NORMANDY
1 - 4 April 2005
    
   The Beaches of D-Day

   
On a Crusade:

In early April of 2005, we took a coach tour to Normandy.  For you American readers, that's in the north of France.
 Also for American readers: coach tours are brilliant.  North America is far too large for coach tours to be effective but on the continent they work a treat. 

People from all over Britain are bussed to a central hub where everyone is shuffled onto the tour bus of their choice.  They then head out for their 3 to 7 day holiday, where hotels, tours and activities are all pre-booked.  The people are very nice and the driver doubles as tour guide and general group cheerleader. Coach tours will never replace individual, do-it-yourself holidays, but they make an outstanding alternative when you don't want to have to think about anything.
 
Our particular coach tour brought us through the battlefields of  the D-Day landings and, while I'm nothing approaching an anorak on the subject, I wasn't going to turn down the opportunity for a visit.  The tour was marvelous, but this space isn't meant to be an advertisement for any particular company so I won't tell you it was Crusader Tours.

Finding France:

I've been to France before, but this was the first trip where I spent any longer than a few hours there, which gave me ample opportunity to become acquainted with French toilets and, thereby, prove my initial impressions correct.  What continues to mystify me is, with the paupacy of public toilets, you'd think they might be able to keep the few they do have up to some standard.  That being said, I must admit to having acquired a level of grudging admiration for the French (once I located a suitable toilet with recognizable porcelain fixtures, that is).

What I like most about the French is the way they hate America.  They loathe our food, refuse to speak our language and despise our president, which is why we hate them.  But if you stop to think about it, they deserve our praise, not our ire.  Never mind that the final point should make them best of buddies with a large minority of Americans, try putting yourself in their position: you're sitting in your country, minding your own business, and--assuming the German's aren't on another adventure holiday--there is hardly a movie you can view, a CD you can listen to or a television show you can watch that is in your own language.  You see your world-class cuisine being replaced by McDonald's Happy Meals™ and the language of diplomacy littered with teenspeak.  The British, to their detriment, bowed down to America and have the Starbucks, Burger King's and legions of fat children to prove it.

But the French, while the world around them plummets rapidly toward an as yet undiscovered lowest common denominator, weighed down by the bland corporate offerings of Coco-Cola and Universal Studios, refuse to take part--thereby providing us someplace to visit that is actually different from the place we left--and you have to acknowledge their tenacious spirit (okay, arrogance) in clinging to their national identity.

In France, like it or not, you can count on eating regional dishes, you can listen to people talking in their native language (try and stop them) and you can walk for blocks and never see a Starbucks or find anyplace to get a coffee to go. 
France is France and if you don't like it you can kiss their French butt and go home to your tasteless cheese, bland bread and ubiquitous, yet insipid, coffee.

And you have to admire that attitude.


The Crossing:

The French ferry companies were on strike (bloody French) so we couldn't make the crossing over the channel. Instead, we went under it, in a high tech box car on the Chunnel shuttle train.
Squeezing the coach into the train was quite a breathtaking experience. Everything is purpose-built to fit as snugly as possible (thereby leaving the least amount of room for illegal aliens to sneak into).
Contrary to what the creators of Mission Impossible The Movie would have you believe, a helicopter will not fit in there. Trust me on this.