A week of firsts: UK and France edition
- siljehelenrygh
- 12. mai
- 9 min lesing
How many things can you fit into a week? That was the question. My friend and I went to London, countryside UK, Normandy and Paris for a week. And what a trip that was!
I had two requirements for this trip: I wanted to see the Harry Potter Warner Bros Studios Tour and the Eiffel tower. My friend wanted to visit Stonehenge, The Farmer's dog Pub and all the D-day sites in Normandy, including an Overlord Tour. How hard could it be to cover all that in one week?
Not hard at all, if you plan on having one night in each place! The only backside? I had suffered an injury two weeks before, and was stuck in knee braces for the next eight weeks. I thankfully ditched the crutches the night before my flight, and was a tad bit nervous about how this was going to go. Thankfully, the only impact it had on our trip, was that I needed a little bit more rest than usual and walked a lot slower than usual.
London
Naturally, one of the first things we do in London, almost right after I get there, is walk 578 steps to the view point of St. Pauls Cathedral. Their elevator was in need of maintenance and was closed. So, that was the first test, which thankfully went down without a hitch, just a really slow pace when walking. I didn't quite trust my legs for the rest of the trip though, so the second thing I did? Went to a store and bought a hiking pole. Did I use it at all the rest of the trip? Nope.
Since my algorithm on Instagram is all about coffee and cookie places, I had of course some ideas about where I wanted to fulfil my chocolate urges. I got my hot cholate with a big torched marshmallow and some sea salt at Chocolate Bar by Bullion, where we had a view of the London Tower Bridge. The rest of the evening we walked around, just enjoying the city and ending the night with cookies from Crumble by EL&N, which was delicious by the way, and a beer.
The next day we got a rental, and my very brave friend had to be de designated driver. It didn't help that I probably would have been a disaster behind the wheel with my braces, but I am terrified of driving in Oslo, sooo, left side driving is a no no. We drove to the Harry Potter Warner Bros studio, and spent 4,5 hrs there. Totally worth it, sooo good, especially if you're an HP fan! Then we got out of the big city and drove to Portsmouth, where we spent the night.
Portsmouth
The next day was all about museums. While my friend had two museums he wanted to visit, I had none. There were surprisingly few places (that we could find) that were open and served a good breakfast early. Any tips are most appreciated, should I ever wanna go back. However, while my friend visited the Mary Rose Museum - which is supposed to be a really good one - I went to the top of the Spinnaker Tower and got a free tour there. Had a chat with a great guide, and I think we ended up chatting for way longer than he had planned. Suddenly I had spent almost all my alloted time enjoying the views of Portsmouth.
Next up was the Tank Museum. My plan was to originally wait in Bornemouth, but it turned out that the museum was a bit farther away than we thought. So, if I couldn't find anything else roughly on the way, I would join the Tank Museum. Gotta love Roam Like Home. On the drive, I checked every interesting site on the map, and a found a little gem just five minutes away from the Museum: Monkey World - Ape Rescue Centre. While I have an ambivalent feeling towards zoos, it was a nice experience. Not a lot of people, and lots of interesting histories about how they came to house their primates and their UK Pet Trade Campaign. So, worth a little visit.
Stonehenge & Farmer's dog pub
Now, it was time for some countryside UK driving. It was amazing! I loved the scenery. We were on our way to The Compasses Inn, a very nice bed&breakfast with a gastropub. While the roads there were super terrifying because they were so narrow, the area was just lovely too. It was super duper, food was lovely, the people that worked there were so nice and helpful. I would not have minded a few more days there. However, we were on the road again the very next morning.
That day was an eventful day. We started with the free walkway to Stonehenge. While I understand that the money goes to support other historical sites, it was both too time consuming and expensive for us to do the full tourist thing. While the free walkway is a bit further away from the stones themselves, we still got to see the magnificent Stonehenge and appreciate the work behind getting the stones there. Would I pay 1£ per meter, to get closer? Nah. Even though you pay to see it, you still won't be able to get very close to or touch the stones. So, been there, done that.
Next up? Late lunch at The Farmer's dog pub. Now, I had been told the history behind this pub. And while I am neither a Top Gear fan, haven't seen Clarkson's farm or have any other relationship with this pub, turns out I have several friends and family who are fans and maybe a little jealous now. The food was good, atmosphere very nice, and the restaurant obviously very busy. You can only book your visit a month before, as they open the bookings for March on February 1st. We even got to see the Diddly Squat Farm shop, iykyk. It was a day of driving, and it didn't stop there.
En route to Paris
We drove back to London, returned the rental, and got on the Eurostar train to Paris. The train travels under the English Channel Sea bed in the world's longest undersea tunnel, with 37,9 km (23.5 miles) under the sea. Want another fun fact? The Channel Tunnel is 50.45 km (31.5 miles) long, or 169 Eiffel Towers stacked on top of each other. We took the latest train, and arrived at Gare du Nord in Paris at midnight. Which I can honestly say, did not give me the best impressions of Paris. Walking out of that station and to our Hotel, I couldn't help but wonder what in the world people are loving about this city. While the little parts of Paris we saw the next morning, was a big improvement, we left for Normandy from Paris St. Lazarre.
Normandy for Band of Brothers fans
Now, that was something! We took the train from Paris to Bayeux, where we got another rental. Drove to Normandy Beach, the mulberry harbours and the D-day museum in Arromanches. We didn't actually go inside, but we got the mandatary savory crepe - galettes - for breakfast, and a much nedded cup of coffee. Then we went to the Overlord Museum. Now, I had said before we met up for this trip, that my friend would have to do all the museums without me, because I wanted to just chill at cafes and just see the places we went to. However I joined him in this one, and I absolutely do not regret it. It was a museum different than many other museums I've been to, it was like a frozen theater, just with mannekins and war equipment. It was quite interesting!
On the way to the next museum, the Utah beach D-day Museum, we did a quick stop in St. Marie du Mont, a little town which had a lot of information plaques on buildings, like an outdoor museum! Next up was the Utah beach D-day Museum: Musée du Débarquement de Utah Beach. Also a very good museum, that I decided to join. Definitely a bit more of a traditional museum, compared to the Overlord Museum. It was not very crowded, and we could walk around at our own pace, just appreciating all the effort that lies behind retelling history. We also walked up to a house with a red roof, which was used as a reference point during and after the D-day landings. Apparently the house is in the same condition today as it was on D-day.
There is war history everywhere you go in Normandy, and while my impression was that all the museums had about 85 % of the same history, the other 15 % was specific to the different museums point of view, either British, American or other point of views. It is impossible to cover all of them in a few days, so choose your flavor and go with it.
The hotel we stayed at, is a place you definitely need a car to stay at. Beautiful area, and the hotel itself was also like a museum. Domain airborne, the only place we stayed at for two nights. I truly loved this place! The owner had a lot of war artifacts, and the rooms were named HQ and Barracks. Everything was very well thought through, from the entrance to the rooms. There were real artifacts from the war displayed on the common area, which apparently is something a lot of people who live in Normandy could find stowed away in attics or barns or places like that, years after the war. I can only recommend staying here, should you ever go to Normandy. And for the Band of Brothers fans, they even had a jacket that was used in the series hanging in the common room.
After checking in, my legs and I needed a little rest, before heading out for dinner. What you should know before you go to Normandy, is that almost every restaurant has dinner time from 19-21. So our window was slowly closing. We eventually found a little place that served decent enough food, but nothing to brag home about. We did however get to try the must-try apple cider. On the way back we stopped at a pizza vending machine, called "Gang of Pizza". Just because, so we could say we'd tried it. We got the cheapest one, a margarita pizza, which tasted OK. Emergency meal approved.
Our only full day in Normandy, was dedicated to a 10 hr tour, The Band of Brothers tour, hosted by Overlord Tours. This was one of the things I initially didn't want to spend money on, because I thought it was a bit too expensive at 140€ per person. Now, I am going to swallow all my words. This ended up being the very best thing we did in Normandy. Not only did we get a private tour, because no one else had signed up for it, we also got what must have been the very best guides, Stephen and Lucas. Stephen was british, and obviously knew his history, so incredibly full of interesting knowledge. It truly made the tour the brilliant day it became. Now, it did take almost a full 10 hrs, but we got a lot of rest in the car on the way to sites, and a 1 hr lunch to roam around Sainte-mère-église. The only place I have experienced outdoor toilet cubicles, which was interesting. I am not going to go through everything we saw that day, it could never live up to the real experience. We did however get to see and take photos of a lot of places depicted in the series. Could be nice to know, that the first part of the tour was more war history and last half was more Band of Brothers themed. The tour started and ended in Bayeux, where we found a place to eat dinner and drink apple cider, before we drove back to our hotel.
Paris again
The last day in Normandy we started with a visit to the Airborne museum in Sainte-Mère-Église, before taking a trip to Bar du Stade in Carentan, which is also a Band of Brothers site. Then we drove to Caen, where my friend went to the Caen Memorial Museum, while I checked out the gardens. We had a train to catch back to Paris, to check our last item on our travel itinerary: the Eiffel tower. We had booked tickets for an evening visit. It would be our very last evening together, before we parted ways.
We found our hotel, an interesting place, with some fun decor. Then we went up to the "top" of the Eiffel Tower. It was nice, and Paris at night, seen from above, was beautiful. It was also a "been there, done that" moment. I had been told, that I should see the tower at midnight, however we found that it "sparkles" every hour, so when we got back down, we waited around to see it sparkle, before we walked around to find the Arc de Triomphe and take our mandatory and last photos together. On the way back we also learned why people say you should see the Eiffel Tower at midnight. While we only saw it from a distance, they turn all the lights on the tower off, and then it sparkles for real. It was beautiful!
And that concludes our trip. Are you as impressed as me, regarding how much we could fit into a week of travelling, injured and all? Imagine all we could have done, with four fully functioning legs? I am forever grateful we got to do this, and that I have a friend who so very willingly drove me around without fear of driving.
PS! If you are in the army/military or a veteran, you get into alot of the museums in Normandy for free!!
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