from the void

New beginnings

August 13th, 2007

For some time now, I’ve been completely unable to update my blog because our friends over at Google are becoming too big for their boots. Why change something that doesn’t need changing? Anyway, whatever the problem was with Blogger I had no inclination to fix it, so I jumped on the bandwagon and got myself out of there. Here I am now, all shiny and new, powered by WordPress. There is still a lot of cleaning up to be done, namely in the categories and the headings of the posts I imported, but we’ll get there eventually and for now I’d like to try to settle back into a habit of blogging regularly. I’m not sure that I’ll be able to import my old comments, but so be it.

So what’s new? Well, Remi and I spent a couple of weeks in early July roaming around the Loire Valley and Normandy. The Loire Valley is also known as the Valley of the Kings - not to be confused with the original Valley of the Kings in Egypt - because of its numerous châteaux that, over time, usually served as holiday houses for the French royal families or important noblemen. You could probably spend two whole weeks in that region and still not see everything there is to see, so we limited ourselves to two of the most beautiful and notable châteaux: Chambord and Chenonceau, before continuing on our way to Normandy.

It’s difficult to talk about Normandy without sounding like you’re giving a history lesson, so I’ll try to keep it short. Among the things Normandy is known for are unpredictable weather, the Mont Saint Michel (though the Bretons contest ownership), and dairy cows. The world at large, however, will no doubt always remember it as the site of the famous D-Day landings on 6 June 1944, when the Allied forces began their liberation of Europe. Reminders of that day and the days of bloody battle that followed are found all along the Normandy coast: memorials, ever-present American flags, landscapes scarred by shellfire, and bunkers and blockhouses dot beaches and neighbouring fields. Indeed, Remi’s father bought a piece of land with a bunker on it and he has since converted the bunker into an underground kitchen, larder and spare room in which we slept on the night we arrived. It had rained so much over June, however, that when we awoke the next day, water was rising up through the inches-thick cement floor. We didn’t waste a moment in moving to the greenhouse where we slept for the remainder of our stay.

Between fishing and picking up shells, we did some sightseeing and visited Omaha Beach, Utah Beach, Pointe du Hoc (if you’ve ever played Medal of Honour on PlayStation 2, this is where it is set), the German and American war cemeteries, the first villages to have been liberated - sites of the first parachutist landings. Being in all these places was an incredibly moving experience. If you’ve managed to watch Saving Private Ryan the whole way through, you might have an inkling of what it would have been like for these young men who fought there and how some of them, a lot of them still unknown, left their lives there. Some of the deceased’s family members visit Normandy on a regular pilgrimage, others return to remember their fallen comrades. In one café we stopped at, survivors who had come back decades later had signed the tables and walls, some of them leaving little comments, all of it very touching.

On our way back to Toulouse, we stopped at the Mont Saint Michel and celebrated our 3-year anniversary with a seafood lunch in one of the terrace restaurants, overlooking the magnificent low-tide view. Be sure to check out all of the pictures in the galleries section. Remi will no doubt have some better ones up shortly, so I’ll keep you updated on that.

I have also finally added a link to the Lourdes photo album. This was long overdue since my friends Katie, Brian and Tomi and I visited Lourdes on Easter Monday. Better late than never, they say!

I also celebrated another birthday on 25th July and, for my 33 years, friends and loved ones pitched in to buy me a spanking new compact digital camera, so no doubt you’ll be seeing a lot more photos from now on. My other camera is still great, but just too big and bulky to take everywhere.

Last week I got a lovely surprise in the form of an e-mail from an old friend, Russana. We had lost touch some years ago, so it was great to get a nudge from her. She sounds happy and well… I certainly hope we manage to keep in touch this time.

Lastly, if you haven’t seen Transformers yet, do so. And if you get a chance to see it on the big screen, even better!

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Entry Filed under: Travel