It was by no means gourmet but it filled a gap. The drink was probably more welcome than anything, though it wasn't chilled, as the sun was blazing down.
As we discussed our next stop, "what's next Woody?", Grizzly announced that he didn't think he'd make the next fuel stop, despite it only being about 30 miles away. We'd just passed a small fuel station, so he decided he would top up there. No worries, he could always top it off again at the scheduled stop later, which was our next stop in tomtom.
We duly set off in search of refined liquid gold! The fuel stop was lady service, though as she went off to give someone their change, Grizzly made it self service. I'm not sure she was too impressed but it wasn't as if she was going to get a tip or anything. My tip would be, if you want to fill the bike up, don't walk off and leave Grizzly near the pump!
We set off again, now heading for an unnecessary fuel stop. Arriving at the supermarket pumps, we found again nobody manning the kiosk. OK for me but after having seen his credit card charged, apparently, the maximum, at the places Grizzly had used his card, he wasn't about to use it again for about half a gallon. I reckoned I had about 60-80 miles left in my tank, so we aborted and rode the 200 metres up the rode to the Montgomery statue. Unsurprisingly, this place is called Colleville Montgomery. Photos taken, next on our agenda was the German gun battery at Longues-sur-mer. I had the Merville battery in the schedule too but I've already been there and thought with time pressures, we should cut it out.
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| A big gun, Longues-sur-mer |
I'd read that it cost €4 to visit the battery but it turned out that was for a guided tour, of which there wasn't one in English anytime soon, so a DIY visit was free. There are 4 gun emplacements, one destroyed, with fragments of gun barrel buried in the ground but visible. The other 3 were intact and fully accessible. Grizzly was feeling the heat I think and decided one (the second) was enough for him, so I wandered off to the other two on my own. On returning, I found him lying on the grass, so snapped off a couple of shots of the poor soul. It would have been rude not to ;-)
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Getting down's alright, getting up?
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Next stop on our D-Day tour was one of the most famous sites, that of Pegasus Bridge. It's changed quite a bit since my last visit, when my girls were young, probably 15 or more years back. There is now a memorial centre/museum, which wasn't there before. We parked in the car park and walked back to the site, marked by memorial stones, where the British gliders had crash landed, right by the bridge. I was surprised to see that the bridge is not the original, this one dating from 1994. I didn't recall that from my previous visit.
Over the bridge is the famous café. Its proximity to the bridge meant it was the first dwelling liberated by the British soldiers on 6th June. The place is filled with memorabilia now but despite the lady saying "no photo", I managed to squeeze one off, as she prepared our coffees. Coffee drunk, we made our way back to the memorial building. In the grounds sits the original bridge. We managed to get a couple of photos over the fence, neither of us having the inclination to pay to go in.
Back on the bikes, we were less than an hour away from our hotel in Pont L'Eveque. The Eden Park sits on the banks of a huge lake, a very pleasant setting. Although it was quite a posh place, the room itself didn't provide any aircon and wasn't actually that big, so I guess you are paying for location. We freshened up and then went in to dine. Overlooking the lake and being watched by about 20 ducks (which, incidentally, was on the menu!), we ate fish and chips, washed down with some Pelforth Brune, taking our beer total for the tour to 65.
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| View from the restaurant, Eden Park Hotel |
Grizzly took a wander outside to take some photos and came back agitated by a large dragonfly he had seen. If it was as big as he made out, it was probably a bird but who knows? I'm waiting to see the photo evidence.
As usual, I'm listening to Grizzly's snoring, which signals it is near my bedtime too. Tomorrow we head into World War 1 territory, the Somme region, with, amongst other things, a visit to William Devall's grave.
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