Nicole Bienvenue La France

National Lampoon's Family Vacation - Bonvouloir Style: Day 7

Day 7: Reims, Pierrefonds, Compiègne

Today would be our last day all together. We started out by driving to Reims to see the infamous cathedral, Saint Remi de Reims that dates back to the 1000’s. It was so neat to be standing inside a building that has been standing for 1000 years. We then drove past Notre Dame de Reims, but I preferred the other cathedral. After Reims, we were onto Pierrefonds, but not before we stopped to eat lunch at IKEA. Yup, we got Swedish meatballs from IKEA. The only problem was Todd got extremely sick immediately after eating and we ended up staying at IKEA longer than expected. He eventually started to feel better so we were on our way again. We went to Pierrefonds which is an old medieval village and the tv show, Merlin is actually filmed at the castle. My parents and Todd watch the show, so I figured it would be neat for them to see it. We didn’t tour the castle because there is not much to see inside (I had already been in), but we did get to see the outside. It is pretty impressive. We then headed to Compiègne. My mom and I went to the grocery store and got food to make chicken noodle soup for dinner. We were done with eating out and seeing as Todd still didn’t feel great, we figured we would eat in. And what’s better than homemade chicken soup and some champagne. We then loaded up the car with all my luggage because my parents were taking it back with them and we said our goodbyes. They were off and I stayed in Compiègne. Their flight was early the next morning, so they stayed over in a hotel at the airport.

It was so great to see my family and we had a wonderful time together, especially those times that we went to F**kville. It will always be a family joke!

St. Remi de Reims

Notre Dame de Reims

Chateau de Pierrefonds

Soup and Champagne at "Home"

National Lampoon's Family Vacation - Bonvouloir Style: Day 6

Day 6: Champagne Region – Epernay and Hautvillers

Welcome to the Champagne Region

Sunday morning we got up super early, ate breakfast at the hotel, and drove 4 hours to the Champagne Region. We had a reservation at 3:30 to tour the wine cellars at Moët and Chandon. We ended up making really good time and got to Epernay early so we stopped at a small café for lunch. The food was surprisingly delicious. We still had some time to spare, so we checked into our hotel. Then we were off to Moët. The tour was in English which was really nice because we could understand everything. The tour showed us some of the caves and the tour guide explained the champagne making process and a little bit of background history on Moët, Chandon, and Dom Pérignon. We couldn’t see all of the caves because there were over 100km of caves under all of Epernay. Crazy, right? We did see some caves that had over 42,000 bottles in it! The tour concluded with a tasting of champagne – delicious. When the tour was over we decided to head over to Hautvillers, the next town over, where Dom Pérignon was buried in the abbey. Moët and Chandon had actually purchased Dom Pérignon’s land, so we had a chance to see all the vineyards as well. Across the street from the abbey, a smaller, family owned champagne company was located. We decided to go in and check it out and ended up getting a free champagne tasting. It was pretty fantastic. We actually bought a bottle of their 2002 vintage champagne. For dinner, we found this really cute restaurant in the center of town. My dad and I both had veal marsala accompanied with a nice chianti and it was to die for!

Vineyards

More Vineyards

Moët and Chandon

Which Size Would You Prefer?

Moët and Chandon Vineyards

Dom Pérignon's Tomb

View from Hautvillers

Smallest Hotel Bathroom Ever

National Lampoon's Family Vacation - Bonvouloir Style: Day 5

Day 5: Normandy

Point du Hoc

Now, we were off to the Normandy beaches. We started at Point du Hoc, the point where you can look left and see Utah Beach and look right and see Omaha Beach. It was pretty neat to be standing there thinking about how all of those soldiers climbed the cliffs so many years ago. There were tons of craters in the earth from all the bombs that were dropped. It was quite a unique experience. We moved down along the coast to Omaha Beach which is, in fact, the longest beach I have ever seen. There was a war memorial set up on the beach. Next, we headed to the cemetery, which was the most well-kept piece of land in all of France. It was immaculate. The thousands of white crosses and stars of David, set up in a perfectly constructed grid, had quite an eerie feel to it, but it was beautiful. If anyone finds themselves in Normandy, I would highly recommending going there. It is just something you just need to experience. After our history lesson, we headed to Caen to drop off our luggage at the hotel and then continue onto Honfleur. Honfleur was a very picturesque village on the water. There were lots of people out and about in the town. It was definitely the liveliest town we stopped in. Todd and I also got ice cream which was pretty good and we came across a little chocolaterie (a chocolate store) and bought some amazingly good chocolate. We had the most amazing shrimp, mussels, and apple tart for dinner and then headed back to our hotel. There were tons of fireworks going off seeing as it was Bastille Day in France, but by the time we realized they were going on, we were too late.

Point du Hoc

Horses Running on Omaha Beach

Taking a Dip in the English Channel

Omaha Beach

Memorial on Omaha Beach

American Cemetery

Honfleur

Ice Cream in Honfleur

Dinner in Honfleur

Dad's Second Dessert

National Lampoon's Family Vacation - Bonvouloir Style: Day 4

Day 4: Mont Saint-Michel and Dinard

Entering the Town

Friday, we got up early, ate breakfast at the hotel, and headed north to Mont St.-Michel. I am pretty sure it was on our way here that we found F**kville (later to be found again). Turns out France has a numerous amount of towns named this. With the terrible French signage and the use of only a map, it was bound for us to get lost sooner or later, and we did. We were on some road, in the middle of nowhere, when my dad got fed up and declared that "we are in F***ville. Do you know where we are? No, then we are in F**kville," until alas a little sign on the side of the road told us where we were. This became a reoccurring theme of our trip. We did make it to Mont St. Michel and we went all the up and toured the abbey, which was really neat. It was probably one of the most interesting places I have been to this year. The town was really old and festive, but there were a lot of tourists there that sort of devalued it. On our way out, we were driving along the coast when all of a sudden we saw a sheep crossing sign. We found that odd until we turned the corner and saw thousands upon thousands of sheep for as far as the eye could see. It was unbelievable how many there were. We actually turned around so that we could take a picture. We rolled down the window and immediately regretted it because it smelled so badly. After encountering the sheep, we made our way to Dinard. Unfortunately when we got there it was down pouring, so we weren't able to spend much time touring the city. The next morning on our way out, we did a quick tour and snapped a few pictures before we were on the road again.