Sunday 24 May

Beautiful weather.

We make our way to the rental car office in the Louvre. Things don’t get off to a promising start as I panic near the hotel, think I am going around the block for a second go but end up two blocks away. Get there in the end and we load up.

On the Champs Elysees I am in the wrong lane and miss the tunnel that takes us under the Arc de Triomphe so I have to go around. Luckily it is early Sunday morning and the traffic is light. Next we miss the entrance to the Rouen motorway but find it after going around a round about twice!

A few minutes up the motorway we miss the turnoff to Rouen. Great start!!! Remember how two days ago we had been on this road going to Versailles and we had taken careful note? It’s not going well. And why didn’t we have our gps unit on? Because we thought we knew what we were doing!

We get off the motorway, have no idea where we are and end up at the French Tennis Open (Roland Garros)!!!! Find a park and get TomTom out (our gps). It doesn’t work!!! Can’t find a satellite. Now we’re in trouble. Intercept a young man on the street who speaks English and he gives us directions. We go pass the tennis again and go on and on. I resort to looking at signs BEHIND us and there is the road to Rouen so a quick u turn and we are away.

Over the next few hours we go through 4 toll booths, costing us between €2.30 and €4.70 and about $28 in total. Great roads and the kilometres melt away.

We stop at a roadside petrol station/food place. I swore after Turkey, Greece and Italy I would never go into one of these places again but they have their advantages: clean toilets, a hot drink and quick access back on to the motorway. I turned TomTom off and then on again and it worked perfectly. It even warned us that the road ahead had tolls and asked us if we wanted to take an alternative route (we said no).

It delivered us to Bayeux. We toured the tapestry (William the Bastard!) and then strolled around the town, going inside the impressive Bayeux Cathedral.

It was then a short drive to Arromanches and TomTom delivered us literally to the door of the hotel d’Aromanches. When we got out of the car we smelt the sea air – very refreshing. We were made welcome; the hotel is very small (9 rooms – we were chambre 2). No lift and a narrow, windy staircase where you had to duck your head to avoid low hanging beams. The room was basic (the place is only 2 stars) but very clean, airy and recently redecorated in light colours. The room had a very good view and the hotel is less than 50m from the beach.

We go for a stroll and decide on the appropriately named 6 Juin restaurant. On the menu is Coq au Vin which they translate as “old cock cooking with red wine sauce”! Oh the imagery!!! The meal starts well (brilliant salad with main and fromage are poor.