40th Birthday Trip - Day 15 - Mont St Michel

Before going to bed last night, the boys had a real desire to change the plans and figure out how we can fit in an aviation museum into our plans.   So today was a little different than initially expected.

We were going to get up earlier to head to Mont St Michel, but we ended up getting up a little earlier and leaving later than we thought, the D-Day Wings Museum only opened at 10 and was only a 15 minute drive.  We got there just before the doors opened, and set a time limit in order to get on the road towards the north/east (we had to be there by 3:05 for our tour reservation). 

The D-Day Museum was on the Carpiquet airfield, a strategic point in the capture of the city of Caen.  It became a coveted sited for the Allies and an important positions to defend for the Germans.  On July 4, 1944, a general launched Operation Windsor, led by the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division, among to capture the town and its airfield.  A 5 am, the Canadians of the Regiment de La Chaudiere and the North Shore launched an assault while the Royal Winnipeg Rifles attacked the aviation hangers of the airfield.  I was only around 8:30am that the Norman village was liberated after fierce fighting against the 12th SS Panzer Division.

The airfield only fell on July 9 with Operation Charnwood.  Veterans who fought in this battle described it as the most terrible and violent of their encounters in Europe.

The museum was small, but wow there were some neat things in it.  We aren’t used to seeing the planes in pieces, and not restored, but all really appreciated it.  The boys were most excited about the Spitfire, just a cool plane.  We toured around while B decided she was going to keep herself busy by drawing one of the airplanes in the back of her notebook.  She picked the Focke-Wulf 190 to draw.    Lola and MBM really enjoyed the fuel tank building constructed to have a movie playing inside, as well as Landing Craft Vehicle and Personnel (LCVP), neither of them were planes….

After we toured for about 45 minutes, it was time to decide which planes we wanted to pay to sit in… T and DD wanted to sit in the Spitfire, while B wanted to sit in the plane she had been drawing for the last 45 minutes.  They all got their turn and the other 3 of us took photos.

can you spot B drawing the plane?

what the hanger looked like after the attack

Once that was completed DD really wanted Lola to sit in the Ball-Turret that would have been attached to a B-17 Flying Fortress, as he was slightly too tall, AA was also too tall and a little too heavy, so Lola agreed to go in… the kids also wanted to go.  

Getting in was challenging, and then you didn’t know where to put your feet.  Once in, we couldn’t imagine sitting in that under an airplane getting ready to shoot.  The lady gave us all a ride to really experience what it would feel like.

We completed our rides, and headed to the washroom and gift show before heading out of the City.  Off to Mont St Michel.

A 1.5 hour ride, but DD’s plan was to stop at McDonalds to save time in eating.  We arrived and T and B were not impressed, just like Lola had warned DD.  They complained the whole time.  MBM was very happy with her meal choice of a Deluxe Royal, and Potato Wedges, the iced tea was not her favourite but enjoyed the sauce for her potatoes.  AA had the Big Arch which he said was very good.  We enjoyed the reusable containers that all the food was in including the fries, it was a very different experience that way. 

i feel like DD eating this burger

We then drove to Mont St Michel, and on our way we saw paratroopers jumping out of a C47 Plane.  Later Lola found on the Internet that it was in appreciation of St Michel (and we found out it was actually supposed to be on Sept 27, but was delayed to the Sunday).  It was very cool to see about 12 people at a time jumping out of the plane. We read that they were wearing WW2 costumes as well.  There were approximately 140 that were dropped through out the day, but it seemed we caught the tail end with 2 drops.

We parked and got on the bus to head to the mountain.  We got there well after high tide so there was no water surrounding the building/wall anymore. It was so fascinating to see, and the myth/legend is that it was built because of a dream three days in a row  that Saint Aubert, the bishop of Avranches, had with St Michel touching his head and putting a hole in his skull. B wanted to desperately go on the mud… we let her touch it.   Later we found out that it can be like quick sand out there, and you should only go out there with a guided tour.  People get rescued by helicopter often.

We walked around, where it felt very much like Harry Potter, Diagon Alley.  We headed to the top, then around the sides, looking at all the old buildings, and view from the edges.  

We got to our tour location of the Abbey which was at the top of the hill.  It was 3 big flights of stairs to get to the top, and we were not prepared for that, and running a little late.  Once we got there, the tour guide had already started early, so we missed the introductions.  At the beginning it was very noisy around her, and she didn’t speak very loud, and English was definitely not her first language, so the kids weren’t super excited.  Towards the end of the tour, T said he was happy that we had done it, and the tour guide was pretty funny, as we were strategic about where we stood so we could hear her.

The building was very big, with a lot of rooms.  She described the architecture in each room, with some being Roman and Gothic.  The tour guide wasn’t super excited about the architecture, but that is what most of us were interested in. The Abbey was used as a Prison. There were more than 14000 prisoners after the monks abandoned the abbey and it was used as a state prison.   There was a big hamster wheel that the prisoners would have to walk in to move a pully cart system  up and down the side of the abbey.  It was a huge wheel.  T was telling everyone that that is how the treadmill was invented…. Lola just did a quick search and this is what she found…. He was totally right. “In 1817, an engineer called William Cubitt was inspired by the sight of prisoners sitting idle to create a new machine. He thought that his invention, the “tread-mill”, might “reform offenders by teaching them habits of industry.”

After the Abbey we walked to the museum that we had passed previously, as that is where T wanted to go, unfortunately it was closed at 4:30, and they didn’t accept new people after 4pm.  T was very disappointed. We headed down the “Main Street” and stopped for a snack…. Sorbet, Ice cream, beer and and espresso. It was nice to sit down, we had walked a lot of steps today… and not just steps, but literally steps up and down the giant rock.

After our snack, we headed to the washroom, and out to catch the bus back to our vehicle.  It was almost low tide of 5:40pm (or around that, so the water was even lower than when we had gotten there).  We waited for the bus, T had to touch the mud, then we got to the bus.  We waited for about 2 buses before we got on.  Drove back, got in the car and found out there were 2 accidents on the road and it was going to take us about 2.5 hours to get back.

Lola found a place to eat on the way back…. Right by the McDonalds we had stopped at for lunch.  Lots of the restaurants were closed on Sunday. She said she wasn’t sure about it but it was somewhere she could eat.  They headed right into Buffalo Grill.  You walked inside and it was like a country western movie from the 1980s.  Red fringes on the lights, red booths and interesting decor.  The menu was very “American” or tried to be.  B ordered a burger, AA a Cobb salad, T pulled pork tacos, Lola a steak and rice, and DD and MBM shared a buffalo platter adding Bison Taverine.   The food was interesting, but it got us fed. It was quite the experience. 

We headed back to the car, and back to Caen, google took us on some narrow roads to avoid some of the slow down on the highway, and we stopped at a gas station, where B and T had no idea what we were doing, as they only ever electric charge. We got back, and the kids went to bed.  The adults did some chatting, and MBM and Lola worked on a Girl Scout thing MBM had to have done by October 1 and we all went to bed.  Its an early morning tomorrow.