The area around Avignon has been in a drought for some time. We are happy that we were able to share in a very nice rain with them that began its pattering outside our open windows during the night. We took advantage of this weather and slept in this morning; rolling down to the breakfast table at about 9 am. Once again Marie had set a beautiful table of breads, grapes, yogurt, croissants, orange juice and coffee for us to enjoy and we certainly did.

We left the house about 9:30 under the cover of umbrella to the car. It was raining quite hard now. We left Avignon for the Rhone Wine country north of Avignon. We decided to stay off of the Tollway today and just drive the back country roads. The plan worked out to perfection.

Early up this morning and at 7 am we had the Beemer loaded, our croissants, bread and apples in a bag and with Ken D. at the wheel, we headed for Normandy. The girls were in the back studying their French. They were impressed when we had lunch the other day and the French girl asked if we were from the US. We said yes and she said, “I thought I detected an accent”.

Jacques served a wonderful breakfast this morning at 8:30. He reminded us yesterday that this would be a French breakfast and not an American breakfast; no bacon and eggs, just fresh bread, croissants, jellies, juice and coffee. We left the house about 9 am.

Our first stop this morning is in Bayeux (pronounced Bye-Oh). Our objective here was to visit a museum that hosts a nearly 1000 year old Tapestry. The tapestry was commissioned by the step brother of William the Conqueror. It is a piece of work that is 230 feet long and tells the story of the rise of William of Normandy through his attack on Britain and winning the control of the country becoming its Kings in about 1066 AD. This is an incredible work of art that is known as the Bayeux Tapestry where it now resides permanently.

Also, Bayeux is known as the first town liberated by the allies after D Day 1944. It was taken into control the day after the landing.

Breakfast with Jacques again this morning and off we go again. First stop this morning is the D Day Museum right here in Arromanches. It is about a 2 block walk for us to get there. We were among the first to arrive today so we were able to work our way through the museum in about 1 to ½ hours, but we saw it all. The work that was done here in such a short time for the invasion is mind boggling. A harbor usually takes 2 years to build to handle the kind of traffic that was needed for this invasion. This harbor was prefabricated in England and was assembled in just a few days and provided the pipeline for materials for over one million troops. The numbers of trucks that rolled off of ships and came across the floatable bridge was amazing.