I’m sorry to have taken so long to get back but somehow I logged off my blog and couldn’t remember my password and so last night I texted Zach and he texted back my password and I’m back in business. 

We spent a lovely two days at a wonderful hotel called Hotel Manoir de Rigourdaine outside Dinan.  The innkeeper was a lovely man and very helpful.  We visited Dinan and St. Malo. In Dinan we visited the Basilique Saint-Sauver built in the 12th century.  We had lunch at a nice restaurant and had galettes, which are buckwheat pancakes. Barbara and Lola enjoyed them alot.  St. Malo was destroyed by the Germans during WWII.  Over 80 percent of the city had to be rebuilt. We had two lovely dinners at a restaurant called Le Cale and had a wonderful young waiter named Clement.  After dinner he bought us an after dinner drink: run and vanilla.  It was fabulous. 

Now we are in a town called Chinon.  We don’t like our hotel so it looks like we are moving.

I am unable with my limited skills to add pictures to the blog.  So we are so lucky to have Zach Buttram posting our pictures.  I email him the pictures and he posts them.  Thank you Zach, for your help.

We started the day in sunny Honfleur and packed up and headed to Mt. Saint Michel.  We arrived and it was windy, rainy and cold.  We parked the car and walked to the Information Office only to discover  that we had a long, long walk to get to a shuttle bus.  The lady at the Information Office said it was an eight minute walk.  Okay.  You try walking in the cold wind and rain for eight minutes; not an easy feat.  We rode the bus as far as it would take us and then we had to walk even further in the cold, wind and rain.  At this point I realized what a hard job it is to be a tourist.  Here we are at the most famous beautiful place in France and we had to walk approximately 20 minutes in the wind and rain to get to the entrance.  We had lunch in a little restaurant and the rain had stopped so we continued.  This was a big walk up many, many stairs.  We quickly realized there was no way Barbara could walk up the stairs and Susan stayed back with Barbara and Lola continued up the countless stairs.  I decided to wait for Barbara and Susan and then a huge group of tourists passed and after they passed I couldn’t see Barbara or Susan or Lola.  OMG.  I am alone.  So, I just continued up the endless stairs (over 100 steps of endless sizes).  I paused several times.  I reached a plateau and there Lola was.  She said we had another 100 steps to go: no hand rails and people everywhere.  “A woman knows her limitations.”  So, we turned around and headed back down.  Now we had to take the long, long walk back to our car.  We went to the Information Office and we could not find our parking ticket.  We can’t leave until we find it.  So, we went back to the car to look for the ticket.  After a frantic search we found the ticket in my purse.  Lola walked back to pay the 3 Euro fee only to find out it was 3 Euros an hour so we owed 8.5 Euros.  Thank goodness she had taken extra money with her.  The lady at the Information Office said we had to find the ticket to get out and we asked what would happen if we couldn’t find it and she asked if we could cook as we couldn’t leave.  I really think she was joking but Lola told her we don’t cook anymore.  We are now in our warm room drinking wine and talking about dinner.

We got up so early this morning to go to the Normandy Memorial Museum in Caen.  The girl at the tourist information in Honfleur said to be there by 9:00.  We were but the tour had already left.  You had to make reservations the day before and no one mentioned that.  We had breakfast and then toured the museum.  Then we got in the car and drove to the American Cemetery.  We entered and from the cemetery you can see Omaha Beach.  We were looking at the view and taking pictures and I notice Lola hugging someone.  I walked over and there was Laura Hershey, a gal we play golf with at SeaPines.  How incredible is that?  We all hugged Laura.  As we were walking around the cemetery we heard “The Star Spangled Banner” being played.  I was walking with Barbara and we froze and put our hands over our hearts.  I must say it is very emotional to be standing where thousands of young American boys are buried and hear the national anthem.  Then they played taps.  I took many pictures and I wanted to get a picture of a Star of David grave marker and went to the closest one.  Would you believe the last name was Taylor?

Wednesday we drove along the coast line from Honfleur to Merville-Franceville plage.  Our day was filled with half timbered houses and breath taking views.  We stopped to see a beautiful church in Villers-Sur-Mer.  We had lunch at Hastings in the village of Cabourg.  Our waiter spoke English and translated the menu for us.  He was kind and also very handsome.  He said he had been to New York and bought French wine there for the same prices as it costs in France.  I have to say that Susan is a fabulous driver but on ocassion she did get lost but we eventually reached all our destinations.  She doesn’t trust our Garmin.  We drove home and had dinner that evening at Cote Resto in Honfleur.  Barbara ordered lobster and here is the picture for Kendall.