After spending a night in Arromanches, and finding out that all places of business close at 9pm except an "irish pub", we head the next morning to Caen. The route was short and sweet and without bike troubles for the second day in a row. Just a few hills, fields, and château's and we arrived in Caen, by far the largest city on the trip thus far.
First thing after buying chapstick, which strangely enough is just called "lip balm" in french (finding this out after describing lip chappedness in french extensively), we picked up some lunch and made our way to the WWII memorial museum. It was quite interesting to see the actual photographs and descriptions of the cities that we had just traveled through during war time including almost completely destruction in most accounts. Normandy definitely paid the cost of liberation for the rest of the country/continent.
Post-museum led to a general wandering of the city including a downtown château, Eric having a complete (1-way) conversation in french with the hotel staff, and patés of mysterious but wonderful flavors (this chosen instead of lasagna rolls at Pizza Hut).
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| Caen cityscape from the top of the chateau |
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| Caen harbor |
We left Caen this morning for the hardest ride of the trip, around 90 km, but all uphill...way uphill. We did some topographic confirmation the night before, but nothing prepared us for the endless uphill climbs and impending thigh burning that would ensue. Thankfully we had enough snickers and baguettes to pull us through. After a very long ride, we made it to Villedieu-des-poêles. It seems Henry-I sent some knights to this town in the 1100's to teach the local people how to work metal and copper, and they've been working it ever since. It's a fairly small town, especially compared to Caen.
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