Overlord Overload

After a snug night in our petit chateaux we awoke to the prospect of fresh croissants from the site shop. Once we had stuffed our faces we headed out along the coast road (D514) to Arromanches.
Arromanches is a lovely village on Gold Beach which was the site of the Mulberry harbour floated over by the allied troops for the D-Day landings. Essentially a huge Meccano kit, Port Winston, as it became known, was built in 48 hours and consisted of concrete blocks, old ships and steel bridges. All that remains today is a few concrete blocks but you can still see the extent of the harbour around the coast.
We went into the Musee de Embarkment and watched a couple of movies about it and saw models of the landing and harbour. We met a Canadian couple who had worked near Middlesborough and recognised Victorias accent. Haha.
We climbed the hill up to the Arromanches 360 cinema and watched another movie about the landings. Then we jumped in our luxury French automobile and headed towards Courselles sur Mer and the Juno beach centre.
The Juno beach centre is unique in being funded and staffed by Canadians and tells the story of Canada's contribution to D-Day and a bit of 20th century Canadian history. We were in there for over an hour so it was pretty good.
The centre is right on the most gorgeous sandy beach -Juno - and hidden behind the dunes were German bunkers & artillery.
We headed back with a detour through Courselles sur Mer Centre Ville, which was really pretty, and back to the caravan for some bread and cheese.
After a (long) nap, we've had tea (bread & cheese) while listening to the radio - we can just pick up Radio 5 and 4 on our tiny analogue radio so have Paralympic coverage still!!
Bite looking a bit better - swelling going down but had to wear shorts all day as its v itchy.

Nous sommes arrivons la France!!

Oo la la we are here! 6 hours went by like a flash when you've had a full English & found reclining chairs!! Victoria has slept for most of the journey or watched stuff on the ipad, and Andrew has played Zuma! Time well spent!!
We drove along the coast road from Caen to St Aubin sur Mer and Andy did very well negotiating cars on the wrong side of the road.
The caravan site, le Cote de Nacre, is fab - it's not really a caravan - more a chalet and there's a bar with free wifi (not used it yet), shop, loads of pools, wiff waff, and a restaurant. Plus a creperie and a waffle-arie.
We've just walked to the beach, which is about 10 mins away. The town is quite small and there's not much - think Sidmouth - but we found the supermarket (8 a huit). We've had a walk along the promenade, which is part of Juno beach, and headed to the 8 a huit for some pain et pate, et petit pois doux for the bite. Now sat on our porch relaxing and deciding what to do tomorrow! Dark skies hanging over us but it's not rained yet & has been warm.

Bon voyage!

Up at 5.15, to terminal by 6.30, finally boarded at 7.30 but we were among the first for a fry up! Magnifique!!!
Now on deck taking in the sights of the Solent - Spinnaker Tower, victory, warrior and the new Mary Rose museum building (looks like the Cutty Sark one but obviously better). ETA 2pm uk time so when the bracing wind gets too much for us we've got time to explore the ship!

Au revoir!!!

Here we are again! Didn't have time to do an Olympic blog because it was a pretty hard core week, but hopefully this week will be at a European pace!

We've set off for a stop over in Portsmouth Travelodge since we are booked on the 8.15am Brittany ferry. Amazingly everything fits into the car but we were a bit delayed because a) Andy was late home and b) Victoria had to go to the doctors about her 2 week old insect bite.

Armed with the contents of the Bletchley pharmacy, we should be in Portsmouth by 8.30pm for some hunting & gathering then bed.

Day 1 - opening ceremony

WOW!!! What a day!!!

The morning was frantic trying to get everything sorted for our guests, decorating an Olympic-themed birthday cake, making afternoon tea items and tidying the house. Our guests arrived bang on time and we welcomed by the middle parking space (worth a gold medal in itself), a cheer leading welcome and a speech from Andrew. They seemed to love their welcome pack of T-shirts, programmes, books and other London 2012 items. Result.






Afternoon tea was served and the birthday girl opening her present, kitting her out in more London themed items. Once we'd stuffed our faces, we settled on the sofa to start watching the Olympics. Aside from a short break to buy wellies and Olympic scarves, that's where we stayed for the rest of the day. We'd like to claim credit for arranging the six gold medals that Team GB won as being part of our guests' package, but even we couldn't arrange that, or have anticipated it. What a super duper Saturday!!!

Off to bed (and GB themed pyjamas) ready for a day in London tomorrow!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Countdown to the games

With only 12 days to go until the London 2012 Olympic Games open, we're reviving our travel blog for the event even though we're not leaving the UK! With 3 events in 3 venues and a full week of activities planned we need to keep track.

We begin with Men's Football First Round Group D at St. James' Park, Newcastle on 29th July (14 days time - pic of tickets below!) but our Olympic GB experience starts on Saturday 4th August with the following itinerary, carefully planned by McPearsonmillan Travel (all rights reserved):

 Day 1: 4th Aug – Arrival and Olympic Induction
 Day 2: 5th Aug – Plotting Plantagenets (Richard III at The Globe)
 Day 3: 6th Aug – Tarty Tudors (Hever Castle)
 Day 4: 7th Aug – 20th Century Britain (Duxford)
 Day 5: 8th Aug – Rest day
 Day 6: 9th Aug – Women’s Football Final, Wembley Stadium
 Day 7: 10th Aug – Rest Day
 Day 8: 11th Aug – Women’s Basketball Final, North Greenwich Arena (the O2)
 Day 9: 10th Aug – Departure

May the force 10 be with you

Here we are on our last day of the holiday. Last night was eventful to say the least. Not long after we left Vigo we hit the rough seas. It was very difficult to stay in one place for very long and we were rolling all over. captain had said Force 8 though so that was OK. We managed to shower and dress for dinner - the shower has handholds so that helped - and had a glass of wine before we headed downstairs. We our formal photograph taken in the atrium, which has turned out lovely especially since it was Victorias second £15 ball gown, and took our table in the Arcadian Rhodes.

The table was excellent - right next to the window - and the restaurant is on Deck 3 (promenade deck) so doesn't feel the movement unlike our deck 8 (australia deck) cabin. We felt reassured provided we didn't start to feel as much movement in the restaurant. Which of course we did after about 15 mins of sitting there. The lovely window table also meant we could see the waves getting bigger and bigger (and closer & closer).

The restaurant was nice - not many people in there since there's an extra cover charge - but it's art deco in style and warmer than the rest of the ship. Food was very nicely cooked but we are not surprised that on refit it is being taken over by Marco Pierre White. For starters, Andrew ordered smoked haddock with a welsh rarebit topping on a bed of tomatoes. Basically very small cheesy smoked haddock. Victoria ordered seabass with blackberry shallots and a hollandaise sauce. I.e. seabass fillet with fried onions and 3 blackberries. Surprisingly the blackberries went very well with the seabass, but the inclusion of hollandaise sauce was a mystery. Sadly, before the staters arrived we were given a little cup of green liquid, which was pea and mint soup and after 1 sip to be polite, Victoria gave hers to Andrew.

Main course, Andrew had ordered leg of lamb with orange glazed carrots, spinach and piped potato. I.e. mash potato, 1 carrot chopped up and coated in syrup and positioned in a bizarre upright fashion (volcano style) on the plate and a lamb shank. Victoria ordered fillet of beef with an oxtail cottage pie which was a fillet steak on top of a perfectly round roast potato with a very odd pastry cup contains 2 small pieces of meat and topped with mashed potato. To accompany it we got yet more potatoes - new potatoes - a single portion of green beans to share and a tiddly jug of gravy each. The potato-fest was too much.

Becoming somewhat anxious at the rising waves, Victoria opted to skip dessert, but Andrew had a tiramisu. Before it arrived, another unscheduled dessert appeared - a square of treacle tart. Again, Andrew enjoyed both since Victoria doesn't like treacle tart. Why provide these pointless interludes between courses? Yuck. Anyway the bread rolls were nice.

We left there without coffee and headed to the Spinnaker bar again for a cocktail. We had planned to go to Electra, the DISCO, but the ship was moving all over the place so we headed up to the cabin to see what it said on the passenger information channel. Quel surprise! Force 10, very rough seas, high swell. El capitano had underestimated the weather. However, for the first night all holiday, Victoria fell into a deep sleep within 10 minutes!!!!

Sadly, that only lasted for an hour and after that we both tossed and turned all night. The best sleep was had from 7am this morning and we didn't get up until 11!! We're now at Force 7 still but we managed lunch in the Neptune grill, which we've not been to before and had hot dog each. Now we're in the Intermezzo bar but we'll be heading out for our walkathon by 3 so that we can be done and changed in time for afternoon tea in the Meridian at 4, which we've also never done before.

Although shes a lovely ship, We don't think we will come back on Arcadia again for a while but we definitely want to do another cruise - next time to the Norweigan fjords and/or Iceland (originally Victorias preference last year but Andrew won the toss). It'll have to wait until 2013 though since 2012 is the Olympics!!

We have 1 more dinner to go tonight, and then we disembark at 9.30 tomorrow morning - it's usually earlier than the official time though. Should be home by lunchtime. And then some sleep in a bed that stays still!!!