Part 1…A day in Normandy..Profoundly moving experience…

The Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial.

Tom has always been the war buff in this family. His knowledge of wars astounds me at times. Having never taken a particular interest in past wars, other than feeling pride and compassion for our loyal soldiers, I didn’t expect I’d find the 10 hour day exploring Normandy interesting.

The region of Normandy is rich in history and charming for its appealing French architecture of the century’s past.

Not only did we both find visiting Normandy interesting, but our hearts were embraced by the way France and the US have maintained a peaceful and respectful tribute to our fallen soldiers from World War II.

Of course, we’re anxious to share some of the many photos taken throughout the day. Unfortunately, we just returned from our small group of eight chartered tour and time is short. 

The fog rolled into the Normandy region as shown in our early morning two-hour drive

It’s almost 7:45 pm Monday evening and our dinner reservation is at 8 pm tonight leaving little time to complete today’s post with photos before getting changed and ready for dinner. Most likely, we’ll return to our cabin after 10:00 pm tonight with another early morning chartered tour. Sleep will be the first priority.

As in many other areas of Europe, many of the homes and buildings are attached, each with its own definitive front.

This Thursday will be our first “sea day” and Friday, our second, during which I’ll finally have time to complete Parts 2 for today’s, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays tours. As a result, over the next few days, there will be a short post each day with only a few photos with more following upon completion, each of which will be clearly marked as to the event and part number.

Once these are posted, we’ll be back to our normal daily schedule with many sea days as we sail across the Atlantic Ocean sharing information as to the ship, the wonderful people we’ve met, the activities, and of course, many food photos.

The area is filled with tourists from all over the world.

Please check back tomorrow at about this same time for Part 1 of the short post regarding Tuesday’s chartered tour to the Stonehenge in England. By far, this will be the busiest cruise we’ve ever experienced, and look forward to sharing details with our readers.

Be well.

Photo from one year ago today, September 1, 2013:

The final goodbye to the house in Boveglio as we began the drive to Venice to spend the night and begin the 22 hour flight to Kenya.  For details of that date, please click here.

Leaving London…Heading to Harwich to the pier…We’ll be posting later today…Cruise itinerary here today…

Our usual photo post for today will be online 6 to 8 hours later than usual, which will contain photos of our ship and our cabin. If we spot anything special on the 2.5-hour drive to the pier, we’ll certainly include those photos as well.

We both look forward to sharing our exciting adventures on our upcoming transatlantic cruise on Royal Caribbean’s Brilliance of the Seas over 14 nights.

Over the next several mornings we’ll be leaving the ship on private tours to the following locations with more to follow:

1.  Monday: Normandy, France – American beaches and cemeteries from World War II.
2. Tuesday: Portland, England – Stonehenge
3. Wednesday: Cork, Ireland – Blarney Castle

On these three days, we’ll make every effort to post late in the day when we return with photos from the tours. On each of these three days, we’ll be leaving the ship at 8:00 am, not returning until 6:00 or 7:00 pm with a mad rush to the dining room for dinner. 

In the worst case, we’ll upload a short post explaining when we’ll be back with full posts on each of these experiences, including photos of our upcoming tour in Iceland to see the Northern Lights. We’ll be out to sea for several days and we’ll have plenty of time to upload complete posts of these experiences.

Here’s the actual ship’s itinerary:

DAY DATE PORT ARRIVE   DEPART
Sun Aug 31 London (Harwich), England 5:00pm
Mon Sep 1 Paris (Le Havre), France 7:00am 9:00pm
Tue Sep 2 Portland, England 7:00am 4:00pm
Wed Sep 3 Cork (Cobh), Ireland 10:00am 4:30pm
Thu Sep 4 At Sea
Fri Sep 5 Klaksvik, Faroe Islands 9:00am 6:00pm
Sat Sep 6 At Sea
Sun Sep 7 Reykjavik, Iceland Noon
Mon Sep 8 Reykjavik, Iceland 5:00pm
Tue Sep 9 At Sea
Wed Sep 10 At Sea
Thu Sep 11 At Sea
Fri Sep 12 At Sea
Sat Sep 13 At Sea
Sun Sep 14 Boston, MA 6:00am

If for any reason, we don’t have a post later today, it will be due to WiFi connectivity issues. We’ll have access to both the ship’s signal and XCOM Global’s MiFi. Hopefully, we won’t have issues with either.

We look forward to sharing our experiences with you in these exciting locations. Thank you to each and every one of our readers worldwide. We always feel as if you are traveling along with us.

There was no post from one year ago on this date: