I spent the first day travelling to the coast of Northern Ireland, the Giant’s Causeway and Belfast, and then the next two days in Dublin.

The Giant’s Causeway

Apparently, some scenes from Game of Thrones were filmed here, but I wouldn’t know because I am like the only person who doesn’t watch it!

Cows!

The northern coast of Ireland reminds me of what the northern coast of France in Normandy looked like.  I guess maybe it’s because the Irish part used to be part of the main continent and broke off a long time ago.

Not sure what the big deal of this bridge is, but I guess it was scenic.  Apparently the bridge is famous or something?

The coolest part was definitely the Giant’s Causeway.  Not sure where the giant nor the causeway are, but still cool nonetheless.

It’s pretty amazing how these rock formations formed naturally.

On our way back, we stopped in Belfast for a brief tour.

Belfast

In Belfast, the tour guide took us around to show us the history of the conflict between the nationalists (mostly catholics) and the unionists (mainly protestant).  Even today, there is still a clear separation between the two.

There’s even a wall painting of King William III, who was a Protestant who fought several wars against the Catholic king of France, Louis XIV.

Even today walls still separate catholics and protestants.

That night, we went back to Dublin.

Dublin

What is a trip to Europe without seeing a cathedral of some kind? This was at Christchurch Cathedral.

The coolest thing was the preserved cat and mouse.  The story is that the cat chased the mouse into an organ pipe and got stuck, and was perfectly preserved somehow.

I visited yet another castle in Europe, but I honestly think these kinds of things are really getting old.

Not far from the castle is Temple Bar, probably a giant tourist trap, but it really does have a lot of cool bars and restaurants.

There’s also the iconic Ha’penny Bridge. Not sure why it’s iconic, but it is.

There’s also the Spire of Dublin (in the back behind all the construction garbage), which awesome nicknames like “the erection at the intersection”, or “the stiletto in the ghetto”.

Yet another touristy thing: going to the Guinness Storehouse… and having a Guinness.

… and enjoying the view.

That’s it for Dublin!

Photo albums:

• Giant’s Causeway
• Belfast
• Dublin

On the highest point of the ridge stands the memorial. On the base of the memorial, the names of the Canadian soldiers who were missing/presumed dead are inscribed.

One of the strategic purposes of this area (so called Hill 145) was that it served as a vantage point.

One of the strategies during World War I was the use of trenches to defend against enemy attack. Some of the trench networks have been preserved.

The tour guide explained that the trench networks are not perfectly straight because if an enemy force were to attack the trench, neither side could have perfect line of sight through the entire trench line.  At the same time, the height of the trench in the rear is slightly lower so that artillery shells may glide over, rather than bouncing off the trench wall and landing in the trench.

Looking out of the trench, one can see the so-called “No man’s land“. Neither side could freely move here without danger of getting fired upon. This area was once littered with mines, barbed wire, and corpses among other things. Repeated artillery bombardment and mine detonations created large craters in the terrain, which are still visible today. An electric fence still blocks the way into the no man’s land since there are still live mines here today.

The Canadian divisions transported personell and supplies through an underground tunnel, which a part of is also preserved. During the war, it was also way darker than shown in the picture and also infested by critters like rats. It was also quite common for some soldiers to sleep here.

For reference, this is what the battlefield looked like at the time (courtesy of Wikipedia).  It is pretty hard to see the resemblance between the historical pictures and what it looks like today.  Part of the reason is also that only a portion of the battlefield was preserved and the rest of it was redeveloped.

In Social Studies class in high school, I had learned about this place and its significance to Canada. I had seen a lot of World War II sites during my time in Europe, but this is one of the few times where I see a site related to World War I.

Link to the Vimy Ridge photo album

Sainte-Mère-Église

Quite a lot of fighting happened in this town during the Battle of Normandy. As a tribute to the paratroopers, there is now a model of a hanging paratrooper on the side of the church.

This place was also featured as a mission in the Call of Duty Series and here too I could see a lot of resemblance.

Museum of the Airborne

This museum is dedicated to the paratroopers during the Battle of Normandy. The biggest exhibit there was the C-47, the plane that the paratroopers flew in before they dropped.

The museum is situated just outside the church in the city centre.

La Fière

The guide explained that at the time, during the Battle of Normandy, the water level was much higher and the bridge was the only way across the river. The American paratroopers withstood fierce German counterattacks before they finally defended the bridge successfully.

As always, there is a monument of some sort.

Utah Beach

This was probably one of the beaches with the lightest amount of fighting, relatively as opposed to Omaha beach.  The bunkers here are also gone just like at Omaha.

Here’s a pretty artistic shot of a Flak 88 and the horizon.

Angoville-au-Plain

This church was a field hospital during the Battle of Normandy. The guide said the church was built around 425 AD, but other sources say its from the 12th century.

In the church, there are still some scars from the fighting. In particular, there is a patched up hole from where a mortar shell once dropped. It seems it was stuck in the ceiling and never exploded.

Some of the church pews still have blood stains on them.

Driving Back to London

On the way back to London, we stopped at the Canadian World War I memorial at Vimy Ridge. After that, we drove back to France. At the border, the British border guard gave us such a hard time. She kept asking questions like, “why are you travelling?”, “where are you getting the money for this trip?”, “what do you do for a living?”, etc. I didn’t think we looked that suspicious.

When we first drove to France, Edward drove for most of it, but on the way back, I wanted to try driving in London just to see what it felt like. Every moment of the drive was quite stressful for me.

The weird part was that because the lanes are narrower, the driver almost always naturally leans to the left side of the lane and the left side mirror is over the lane divider.  Through construction sites, we’d drive past the orange traffic cones and if those were a tad bit taller, the mirror would have hit them.  We both ran up the curb a few times during the drive too. Luckily, we returned the car in one piece and without and scratches or dents.

Links to photo albums:

• Normandy
• Normandy (Edward’s Photos)

We took the Euro Tunnel crossing into France.  It is an underground train that cars can board that takes commuters across the English Channel.  It only took about 20 minutes and it departed from Folkestone to Calais.

The drive into Normany is quite nice too. We were a bit sad that the car’s (Volkswagen Golf TDI) top speed was only 180 km/h though (we tested that).

Our hotel was in Caen, and in the next morning we drove to Bayeux to meet the tour group. Our tour guide was a native from Normandy who used to serve in the French military. He knew quite a lot of the history behind the Battle of Normandy, so he was a really great guide.

When I got out of the car, I could immediately feel my allergies acting up.  Within a few minutes, my nose was extremely plugged and my eyes were itchy.  Worst of all, I left my medicine at the hotel.  My allergies stayed with me for the entire day.  It was the worst allergic reaction I’ve had in recent memory.

Longues-sur-Mer Battery

The first stop were the gun batteries at Longues-sur-Mer. It was part of Germany’s Atlantic Wall coastal fortifications.

The line of batteries were just situated on a large grass field.  There wasn’t really anything else in the area other than other bunkers that were part of the fortification.

Omaha Beach

I was surprised to see that the bunkers at Omaha Beach had all been taken away. Apparently the locals disposed of them since they didn’t want to keep such structures from their foes to stay.

The guide explained that the attack on D-Day began while the beach was at high tide, which meant the soldiers had to wade through more water than they would have during low tide. This meant the soldiers were slower and had a greater danger of drowning. Because of this, the American forces that invaded took heavy casualties. The guide also mentioned that a huge factor that caused the Germans to lose the battle was that they were running out of ammunition after killing so many attackers.  The water ran red for days.

Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial

Many soldiers who died during the Battle of Normandy are buried here. The fallen soldiers’ next of kin were given a choice as to whether the burial would take place in the US, or overseas.

The site was quite large. It probably took about 10-15 minutes to walk from one side to the other.

Pointe du Hoc

During the battle, the soldiers had to scale these cliffs just to get to the enemy and they did this while getting shot at.

I remember playing Call of Duty 2 a long time ago and there was a mission about this very battle. The bunker here was modeled pretty much the same too.

Before the battle began, the air force and navy heavily bombarded this area and so there are many craters here. After so many years, grass has grown over them.

The Hedgerows

The guide explained that while the Allies were gathering intelligence for their invasion planning, local French people had told the Allies that there’d be lots of hedgerows to watch out for. It never occurred to the Allies that the hedgerows in France were significantly taller than the hedgerows that they were used to and so they thought the soldiers could see over them. Nope, they’re way taller than a standing person.

When the paratroopers landed in the night, a lot of them couldn’t find each other. The Germans used this to their advantage and set many traps in and around the hedgerows.

To Be Continued…

Since this post is already getting quite long, I’ll be continuing the rest of the Normandy trip in a second post.

Links to photo albums:

• Normandy
• Normandy (Edward’s Photos)

This post is dedicated to how we almost got stranded in Normandy and “misdropped” just like the American paratroopers on D-Day Minus 1 back in 1944. We were right where we were supposed to be, but nothing else was.

Getting to Normandy

Having researched this part before leaving for France, I knew that trains ran from Paris to Caen from Paris Saint Lazare Station. And with our EURail Pass, we could just board any of these trains freely and go at whatever time we wanted. I had booked a hotel in Saint Lo, and the plan was to visit Caen, and then get to Saint Lo in the evening.

Caen

Caen was a city with a rich history, but I only knew it from the Battle of Caen during the larger Battle of Normandy in 1944. While here, I saw a lot of war memorials and architecture leftover from the days of William the Conqueror.

The city itself was very beautiful and really had a French vibe. Unlike Paris, this place isn’t as frequented by tourists. And also the French people here are a lot less snobby and more nice to foreigners. People in Normandy also seem to have immense respect for Americans and the British.

I also got to see the horse statue that always appears in World War II games that feature Caen in it (e.g. The Caen map in Day of Defeat). I’m not sure if it’s the same horse statue, but this one sure reminded me of it.

After staying for a bit in Caen, we decided to go to Saint Lo. In order to do that we had to make a stop in Bayeux and make a transfer.

Bayeux

This is where the shit started to hit the fan. We arrived in Bayeux just to find out that all the buses were closed and there were no more trains going to Saint Lo until 11 at night. By the time we arrived in Bayeux it was around 9:30. We weren’t even sure if that train at 11 was even going to come. The only solution to get to Saint Lo was with a taxi. We looked around the station and saw a bunch of advertisements for D-Day beach tours until we finally found a number for a taxi. When the taxi driver came, he told us that it would cost a lot of money to get to Saint Lo from where we were. So then we tried to look for a place to stay in this city, but since D-Day is a high season for tourism in Normandy, it proved impossible to find a hotel/hostel with room for us. In the end we had to take the taxi anyway. When we called for a taxi the second time, the same taxi driver came back to pick us up too. It was kind of strange. Before actually picking us up, the taxi driver told me he’d come back in five minutes and then ten minutes later he was still not back. I called out in frustration, “five minutes my ass!”, and then a minute later, the taxi driver came back.

While looking for a place to stay, we wandered around time wondering what we were going to do. But even in our crisis, I somehow still kept a really chill attitude on the outside, although I was quite frustrated on the inside. I was still in the mood to take lots of photos though. While walking around, one of my friends broke out in song and started singing a song about how we were “lost in the middle of nowhere.”

Saint Lo

As the taxi entered Saint Lo and started driving to the outskirts of the city, we realized that the hotel we booked was in the middle of nowhere. Even though it was 7 km from the city center, the town only had a population of about 20000 people. The man at the hotel greeted us and checked us in. Inside the hotel we found pamphlets for the city bus that we would use to go to the city center the next day. And from there, we’d take a train/bus to a nearby town and go to the D-Day beaches. Looking further into the pamphlets, I discovered that the bus wouldn’t run on Sunday. It just so happened that we arrived on Saturday night. That sucked a lot.

The next morning, I asked the man at the hotel how to get to the city center and to the D-Day beaches and using his heavy French accent (it was kind of cool to hear), he told us that the only way to do it was using a taxi. That was definitely not the answer I wanted to hear. Before coming to France, I was under the misconception that the trains here would be well connected and that transportation to the D-Day beaches would not be a problem so I did not plan my transportation in Normandy in such detail. It was more of a “figure it out when we get there” sort of thing.

Rather than taking a taxi, we tried to walk to the city center and about 15 minutes into our walk, we all kind of got tired of walking and didn’t feel like walking 7 km, so we went back to the hotel to call a taxi. Luckily, the man at the hostel was very helpful (probably the nicest French guy I’ve come across), and he gave us the phone number for the taxi in the city. When we arrived at the Saint Lo train station via taxi, we found that there were no trains running to where we wanted to go. That is when we figured, “okay, maybe it’s time to get outta here.” We looked at the train departures again, and the next train to Caen wasn’t until 3 PM, and it was only 10 AM or so when we arrived at the Saint Lo station. We decided that the best plan of action now was to just cancel our second night at the hotel and go back to Stuttgart.

Instead of taking a taxi back to the hotel, we walked back to the hotel, cancelled our second night’s stay and walked back to the train station. Luckily the nice Frenchman at the hotel did not penalize us for cancelling our second night. I’m sure he realized that we were all having a hard time trying to arrange transportation to the beaches.

Using the time we had before our train, we walked around Saint Lo. The weather that day matched pretty much exactly what the weather was in ’44 and for me it felt kind of cool to see that the weather had stayed so constant over the years. The morning was cold and foggy, just like back then. For most our time in Saint Lo, we walked around with umbrellas. While walking around town, there was literally no one on the street except us. I guess everyone goes to church on Sundays and then goes home in Normandy.

Even though our plans didn’t work out, we did see a few cool things in Normandy like many of the war memorials and war damage that the city chose to leave behind and not repair. A good example is of the Notre-Dame here that kept some of the damage like the missing church tower to show others of the damage that the church suffered. Apparently over 90% of homes in Saint Lo were destroyed during the war.

If our plans had worked out, we would have been able to visit Carentan, and see the live paradrop in the nearby town of Sainte-Mère-Église. Then afterward, we planned to make our way to Omaha Beach, Pointe du Hoc to be exact. If our plans in Normandy had worked out, we would have even gone to Brussels afterward. Instead, I never got the chance to see any of the beaches and came home a day early. If I ever come back here, I’ll be sure to take a car.

Photos:

• Caen
• Bayeux
• Saint Lo

Because I didn’t manage to see some of the attractions when I went to Paris the first time around, I went again. In this trip, I went to Paris as well as Normandy. This post only talks about Paris and I’ll write one later about Normandy. Even though it was my second visit to Paris, most of the sights I saw this time around were different.

Getting there

Since our trip involved going to Normandy, this meant that we needed to buy tickets using the French railway company rather than Deutsche Bahn. In order to avoid that, I used a EURail pass to go everywhere. However, since the EURail pass doesn’t come with train seat reservations, we had to go buy one for our train to Paris. It just so happened that the only train available for reservation was the City Night Line. We should have reserved seats for the train earlier than two days before. My friend and I managed to get the last two spots on the train. The third person we went with still had to buy his train tickets and ended up on a train that left earlier that night. This meant that we had to look for him once we arrived in Paris. When we got to Paris, we looked everywhere in the station for him and couldn’t find him. We couldn’t call him either because of the change in cellular network when leaving Germany.

Rather than waiting for him to show up we just proceeded to the hostel. I went to buy tickets from the lady at the ticket window and tried to buy day tickets for the Metro. Luckily, I had prepared for this due to my prior experience in Paris before. I had looked up the phrase in French for this and bought the tickets successfully. I managed to do this using only French. When I asked for the student discount the lady there asked me how old we were. Luckily I still remembered random French vocabulary from Grade 5 and I knew how to answer the question.

Once we got to the hostel and dropped everything off, we found that the check in time wasn’t until later in the afternoon. Finally, I got a text message from the friend we were trying to find and apparently he had been in the train station the whole time, but we somehow couldn’t find him. We went back to the station to get him and brought him back to the hostel.

The check-in process for our hostel was quite painful since the guy at the front desk looked like he tried to work as slow as possible. In order to check people into their rooms, each person had to fill out a form telling the hostel staff their names, nationality etc. Using the slowest work efficiency, he handed out the forms to one party at a time. It also didn’t help that the party ahead of us were a bunch of snobby American girls from Texas (they were probably even slower than the guy at the front desk). Once we filled out the forms, the guy would take his sweet time looking through the files to find our reservation while watching a Tennis game on the side. It look almost 45 minutes for us to check in. After checking in though, we began to see tourist attractions.

Arc de Triomphe

Although it was my second time coming here, I could still admire the beauty of the structure. It represented many of Napoleon’s victories and also featured many of his generals. On the ground directly underneath the arc, are plaques remembering the most recent wars that France fought in. Also there is a plaque of General de Gaulle’s radio speech to the French people over BBC. Near it is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Avenue des Champs-Élysées

One end of the street is the location of the Arc de Triomphe, but on the opposite end is the location of the Louvre. We walked along this street for a little bit and stopped whenever we saw something cool. We ended up passing by the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais. We also passed a bridge that had statues made of gold. Near the bridge, a couple was taking wedding photos. They definitely chose a wonderful place to do that. This is where we left the Champs-Élysées and walked across the street to the Invalides.

Les Invalides

This palace consists of museums and monuments that relate to the military history of France. It is also a hospital and a retirement home for war veterans. A few well known attractions there are Napoleon’s Tomb and the Museum of the Army.

Chapel of Saint-Louis-des-Invalides

The chapel here also matches the look of the exterior of the palace itself. It was inspired by Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

Famous Tombs

The most notable tomb here is most definitely Napoleon’s. His sarcophagus sits in the center and directly beneath the dome of the Invalides. Among others buried here are some of his family and other French war heroes such as General Foch (he is the one who described the Treaty of Versailles in 1918 as an “armistice for 20 years”).

Musée de l’Armée

The Museum of the Army had exhibits that pretty much described all of France’s military history. We didn’t have enough time to see every exhibit so we only saw the exhibits on World War I, World War II, and France during the Medieval Age. Since we were all technically residents of the EU according to their definition (we each hold a student visa), they granted us free admission into the museum.

The exhibits on the two world wars had so many cool things to show. In addition to teaching the history of the wars, they also showed many weapons used in the wars. I got to see World War I and II era weapons, artillery, uniforms etc. They even had a V2 rocket. They also had a Nazi flag on display as well – something that people don’t ever see in Germany (even in museums).

The exhibits on the Medieval Age showed a large range of armour worn by warriors and even the armour used by their horses. The best part about this exhibit was that each set of armour had a different design in a variety of sizes. The exhibits even had a section showing Japanese and Chinese suits of armour. Also displayed were various weapons that the warriors carried. They showed different types of swords, crossbows, and even muskets.

Eiffel Tower by Day

This is probably the attraction that everyone goes to Paris for. I don’t think people come to Paris and don’t see the Eiffel Tower. It is just an amazing feat of engineering (at the time) and an amazing structure to look at.

Another thing I found out about the Eiffel Tower is that the grass fields in front of the, the Champ de Mars, is perfect for picnics. Anybody who has a chance to do that must do it. Maybe something like sitting on the lawn while eating a baguette while staring at the Eiffel Tower.

Notre Dame

This is another attraction that I revisited. I could have skipped going to this place when I came the second time around, but it is definitely a must-see for people who have never seen it before.

Place de la Bastille

Here is the historic location of the fortress-prison, Bastille Saint-Antoine. On July 14, 1789, an attack on this prison marked the beginning of the French Revolution. Every year on this day, France celebrates Fête de la Fédération, which is known as Bastille Day in English. Although the prison is no longer there, a historical plaque on the side of a building describes it. In the center of the roundabout here is the July Column, which is a monument to the Revolution of 1830, that saw the downfall of Charles X of France.

Eiffel Tower by Night

Because I never got to see this the first time I came, I had to take this opportunity to visit the tower in the night. However, since it is still early summer, the sun didn’t finish setting until around 11 PM, so I had to wait a little while before I could get a picture of the tower in the night without the light of dusk. While at the tower, I spotted a couple hugging in such a way that I could get a romantic shot (at least I tried to) of them with the Eiffel Tower (3rd pic).

Our reservation for the Eiffel Tower was at 11 PM, but we only managed to get tickets for the second level and not the top level because those tickets were all sold out. It was okay for me I guess, since I’ve already gone up to the top before. The lights of all the buildings looked really nice, but unfortunately my camera couldn’t really capture it that well. I tried playing with the exposure time, so that kind of helped.

On our way down, we didn’t want to wait for the elevator like everyone else so we took the stairs. I can’t prove it, but I think going down the stairs was totally faster than waiting for the elevator. Going down the stairs also allowed to see the giant lights that lit up the tower in the night. In addition to just the bright lights, the tower would have a light show every show often where the lights on the Eiffel Tower would flash. I only managed to see a bit of it as we left the tower.

Moulin Rouge

Another famous tourist attraction is the Moulin Rouge. It is located in the red light district, but the place attracts so many tourists who wish to see musical dance entertainment. The Moulin Rouge is also best known as the spiritual birthplace of the modern can-can dance. We only looked at the outside, because the shows there were very much out of our budget (90 euros minimum).

Musée du Louvre

Since the Louvre was so large that I couldn’t see everything last time, I went back again this time to see the things I never saw the other time. One of the exhibits I missed out on last time was the exhibit on the interior design of the residence of Napoleon III. I also saw the inverted pyramid that the Da Vinci Code made so famous.

Château de Versailles

I originally thought that this mansion was just a mansion that Louis XIV lived in, and I never knew that the palace took up so much land area with its canals, gardens, and orchards. I knew Louis XIV lived extravagantly, but I never saw it firsthand until coming to this place. Seeing the remains of his rich-flaunting lifestyle gave me the impression that this guy must have been the biggest douche-bag ever. Almost everywhere around/in the palace was something made of gold or a fancy statue (sometimes both). Going inside Versailles would have cost us 15 euros, but since we’re residents of the EU, it was free.

When we got inside, we were surrounded by so many tourists that it was almost impossible to walk anywhere. It’s as if the staff there just kept letting people in regardless of how many people were inside just to make more money. It didn’t help that each doorway acted as a choke-point for all the people trying to get out.

Once we got outside, everything was okay. The air suddenly smelled nice, and we got to feel the gentle summer breeze. And we go to enjoy the beautiful gardens and orchards. There was even an artificial lake a few hundred meters down that people rowed boats on.

Père Lachaise Cemetery

Even though this place is a cemetery, it still attracts a lot of tourists probably because a lot of famous people are buried here. Names I know off the top of my head are Frédéric Chopin (pianist), Joseph Fourier (mathematician and physicist), and Jim Morrison (from The Doors). I didn’t really try to look for these people, but we did stumble onto Chopin’s grave. That was a really cool find. The graves here have the most extravagant design I’ve ever seen. All the graves I’m used to in Vancouver are just plaques in the ground, but the ones here are huge. One grave could be for an entire family and not just an individual.

Catacombes de Paris

I had no idea that the remains of about six million people were buried beneath Paris in a series of tunnels until I came here. The catacombs here used to be a limestone mine and even now the rocks on the ceiling of some of the tunnels still drip water. Before going in, we found out that the staff there only permitted 200 people inside at a time, so we ended up waiting in line for almost 2 and a half hours before being able to get in. Even though the tour was only about 45 minutes, it was so worth it. Never in my life have I seen skull and bones stacked up in such macabre ways. In some parts of the catacombs, some of the bones were loosened from the stack and people could easily take a giant femur and start waving it back and forth (I don’t know why anyone would do that though). And for those who are sick enough to, could steal a skull as a souvenir. Although, I couldn’t resist touching century-old skulls and bones. It is also said that Robespierre is among these remains, but no one knows exactly which one.

Photos: here