There is only one word that can be used to describe this Château - gigantic!
Tag: France
Château Cheverny
This Château is well known for several reasons. It is home to about 100 French hounds as the Château is a popular hunting venue. The Château also serves as the real-life inspiration for Marlinspike Hall featured in the Tintin cartoons. There is a permanent exhibition in the same building as the Trophy Room that focuses on the Tintin cartoons.
Château de Villandry
We arrived in town where the Château and parking are very well marked. We walked onto the main street and had a quick lunch before walking a very short distance to the Château. The gardens are kept hidden as you walk in to get your tickets and head towards the Château. As you walk past the Château you are rewarded with a beautiful view of the intricate gardens. They are so iconic it is like you are standing in a postcard.
Mont Saint-Michel
When you think of iconic sights in France one of two places comes to mind - the Eiffel Tower and Mont Saint-Michel. Staying in Honfleur, we were about a two and a half hour drive to Mont Saint-Michel. All of a sudden as we are driving my husband looks over and says “there it is!” - and it does just that - looks like it was just plopped there in front of you rising out of the water. It is an amazing sight to see.
Sainte-Mère-Église
If you have seen the movie The Longest Day you are familiar with the small town of Sainte-Mère-Église. You may even feel you have been there before when visiting - and you have virtually since some scenes of the movie were filmed on-site. There is a wonderful, immersive, interactive museum in town dedicated to the 82nd and the 101st Airborne Divisions who parachuted into Normandy in advance of the D-Day landings.
Bayeux Tapestry
Our trip to the Tapestry was one adventure! The Tapestry is located in a building a few blocks from the Bayeux Cathedral. We dutifully plugged the address for the Tapestry building into our GPS. The GPS sure did take us there - directly in the courtyard of the building! This is one of those times when you have to have a map with you in addition to your GPS. We eventually found our way to municipal parking lot (there is no parking for the Tapestry alone) and then found our way by foot back to the Tapestry.
Caen Mémorial Cité de L’Histoire Pour La Paix
This immense Museum can seem overwhelming to you when you first arrive, and you could definitely spend a whole day here. We had decided to spend half a day and lunch at the Museum. The Museum is divided into two sections - the world before 1945 and the world after 1945.
The French Adventure Begins
Vacations are one of our favorite things to talk about, dream about, and plan. When we started to kick around ideas for our vacation this year we quickly zeroed in on France. I immediately thought of my husband’s love of history and Normandy came to mind as one of our destinations. We then added the Loire Valley, Chartres, and Disneyland Paris on to our itinerary as we did further research and planning.
Touring Normandy’s D-Day Sites
It is impossible to visit all the D-Day sites in Normandy. We did our homework before our trip, read a lot, watched movies and documentaries, and researched travel books. After doing this we designed a day that covered highlights that interested us the most.
A Day in Rouen
We planned our day in Rouen around the walking tour in Rick Steves’ France book. Following his advice we drive into town and parked in the parking lot under the Place de Vieux Marché. This is an ideal location. You come up from the underground parking lot and are standing by the L’Église Sainte-Jeanne d’Arc. We were there on a Sunday, so had the added fun of a farmers market style market at the Vieux Marché
While I was Wandering 