Day 55 - Paris to Caen (Normandy)

We got up early, early and met Aaron downstairs in the hostel lobby at 7:30 and the two Quebec girls arrived 10 minutes later from the 3 Ducks. We walked to the nearest Metro stop (Volontaires) and then headed to the Saint-Lazare metro station to catch our train at 8:40.

By the time we got there and the 3 of them got their tickets we were just on time to watch the train pull away and the conductor wave at me (i gave him a good old Canuck salute right back). No big deal though because our schedule said there was another one at 9.

Our schedule was wrong.

We got up early, missed our train, and now we were stuck at the station till 11:30. So we sat around, read, and chatted, then caught the 11:30 to Caen.

Caen is a town in the province of Normandy about the size of Kingston (120 thousand) and was once the home to William the Conqueror and was totally destroyed during WW2 adn was one of the first towns liberated by the Allies after D-Day. Its about a 30 minute ride from Courseulles and Juno Beach where the Canadians landed on D-Day and now home to the Juno Beach Center, dedicated to Canadian war veterans.

We got to Caen around 1:30, got directions to the Central Hotel, and then hoofed the 25 minute walk to the hotel with all our gear. We´d booked 2 rooms; one with a double for the girls and one with a double and a single for the boys. We dumped our shit off in our rooms and Rob stayed back to rest and the 4 of us headed up to the big castle in the middle of town that was built almost 1000 years ago and once home to William the Conqueror. We wandered around the castle adn up on the old walls. Some of the stone steps were so old that they were indented from all the people having stepped on them. It was pretty cool. We hung out there for a couple hours, then wandered through town and ended up at something called Les Abbeyes des Hommes. Not sure what it was, but it had a great looking garden out front with a bunch of flags and the building itself was very nice.

We wandered back to the hotel afterwards and grabbed some food and beer at the grocery store around the corner. Then we just spent the rest of the night eating, drinking beer, and playing cards (ran the Gauntlet ALL night long) and hung out.