Parallels with the Past.

Bayeux to Caen. 47km

The forecast of rain turned out to be correct but it was fairly light in nature.

Our first visit of the day was to see the Bayeux Taoestry.  It was a good visit with an audio guide to explain the various sections of the 68 metre long tapestry and the story behind it.  

This is the section where Harold gets the arrow in his eye (he's the one standing behind the horse).

What I didn't know about the tapestry was probably made in England, probably at the behest of Williams brother who was the Bishop of Bayeux.  I suspect the was a 'spin' doctor for William to claim that Harold got his cumuppennce for breaking his promise to support Williams claim to be King of England when he had previously been to see William in Normandy.

It sounds very much like David Cameron going to The EU to get a compromise so that he could support a campaign to stay in Europe.  However he may quickly change his mind if the nation votes to leave and he may still seek to retain power!!  Maybe Boris Johnson will come and poke Cameron in the eye?

Overall, I feel that I must support William the Conqueror in his claim because our ancestor Richard Reviers (known as Richard de Vernon) came with him.  This could be basis upon which I decide to vote in June's in/out referendum, seeing that we Vernons come from France!

Alternately, I have been toting up the pro's and con's through this week of deep contemplation.  In favour of leaving, I have stacked up the intransigence of Europe to resist driving on the left side of the road, the lack of three pin electric plugs andthe propensity to eat domestic animals.  On the side of staying, we like croissants, pain aux raisen, coq au vin and 'vin' in general (in other words, food and drink is as good a way to decide as any other).

From the tapestry we went to the British War Cenetry at Bayeux.  It was not as large as the American version from yesterday but it had 4000 graves.

We set off back to the coast and had lunch at Arromanches which was the start of 'Gold Beach'.

I had...

It's pied de  porc!

We continued on to Juno Beach and Sword Beach.  These were the landing areas for British and Canadian troops.  It looked a bit bleak today in the drizzle.

Monument at Ouistreham. Peter couldn't quite push it over!

We visited the Commando Museum and had a video about the 177 French fighters who were entered into the British force on D Day.

I'm sure that's the Murray tartan?

We have managed to complete our adventure this year and had a great time with good weather.  We are staying our last night at the Cosy Hotel, so one more night snuggling up to David.  So, the Vernons will have more years in Europe.  The vote is up to you!

Overboard with Operation Overlord.

Utah Beach to Bayeux. 85km

Thankfully it wasn't so windy today.  Less sunny but it was generally warmer without the cold wind.  We checked quickly through Carentan and had coffee at Isigny sur Mer.  Then onto Grandcamp Maisy where we treated ourselves to a 'Cake by the Ocean'.

We need to keep up our calorie intake to around 6000 per day, according to extreme cyclist Mark Beaumont.  These cakes will help out for sure.

One of the many monuments on the route.

Next stop was Omagh Beach which was another landing area for American troops.

The highlight of the day was a visit to the American Cemetry at Colleville sur Mer.  It had a good museum with some heart wrenching personal stories of troops who landed at Omagh.  There were 9000 beautifully kept graves overlooking the beach.

The Vernons made a last push inland to Bayeux.  We haven't seen the tapestry yet but looked in the Cathedral which certainly gets into the Church Premier League.

The town centre looks good too.  We will go and explore tonight, we still have a couple of thousand calories to consume!

V Day Landings

Cherbourg to Utah Beach.  85km

We are relieved on two accounts.....Burnley squeezed a draw against Middlesborough with a goal in added time and Wendy hasn't mentioned anything about the Anzac biscuits mentioned in yesterday's blog.

Today we have managed to make a fairly short cycling day into a long one.  If we had cycled direct it would have been a 50km ride, however, we cycled by a coastal route against a wind gusting up to 45mph and then got  within 10km of Utah Beach and then followed a cycle route which added a further 8km unnecessarily.  The cycling by the beaches has been superb but we are fairly pooped out.

Cherbourg harbour as we left the town.

We had our coffe stop in the nice town of Barfleur, see below. 

And then our lunch at St Vaast la Houge and had a nice lunch and had oysters as a starter.

It appears that the shellfish is very local as we passed several tractors with oysters and some with cockles.

After our deviation we arrived at Utah Beach.  We have researched some of the history of the Normandy Invasion and there appear to be many similarities with that and the current V Day landings of the Vernons.  There has been a massive logistical effort to get us coordinated, including the personnel, the equipments, the transportation and the misinformation necessary to create an element of surprise.  

David was actually approached by a Frencman and thanked for saving Normandy from the Germans.  Maybe, David looked old enough to have actually been in the landings in 1944 or perhaps he just looked knackered after today's cycling?  Anyway it was nice to hear that French people still appreciated the efforts of the Allies in defeating the Nazis.  A good reason for voting to stay in Europe.

Having arrived at Utah Beach we worked out that it isn't a village, just a museum, a restaurant and a small cluster of houses.  The restaurant was closing as we arrived and we spent the next half hour trying to find our accomodation which should have been easy considering how small the place is.  It transpired it was a bed and breakfast in a house that was cunningly disguised as a house on a road covered in sand!  Having secured our bikes the owner told us there was nowhere to get food within a 6km radius.  You won't be shocked to hear that the Vernon boys stomachs overruled the objections of their legs and we cycled to the village 6km away for our evening meal.

By the at the last photo shows the monument to French General Leclerc who is celebrated as a hero for arriving victoriously on Utah Beach two months after the Americans!

Sorry to hear about Victoria Woods death.

Politique et Economique Situation!

Coutances to Cherbourg. 100km.

We didn't have many choices of where to eat last night but the restaurant that was available in Coutances was perfectly good and quite busy.  David suggested we try a cheval burger and Peter and I jumped at the chance.  The waitress asked how would like it cooked and I said 'good to soft'. It was a good job the restaurant didn't have a dressage code as we were not very groomed.   We quickly got the bit between our teeth and got on with the burger.  We munched so quickly it was a photo finish between us all.  We walked back to the hotel and 'hit the hay'.

This morning was sunny again.  Our journey didn't have any major towns enroute and was for the first section mainly on an old railway line with long gradual climbs and descents.  The second part was a series of constant ups and downs that sapped our strength.

Vernon triplets!

We met a strange guy on the route.  He looked a little familiar......

Any suggestions who it might be.  Send the van please!

We succeeded in finding a nice restaurant for our best value lunch so far.  It was 12.50 Euros for three courses.  Very nice too.  I had the lapin (rabbit) There is a theme building about eating domestic animals.  Here is picture of tomorrow's lunch....

We did a full 100 km today with some serious climbing on the approach to Cherbourg.

I have been doing more research using all my French language skills that I have learned from CD1 of Michel Thomas' French class.  In the CD he teaches me how to ask a French person about the Politique et Economique Situation en Francais?  An excellent question I hear you say.  The problem is that there is no chance that I am likely to understand the answers.  Undaunted, I am asking the very same question so that I can get an understanding of how French people might feel about a possible UK Brexit.  Having done my extensive research I have found out that 2% believe that the Economique Situation depends on the how many courses are in a menu du jour, 2% believe that it depends on the price of a pain de raisen and I couldn't understand the remaining 96%.  Whilst this shows that my French is terrible but it shows my maths is good!

It has been traditional on all our trips that Wendy provides us with a stock of Anzac biscuits.  Here is a photo of this years offering!  I am not sure what I am allowed to say about them other than they are 'lovely' despite the fact that they look nothing like the Anzac biscuits we have had in previous years.  

Stop Press - we have been out for a meal and not eaten any domestic animals!

Preliminary stage of the Tour de France

Avranches to Coutances. 78km

There's been a bit of a coup d'etat here today. I've been allowed to take control of the blog as a guest editor (Peter that is). 

Here goes ....We started below freezing at -1 C but reached the dizzy heights of 16C in the sun. Breakfasted on the pavement with Cappuccino and croissant (Sam Ridgeway will never believe me) and after initially cycling with freezing hands, thawed out as the sun radiated heat with wall to wall sunshine. 

Amazing coincidence, but this years Grand Depart starts here next year (aparently because no where special bid for it, it's been awarded here in France!). Our route has therefore included most of this years Grand Depart routes, from Mont St Michel and travelling through Avranches, Coutances, the infamous La Glacerie climb outside Cherbourg and Omagh Beach,

I hope they don't go through Avranches on a Sunday night because it will probably be closed like it was last night, despite its historic links to Thomas a Beckett and Henry II.  It was a good job we had a supply of bread, ham and runny Normandie Camembert with a nice bottle of red wine to help it down for dinner.

We lunched in the Monaco of the North, Granville, a port named because of its links to Ronnie Barker and the programme Open all Hours, and took detours to follow miles of 'La Plage'. 

Arriving in Coutances we were blown away by the Cathedral, especially as there was organ practice taking place. It's amazing that so many average French towns can contain something as delicious as a cathedral of this significance and beauty. 

Our relentless investigation into whether Britain is better in or out continues, with today's research revealing the the man on the street that we talked to in Avranches didn't really care, but did remark in his broken Anglais that he thought we had big balls! And seemed to find fault with the Russians and Americans. This continued into or morning coffee and reading the front page of today's L'Ouest which referred to Brexit as London wanting to dine a le carte but didn't want to eat the soup! Typical that the French should reference a major political decision to a good meal! But I think inferring they would be worse off without us! 

Tomorrow should bring another good weather day, more mileage on off road tracks and possibly a climb up La Glacerie into Cherbourg. 

Full English Brexit

St Malo to Avranche - 75km

I will spare you the description of the aroma of our little cabin as we arrived in St Malo but it was reminiscent of the Cheese restaurant we visited last night!

We quickly got up and visited the ferry self service restaurant and did a quick survey of the proportion of passengers who were eating the full English breakfast.  Out of those we counted how many were British and how many were French.  We felt this would be a good indication of who was in favour of leaving Europe (with the hypothesis that British people eating a full English would probably be more nationalistic and would vote to leave).  The results were that British people were split 50/50 but almost no French people would want Britain to stay in Europe because they weren't eating any English breakfast!   By the way, I had fruit salad and a croissant and therefore must favour staying in and Peter had two fried eggs and a piece of toast, suggesting that he must be undecided.  That may be as scientific as we get!  Certainly no French people on the ferry seemed to want to 'hug a Brit'.

The weather was cool but sunny.  David was rather late at the meeting point.  He had some lame excuse about his alarm being set for the weekend setting but he should have got up at a weekday time despite the fact that today is a Sunday.  Do you see what I mean about a lame excuse!

My hat is always at a jaunty angle.  We obviously put David in the shade.

We had a good start on our bikes along the coast.  We decided that our lunchtime would be Mont St Michel.  We had been here on a previous cycle trip two years ago.  It is still stunning.  We had our first lunch out.....very civilised.

The interior of the Abbey was very large and imposing but we thought it would benefit from a bit a decent furniture, some tapestries and a good lick of paint.  

The rest of the ride to Avranche was very much against the wind with some long steady climbs, especially coming into Avranche.  We are starting to come across references to the Second World War.  The hotel we are staying at is the Hotel Paton in Place de Paton, named after the American General Paton. 

I think the tank is the 'Army Surplus Special' that was in the Wackey Races driven by Sgt Blast and Corporal Meekly.  

The hotel is a 2 star, maybe because Paton was a two star general.  It is adequate for our purposes.  David and me are snuggling up again in  double bed.  It's nice to 'bond' again.  We shared a double bed till I was 7 years of age.  Sorry for giving too much information.

Sunday nights are usually very quiet in France but we will go out and see if we can find somewhere to try a verre du vin.

Let's get started.

Peter and I have travelled down through the country in search of answers to the big European questions?  Big questions, like, why didn't David Cameron demand that the rest of Europe should drive on the left side of the road if they really wanted the UK to stay in.  It works perfectly well in England!  If the rest of Europe really valued our membership surely they would have agreed to changing the ridiculous practice of driving on the wrong side!  It's such a small compromise!

We drove down to Portsmouth parked the car, loaded up the bikes and wasted no time getting into the nearest waterfront bar.  Amazingly the sun was shining.

We were notified that the ferry would sail a couple of hours late, so we took the opportunity to eat in Portsmouth.  Peter chose a restaurant called Cheese and Cheers at Southsea which had a distinctly French feel.  It certainly smelt of cheese as we entered.  We had snails and a mixed plate of cheeses....

Did I forget to mention that we had a carafe of wine or two too!

We managed to cycle the last couple of miles in darkness in a very wobbly fashion to get to the ferry.  We followed signs to the ferry and almost ended up on the ferry to the Isle of Wight.  That would have been a bit embarrassing if we woke up in the wrong port!!  I'm not sure if we could have managed to spin out a whole week's cycle holiday around the Isle of Wight and I don't know how we would have explained it to David.  

Getting on the ferry was going well.  We thought this would be a good test of UK border control standards.  We weren't frisked or searched in any way but a member of staff had the presence of mind to stop Peter videoing his entry onto the ship for security reasons.  He was obviously looking rather shifty.  We deduced that it would be fairly easy for a terrorist to travel from the UK into Europe without a search.

As we are on the ferry we are reading the newspaper and read that a new campaign has gone viral for Europeans to 'hug a Brit' to let us know that we are really valued within the EU.  I look forward to receive hugs and cuddles throughout our week of cycling, I hope I'm not disappointed.  I don't just mean the kisses that David will give us tomorrow, he has developed some continental habits already, he must have forgotten he is from Burnley!

We are very much looking forward to a good nights sleep and getting into St Malo in the morning and meeting up with 'big bro' to get the cycling going.