Solo Living, Travel, Mom Blogs!

Written by: o2bnfrance 1/12/2006 12:00:00 AM
"Destination? Lodging? Tours? I could have easily placed this under either one of those categories, but, because my September visit to France combined the best of all three, I have chosen the Blog Spot. This gives me ample space to talk about one of my favorite solo vacations ever: Specifically, to Normandy and Paris, with several side trips in between.

By now, most of you regular readers know I am a guy offering input to you Solo Ladies. But don’t assume that Normandy, France is only for us guys who like World War II battles and stuff. Omaha Beach, for example, is really a beach for doing real beach things like swimming, sunbathing, windsurfing, sandcastle building, or whatever. Many Parisians own country homes in Normandy for week-end getaways. Normandy is beautiful, and the people there are friendly and eager to share their home-made apple cider with you. That is, if you are able to consume France’s version of mountain dew – and I’m not talking about the soft drink.

What made my trip so pleasing is that I planned it out myself without any assistance from travel professionals (well, except for an article about a Normandy Bed & Breakfast in the Travel Section of the local news). I knew what I wanted to do, where I wanted to go, and what I wanted to see, so that helped a lot.

After listing all those things, I planned which order I wanted to do them. I knew that I would have enough energy when I arrived to carry me through the first day of jet-lag without any problem, so I decided that I would drive directly to Normandy from Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport upon arrival around 10:00 a.m. MapQuest.com gave me a couple of choices in driving directions. I slept a little on the plane and had plenty of coffee, but sleep was the farthest thing from my mind after a couple of months of imagination and anticipation about traveling to such an enchanting country.

After arriving and clearing customs, I boarded the Airport Holiday Inn shuttle, which took me to the car rental office inside the hotel’s lobby. By doing that, I avoided all the dozens of other renters waiting in long lines for the major rental buses, and the short ride gave me time to relax and collect my thoughts about how to begin my transaction: J'ai une reservation…. Où est-ce que l'autoroute est à Rouen? As it turned out, the people at Thrifty’s service desk preferred to speak English for my sake – darned Texas accent! Leaving the airport was as easy as following A-1 South to A-15 North, and my sleek, 2005 Peugeot was comfortable, economical, and had a sound system that would make Madeleine Peyroux proud.

I loved the drive through all the small villages scattered throughout the countryside (at this point, I will avoid the adjective “beautiful” because it applies to everything I saw). My trip grew longer than expected because I wanted to stop in so many villages just to get the feel of being in France and to visit with a few locals; Rouen, Caen, and Honfleur had to wait awhile. The villages were just as I had seen them in the World War II footage on the History Channel; but those which suffered war damage had been restored.

By 6:30 p.m., I arrived at La Lande Bed and Breakfast in Briquebec, Normandie, located south of Cherbourg and northeast of Carentan – just in time to bathe, change clothes, and join the others for a wonderful dinner. After dinner, a light rain had just started over a temperature in the low-60s, but that made the hot tea taste even better as I explored the B&B.

La Lande is run by owners, Ted and Linda Malandine, a delightful English couple, who opened the B&B in 1989. Linda was recovering from a fall, which resulted in a broken leg, so Ted pulled double duty. Ted’s father was a WWII photographer for a British news agency, and he took many of the famous photos we see in history books of Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin and of some of the battles. Ted has several photo albums of those original photos proudly displayed along with his deceased father’s cameras.

Everything at La Lande is a presentation in itself. Prior to the meals being served, the menus are dramatically announced by Ted in a manner only fitting for a British thespian. I don’t know if Ted has acting experience, but he would do well, and it certainly adds to the flair and the fare. But then, the food is so wonderful, he has a good reason to tout the meals he has prepared. Ted’s infamous D-Day tours (only for his B&B guests) take on that same excitement. While he takes his guests to the usual must-see landmarks, he also takes them to out-of-the-way places one does not see on bus tours. You get the feeling that you were a part of “The Longest Day.”

I spent two nights at La Lande and enjoyed every minute of it. My plans upon leaving the B&B to stop off at Mont St. Michel, a Gothic-style Benedictine abbey in Brittany, had to be cancelled due to a very hard rain. Rain and Mont St. Michel do not mix well. The tide rises to surround the castle, the water covers the roads in and out, and that causes the area to be wet all the time. It is hard to access even in dry weather. Therefore, I decided to go back the way I came – through Rouen – because I was familiar with that route. But that allowed me time to see the famous tapestry in Bayeux and the Joan of Arc memorial in Rouen.

When asked about the distance from Normandy to Paris, I always say that it is comparable to driving from Dallas to San Antonio in distance and time (four to five hours) – that is if you travel directly to and from the airport as I did. You don’t need – and don’t want! – a car in Paris. After dropping off the rent car, I took a cab from the airport to my Paris hotel in the Latin Quarter at a cost of 50 euros, including a tip (about $60 USD). After the drive from Normandy, it was worth paying that, rather than taking less expensive transportation such as a shuttle or the Metro.

I came across the Hotel de la Sorbonne (a “hidden gem,” according to tripadvisor.com) while searching the web for Paris hotels. And, indeed, it turned out to be a “hidden gem.” While searching the Internet, I found comments from people who had stayed at various Paris hotels and who had volunteered to give further feedback regarding their hotel experience. I inquired about a different hotel, but when one person responded back, she recommended the Hotel de la Sorbonne instead, because it was in an area that was “more typical Paris.”

She was right. I will definitely go back to the small, but clean and quiet rooms at the Hotel de la Sorbonne, where the friendly staff speaks English and is eager to advise and help you. Located directly across a quiet and seldom-used side street from the Sorbonne University, the hotel is in the right place for walking to shops, restaurants, entertainment, transportation, and the Luxembourg Gardens. And the Gardens is where I began each morning with a pleasant jog around it before returning back to the hotel for pastries, juice, cereals, and excellent American coffee.

A few blocks south of the hotel, just past the Panthéon, is the best pizza in Paris that only the locals know about. A westerly walk of ten or twelve blocks takes you to Café Le Flore for a slightly more expensive crab leg omelet. Of course, surrounding Café Le Flore, on rue Sainte Germaine, are dozens of other eating establishments, all serving excellent food. Three or four blocks north of the hotel are the Seine River, the Notre Dame, and the Sainte Michel Metro station. From the Metro station, one can get to anywhere he/she wants to go in Paris or outside of Paris, such as visiting Versailles.

A couple I had met in Normandy looked me up in Paris and treated me to a nighttime cruise down the Seine. It was fun, because it was filled with passengers in high spirits, happy students singing French songs, and people from all over the world. Each barge holds a bank of floodlights to light up the landmarks at night, and on cool evenings, birds fly alongside the barges to take advantage of the warmth from the lights. My walk back to the hotel that night generated new life within me, and it demanded a stop at Le Caveau de la Huchette, where jitterbug, swing, jive, and bebop still live from sundown to sunup. In Paris, you don’t want the nights to end, and you keep looking for things to do. A block from my hotel, a lone jazz guitarist entertained late (or early) diners outside a sidewalk café. There happened to be one vacant table; I sat down, drank a Heineken, and listened.

My last four days in Paris were spent seeing all the usual tourist attractions. The time of year was perfect, and so was the weather. Although there were a few early morning clouds, I left the rain back in Normandy, and each day in Paris turned out to be sunny, mid-September days with mid-seventies temperatures. Although that time of year is supposed to be a popular time for convention groups to come to Paris, the crowds were small, and the summer tourists had left plenty for us to do and see without the long lines that one experiences in the summer months. My wait to get inside the Louvre Museum was two minutes.

The trip was very affordable and worth every euro. I usually don’t mind traveling alone, but in Paris, at times, I needed somebody nearby just so I could say, “Wow, did you see that?” But, in Paris, there is usually somebody nearby to respond, “Yes, isn’t it amazing?”

In Paris, you are never solo.

Au revoir,
o2bnfrance
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