises and a bunch of people in a field. We knew this was for us. We did a u-ie, and pulled into a farm that had a bunch of things. We scanned the field and we were on our way. This was Syl’s first time picking berries and she was a pro. I had a slight taste test to see if these were worthy. They were. After that we picked some peas, an onion, and a radish and we were on our way after Syl peed in nature aka between the corn rows. And we brought some cidre brut. Along the way we stopped at an Aldi and got the necessities and as difficult as it was nothing more. We ended up with chorizo, baguette, herb cheese and 5 apples.

Back to Le Harve, the tourist office said we should go for a nice spot for a view would be  Les Jardin Suspendus. Aka the Suspend Garden. A view is always something we always like to see. Just walk up a hill they said. Well the usual, we got lost. We knew the general idea but couldn’t get there. We ran into a nice couple, Jean Claude and Frederick, no English but two empty bottles of wine. After a game of charades we found out we had to go back down the mountain to go back up again.

So up we went and yes it was a great view. The town so grey but yet so cozy and nice. We went a little bit more up to sit down and relax in the grass with again a good view of the ocean and the town. You may think at this point we didn’t have anything to talk about anymore. Not us. We kept talking. Subject: World War II and the real real story, we have to look into that a little mor.

Before we went down we needed to pee.

In a corner behind a bush we see a silver box labeled toilets with a ton of buttons. We think this should be easy.  But it was some kind of new age toilet  from back to the future or something. First we could not get it to open. We thought it was occupied but that the light went off but no one came out. We began to play dance dance revolution with all the buttons to see if we can guess the correct combo to open the damn door. We still had to pee and we were very far away from any kind of respectable bathroom. Finally it just opens like nothing has happened. I walk in and the thing begins to give you instructions in French how to pee. Very strange. Feeling like I was gonna get lost in this little box from the future, I was glad to escape. Now it was Syl’s turn. We managed to make it out of there alive and back down the mountain with no more issues other than hunger.

We walked to the beach, a random spot. I took Alex’s pride and joy, her knife, a small cutting board, and our baguette, herb cheese, avocado, and worst. Was it good? No it was great. Heaven. And it would become the first of many picnics. So good, just how I imagined it. Sea, beach, sun, picnic, and good company.
                                                           

Then a quick visit to the church of the town, St. Joseph’s Church of Le Harve. It was quick but no less exciting. Church was very unique in structure, with a hollow tower the goes up over 100 meters with many different kinds of colored stain glass in windows. It stood as a memorial for the 5,000 civilians who died in the conflict. We both lit a candle, and said a small thought.

After we spent longer in le Harve than we planned we had to move onto Honfleur. To get there we had to drive over this amazing bridge. It is very hard to describe. Hopefully the pictures will tell better.
                                         
The bridge is called Pont de Normandie and it is a total of 2,143.21 meters long. It is also the last bridge to cross the Seine before it reaches the ocean. The other end of the bridge puts us into Honfleur.

After much excitement in our day we parked the car in Honfleur but we were so tired we ended up paying parking to take a nap. This was the only city center that involved paid parking so we may have got our schedule slightly off. But when you need to nap, you need to nap. Next up the tourist office to get papers on everything. Good thing we did. We got many on the memorials. Feeling overwhelmed we went to a café overlooking the harbor to dissect them. We sat in the same place many painters sat in to paint the historic and picturesque little town of Honfleur.

                                                   

We gathered our plan but also realized we were far from where we wanted to end the day in order to get everything done we wanted to for tomorrow. So we hopped back on the scenic beach route, which is way longer but way prettier. Made a pit stop at a deserted beautiful beach we felt like we had all to ourselves and then we were on our way.

Feeling tired we spotted a free camper parking lot. Logically we thought we could camp in this big grass space behind the campers that was adjacent to the parking lot and after Syl set up the tent a neighbor came by and basically shook her head at us. I went up to her ask, and she assured us in French that we would get caught and that it was illegal to pitch your tent here. Yet it was ok to park your camper. Into the car we went.

It was late and the only option was for us to turn our car into our camper. So it became our kitchen, dining room, and bedroom. Next came a game of tetras to arrange ourselves, the mats and bags on the folded down seats. There was a huge gap between the trunk and the seats, you had to be a strategic sleeper and make sure your butt didn’t stuck in the gap. It gave a new meaning to mind the gap.

Before we went to ‘bed’ we walked to the beach, armed with cameras and a that bottle of cider we bought earlier. The only negative to sleeping in our car so far is the lack of toilets so pitstop to the bathroom on our way to the beach. It was only 10:30 but everyone was asleep so it was like we owned the beach again.

                        

I was actually excited to sleep in the car. With our little set up, it didn’t seem bad at all. The next morning we drove towards the more famous beaches of Omaha and Utah. It turns out we spent the night reflecting on our journey so far on the beach of Juno. Which was made famous by being the beach the Canadians and some British invaded on D-Day.

But people this is it, we found ourselves some adventure. Stay tuned for more.