Pictures! Page 26

Maureen and I had a long-awaited honeymoon in France...touring with friends, the second half.

25 May 2007 to 30 May 2007

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237 pictures

24 May 2007

We're finally on the road away from Paris in a rented Ford Galaxy that barely held our stuff and ourselves.

The port town of Honfleur. We had lunch at L'Hippocampe.

No shortage of cathedrals in France.

More town scenes.

Dinner at Le Pommier in Bayeux.

Bayeux has its own Notre Dame cathedral. With similar sculpted art.

25 May 2007

The Caen Memorial, a museum of peace. Lots of artifacts from WWII and the years just before and just after.

This wedding dress was made out of British Sgt. Emeny's parachute, who was shot down in May 1944. The wedding took place Sep 1947.

Detail map of the D-Day invasion, showing the beach section codenames.

The Nobel Peace Prize gallery in the back of the memorial.

The grounds in front of the building.

Mont Saint-Michel is an island whose surrounding water is tidal and whose land is a single mountain. Lots of climbing.

This terrace is in front of the abbey of the island.

Yikes! A long way down, visible from this grate.

I wouldn't get that close to the edge.

The Abbey has many pictoresque rooms.

A rest after all that exploring.

It's all downhill from here.

Dinner at La Confiance.

Château Bellefontaine, our temporary residence in Bayeux.

26 May 2007

Normandy D-Day sites by van tour from the Caen Memorial. Not many words can describe this.

The American Memorial, the cemetery of which was filmed in Saving Private Ryan. Ditto on indescribability.

The actual beaches and the surrounding area.

After such a solemn day, we relax at the beautiful Château Bellefontaine, where we've been staying. Okay, now that we're in a less solemn mood, our van tour driver looked like a French version of Jeremy Piven (so I of course referred to him as such with a French-ish accent ("zher'-eh-mee pi'-venh")).

27 May 2007

Chartres has its own famous cathedral named Notre Dame, this one featuring a relic -- the veil of the Virgin Mary.

Only Maureen was brave enough to climb the tower, with a good view of the town.

Only a one-night stay at Château d'Esclimont in Saint-Symphorien.

Modern sculptures adorn the grounds. The apparent tuft of hair (made of twigs) was not actually part of the sculpture (I think).

Dinner was kinda pricey but good and good-looking.

Ben psyches himself for dessert.

28 May 2007

Flavigny-sur-Ozerain, the town where Chocolat was filmed. My running joke this time was the "Ozerain" was a French-accent pronunciation of "other rain" (as in "not this rain, but the..."). When will I learn to quit?

Interesting window graffiti. I saved this for my sister-in-law.

We had an excellent and inexpensive quiche lunch at the local café, La Grange.

Our last major stop before returning to Paris was Beaune, in the Burgundy wine region. Excellent dinner at Le Conty.

29 May 2007

Wine tasting at Marché aux Vins in Beaune.

More wine tasting at Patriarche Père et Fils in Beaune.

Maureen practices her tap routine. Check out the GIF animation on her stage page.

30 May 2007

Back in Paris, we had a quick lunch at Quick, a fast-food joint like McDonalds. I had to try the currently featured "Spider-Man" burger, which had an imprinted web on the bun and extra-stringy cheese.