July 28 & 29: Chateau de Chenonceau and Marais Poitevin

Monday, July 28

We spent the night in Le Mans, at the Brit Hotel Le Cottage. This is a French chain, sort of like a Fairfield Inn level. The rooms are small—Geoffrey and Katelyn’s room had two twin beds, and our room had a double bed. The hotel and the rooms were decorated in a car-racing theme in honor of the 24 Hours of Le Mans race that happens here.

Le Mans is home to the world’s oldest active endurance sports car race, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, first held in 1923. The race tests not just speed, but stamina, as drivers race in teams continuously for a full 24 hours! It’s such a big deal in racing culture that it inspired the movie Ford v Ferrari.

After we checked out of our hotel, we stopped at a grocery store to grab a picnic lunch. We took it to the Château de Chenonceau, one of three châteaux in the region that we were considering visiting because they’re each featured in Impressions de France at EPCOT. We chose this one for its proximity to our next destination—and because it might be the grandest of them all. It’s built out over the Cher River, which makes it look like it’s floating.

We ate our picnic next to a canal covered in thick green moss. After lunch, we headed into the château grounds. We started out visiting the garden to the right of the castle. It was designed by Catherine de Medici and features pink flowers surrounding a central fountain. We took some stunning pictures from this angle and enjoyed the beautiful garden.

Next, we walked to the other garden, which was designed by Diane de Poitiers. This garden’s flowers were done in a purple theme, and the lawns had cool metal shapes in them. It felt like an Alice in Wonderland garden! Both gardens were absolutely stunning—I don’t know that I could pick a favorite.

Then we walked inside the château, which was cook. It was very crowded, so we moved through pretty quickly just to get a general sense of what was inside: lots of artwork, tapestries, and bedrooms. Down in the basement, you could see the old kitchens. The long gallery ballroom, which stretches across the river, allows you to walk all the way to the other side of the shore.

Chenonceau is often called the “Château of the Ladies” because of the many influential women who shaped its design, including Diane de Poitiers and Catherine de Medici. During WWI, it was used as a military hospital, and during WWII, its unique position spanning the river made it a secret escape route from Nazi-occupied France to the free zone.

Next, we visited the labyrinth, which was a lot of fun! I love a good hedge maze. We went through it a couple of times. We ended our visit in the vegetable and flower garden, which felt like Living with the Land—except we weren’t on a boat, lol!

After we left the château, we headed to the Marais Poitevin. We stopped at a pizza vending machine to grab dinner to bring back to our hotel. Yes, an actual pizza vending machine. It’s stocked with fresh pizzas, and when you order one, it bakes it right there on the spot. We’d seen this on a TV show we watched—Jet Lag—and couldn’t resist trying it. Plus, we were all pretty tired, so the idea of just relaxing in our hotel room sounded great!

Our hotel, Hotel Au Marais Coulon, was right on the canal in Coulon. We had a family room with a double bed and two twins, all decorated in a nautical “Yellow Submarine” theme. It was a very cute, cheerful room!

We enjoyed our pizza and watched a movie together: National Lampoon’s European Vacation. Perfect choice.

⸻

Tuesday, July 29

Today we started our day with a boat ride through the Marais Poitevin—aka the Poitevin Marsh. This area is known as the Green Venice of France, and our boat driver said it was similar to a bayou. 

One of the coolest surprises about the Marais Poitevin is that it does not have mosquitos, despite being a marsh! That’s because the water here is constantly moving thanks to an intricate network of canals , locks, and drainage systems originally created by monks in the Middle Ages. Mosquitoes need still, stagnant water to breed, so the flowing water makes it hard for them to thrive. Plus, the region has slightly salty soil in some areas, which also helps keep mosquito populations down. Plus, there are lots of fish in the area… Locals joke that even if there were mosquitoes the fish would bite them before they bite us!

You can spot several species of fish, birds, and plants here. It’s a peaceful, beautiful area.

This is also where the opening scene of Impressions de France at EPCOT was filmed. I know it seems a little silly to be chasing these locations down, but it’s been a lot of fun finding these cool little hidden gems; places we probably wouldn’t have visited otherwise!

We took an hour-and-a-half boat ride through the marsh with a guide. It’s amazing how affordable experiences like this are—less than $70 for a private ride for the four of us with a guide. Our guide spoke very little English, but Google Translate is amazing. He would talk, and I’d read the translation aloud for everyone.

One very cool feature here is the natural methane gas that collects at the bottom of the marsh. At one point on the ride, our guide stirred up the bottom with his oar, and gas bubbles rose up. Then he used a lighter to light the water on fire!

After our boat ride, we had a yummy lunch at a galette place. A galette is what they call their savory crêpes. Grant and I shared one with ham, cheese, egg, and tomato—the tomatoes were mashed into a sauce and were so fresh and sweet, they were amazing! Katelyn got ham and cheese, and Geoffrey got ham and egg.

For dessert, we had a caramel apple crêpe, a salted caramel crêpe, ice cream, and a warm chocolate melting cake. The desserts were très magnifique!

After lunch, we walked to a park to relax while waiting for the bike rental shop to reopen. At 2:30, we rented bikes—again, super cheap! For the four of us to rent bikes for six hours (way more than we needed), it was $55. That’s what it would cost to rent two bikes for an hour in Colorado! Lol.

We followed a 15-mile route through small villages. We traveled along the marsh, through farmlands, over bridges, and back along the river. Our road changed from pavement to dirt to bridges, and we were grateful for the front suspension on our bikes! We saw lots of cows, and the countryside was just stunning. I don’t know that I’ve ever biked in more beautiful places than on our two biking trips in Europe.

We were also able to stop next to a sunflower field and grab some pictures. We have seen so many sunflower fields traveling through this region! Turns out, this is one of two regions out of the top producers of sunflowers in France, and sunflower oil is a hugely popular export to all of Europe. It’s late in sunflower season and many of them are starting to droop and get ready for harvest, but they are still beautiful to see spread out all along and huge fields.

We returned our bikes and stopped for an afternoon snack of ice cream and soda. Grant and I shared scoops of passionfruit, pineapple, and peach. Geoffrey got coffee and banana, and Katelyn chose chocolate and caramel.

Now we’re driving to our next location—a two-hour drive to Bordeaux. 

All right just throwing this in. We stopped for dinner… Kids are feeling a little bit homesick, great attitudes for the most part but definitely missing some things from home… Like ice… And free refills… So we decided to go to an “American“ restaurant for dinner. No free refills, but they did have ice!

Until next time!

Here’s the link to more photos:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/QopbhihhB6mcbwSh6

And here’s a link to the pizza vending machine in action:

https://youtu.be/1ejHb1-_zhE

 

July 26 & 27 - Normandy: Omaha Beach and Mont St. Michel

 

Saturday, July 26

On Saturday, we left Disneyland and headed out on our road trip! Our rental car is a VW T-Roc with a manual transmission. Grant says it’s like riding a bike—no trouble with the car at all. It also has radar cruise control, which he very much appreciated when we were driving through Paris traffic!

Angie left this morning to head back home, with a few hours in Paris and then another day in London. She’s flying home Sunday night.

As for us, our first stop on the road trip was near the town of Bayeux, in Normandy. We stayed at a bed and breakfast in Tracy-sur-Mer. Our host, Jean-Claude, was awesome—so welcoming and friendly—and he connected with Geoffrey over their shared taste in music… Chuck Berry, the Rolling Stones, Elvis, Lynyrd Skynyrd. He said that’s how he learned English! He cared deeply about Normandy’s WWII history and greeted us with big hugs—starting with Grant! Our room had one double bed, two twin beds, and a bathroom. No TV… gasp!

After we dropped off our bags, we headed into Arromanches-les-Bains, which—despite my research—I was surprised to learn is a completely different town, even though it’s less than a four-minute drive away. Lol. There, right along the ocean, is where Mulberry B was built. This was one of two prefabricated temporary harbors designed by Winston Churchill and Allied planners to support the D-Day invasion. All the components were built in England and towed across the English Channel after the landings. The idea was to create a functional port at Normandy until they could capture a permanent one, like Cherbourg.

Two Mulberries were constructed: Mulberry A for the Americans at Omaha Beach, and Mulberry B for the British at Arromanches (Gold Beach). Unfortunately, Mulberry A was destroyed by a violent storm just days after D-Day, so the Allies relied heavily on Mulberry B for weeks, moving thousands of tons of supplies, vehicles—even tanks—through this makeshift port.

It was fascinating to see remnants of the harbor still out in the ocean. When we arrived, it was low tide, so we could walk right down to some of the structures. Later, after dinner in town, we returned to the beach and the tide had come in—those same structures we’d walked around were now surrounded by water. Nature’s timeline is amazing.

We headed back to the B&B and went to bed early since we had to be up for our 8:30 a.m. breakfast (lol).

Sunday; July 27

Breakfast the next morning was classic French: croissants, pain au chocolat, baguettes, homemade apricot jam, fresh orange juice, coffee, hot tea… When Katelyn asked for water, Jean-Claude dramatically brought it out over a bowl with matches burning in it while singing “Smoke on the Water” to impress Geoffrey. I’m telling you—Jean-Claude was a legend.

We also chatted with a sweet older British couple sitting at the next table. It was like something out of a sitcom: the husband was super friendly but desperately trying to get his wife to stop talking so they could pack and catch their train. She kept saying, “Just let me show them one more picture,” lol!

We had our day planned, but Jean-Claude gave us a few more suggestions before we left. Most of them overlapped with what we already intended to do, but one we hadn’t heard of turned out to be our first stop—and one of the highlights of the day!

He recommended we visit the Longues-sur-Mer battery, a German coastal artillery site with original WWII bunkers and guns still in place. These were part of Hitler’s Atlantic Wall and gave a clear sense of what the Allies were up against. We saw huge concrete casemates that had housed cannons and gun placements. There were also trenches and lookout points—some of it felt like a set from Star Wars. (George Lucas definitely drew inspiration from WWII bunkers.)

We walked a path all the way down to the beach, and I’m so glad we did—it was calm, quiet, and deeply introspective. Honestly, it felt more reflective than Omaha Beach, which we visited later.

Next, we went to the Normandy American Cemetery, overlooking Omaha Beach. More than 9,000 American soldiers are buried here, Families had the option to have their loved ones buried here or have the remains sent back to the U.S. in addition, there are 1,557 names on the Wall of the Missing—those whose remains were never recovered.

Attached to the cemetery is a visitor center that’s totally free and exactly what I was hoping for. It’s a comprehensive museum that walks you through the history of D-Day and the Normandy campaign. There are tons of museums in the region, many with tanks and artifacts, and I’d love to return someday to see those. But for this trip, this museum gave us what we needed: depth, clarity, and reverence.

Inside, we watched a short but powerful film about some of the people buried at the cemetery. There was also a quiet hallway where the names of all the fallen soldiers are read aloud, one by one. It was incredibly moving.

We then walked the grounds, passing row after row of white marble crosses and Stars of David. It’s a sobering, powerful place. Seeing the Wall of the Missing, with its 1,557 names, added another layer of emotion.

After that, we went to Omaha Beach. I don’t know if “excited” is the word, but I was eager to see it after learning so much about the battle. And while it was meaningful to stand on that historic sand, the experience was more… everyday than I expected. The beach was crowded. People were swimming, sunbathing, eating at cafes—including us. It felt like any tourist beach town. Nobody was disrespectful, and I think the soldiers would be glad to see the beach enjoyed by free French families and visitors from around the world. But it didn’t feel reflective—it felt vibrant, joyful, and a little disconnected from the pain that once took place there.

Which is why that earlier stop at the quiet beach below the battery site stood out so much.

From there, we drove about an hour and a half to something completely different: Mont-Saint-Michel.

Mont-Saint-Michel is a medieval abbey built on a tidal island at the edge of Normandy. We chose to visit because it’s featured in Impressions de France (yes, the Epcot film!), but it also just looked amazing—and it was! When we arrived, it was low tide, and the tide had gone way out, so we could walk far out on the sand flats surrounding the island. At high tide, though, water comes right up to the walls.

The island is surrounded by medieval ramparts and contains a winding little village with narrow streets, shops, restaurants, and a grand abbey at the top. There are six hotels on the island and only about 20–30 residents. No cars are allowed, so everything gets delivered by hand carts or small electric vehicles.

We wandered the village, climbed the ramparts, and watched the tide slowly roll in. After dinner on the island, we climbed the walls again—and this time, we could see how quickly the water was advancing. Within minutes, it had gone from 30 feet away to lapping at the walls! Geoffrey, who was waiting for us outside, caught an amazing video of the change. It was funny to see the police officers walk out on the sand flats and escort the last few visitors over to the Causeway because when the water comes in, it comes in quickly! Wild to witness.

https://youtu.be/E11eCc12G3c

Tonight we’re headed to Le Mans, about a two-hour drive. We’re on the road now and surprised at how many little country roads our GPS is taking us down. We should get to our hotel around midnight—definitely a long but unforgettable day!