Well the weather changed, it rained part of the night I think, and was overcast as we had breakfast but it did brighten up. We had to get some shopping today, for one thing we were short of beer. The closest Lidl was only a four mile drive, so we headed there. We took a wrong turn and went through Courseulles Sur Mer and got stuck in traffic, it was very busy there and looked like a good place to visit later.
Back on track we arrived at Lidl to find it closed, I got out a could find no reason for it not to be open. I was a bit angry as I had checked where this shop was and opening times before we left for France. Anyway the was a hyper Champion just over the road, so we used that instead. It was very crowded with very long queues at the tills, I was glad to get out of there.
After lunch, it clouded over again so we went for a drive. We had looked at Little Switzerland, a supposedly picturesque area of Normandy and planned a route around there. We didn't get off to a good start, one road we were supposed to take was closed and it took us a while to find an alliterative route.
We dove round Little Switzerland and stopped at Pont-d'Ouilly, we had to sit in the car until a shower passed over. When we did get out for a look around all of the shops were closed and we began to suspect that it was a public holiday but it was Wednesday. We had a very short walk along the river before heading off for Falaise.
Falaise in the birthplace of William 1st of England (William the Conqueror). Château de Falaise is the Castle there, it suffered due to bombardment during the Second World War but it has been part restored. Falaise was also closed but the castle was open. We walked around the outside but didn't go into the keep.
We did however, use the toilets in the souvenir shop. You can walk some parts of the wall. There are binocular type viewing devices around the castle grounds, the sort of thing you get at the seaside or at scenic views but looking through these you can see a 3D view of the castle from that position, as it was in the middle ages, very clever.
I tried to get a panoramic shot of the castle walls, it didn't turn out too bad.
From Falaise, we drove straight back to the coast, the roads were very busy, especially around Caen. Back at the coast, from Ouistreham all the way back to Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer, through all the other seaside towns, everywhere was heaving with people. We had a go at walking on the beach with all the others but the sea breeze made it a bit too cold for that.
We eventually found out it was a public holiday, for VE Day, apparently is is celebrated in several countries in Europe but not the UK.
Day Four or Day Six
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