We took the same path across the English Channel as did the Allied invasion fleet on D-Day in 1944. Admittedly, our ferry boat was significantly less armed. Angie and I had grown weary of sandwich shops in England (being unable to afford anything fancier); we were therefore looking much forward to French cuisine.

After storming the beaches of Normandy in northern France, we wound westward along the coast, stopping at several of the Operation Overlord landing sites to pay our respects.

Pointe du Hoc was particularly surreal. Here was a beautiful coastal ridge high above the sea, with kids and families laughing as they happily ran around in the sunshine… all over the bomb craters and half-sunken remains of German outpost bunkers. The area was successfully seized by American rangers who managed to scale the nearby 100-foot cliff. The intense aerial bombardment is still obvious today: Some ground craters were so big I could stand up inside them and only see blue sky above me.

Monastery and Menu Mysteries

We sped through the villages and countryside in our rented Renault (sans A/C). By nightfall, we had driven all the way to a mysterious island monastery called Mont St. Michel. The tide was out, so we were able to safely reach the island and not have our car wash away from the parking lot.

Very close by, we stopped for dinner and ran into a little trouble translating le menu. I was reasonably sure I had ordered us both a delicious serving of piping hot, buttery garlic escargot. Alas, I was only half right: We were unhappily surprised when a giant plate overflowing with cold, rubbery snails arrived, accompanied by a tiny pot of refrigerated butter.

The evening improved later, though. As Angie and I practiced speaking our strange, broken Japanese, I noticed a nearby older couple glancing at us; they quietly spoke strange, broken German. Perhaps they were not counting on me knowing a little German. I was eventually able to deduce that they were British tourists, and they were curious as to what two very obviously non-Japanese kids were doing chatting away happily in Japanese while eating cold snails in rural northern France.

It’s in the Water

The next day, en route to the city of Chartres, we stopped for snacks at a rest stop (while I quietly bemoaned the $4/gallon gas prices). I bought a giant bottled water, but had I more carefully inspected its label (as Angie did, after complaining that it tasted like liquid metal), I would’ve noticed it was “special” fitness water. Back in the car, we could see the label clearly: diurétique. Oops.

When we reached Chartres, we snuck into the famous cathedral and watched a service wrapping up, accompanied by a very loud and very amazing pipe organ, belting out Bach’s Toccata & Fugue in D minor. We stayed and listened until the very last note, long after the congregation had filed out.

Just Desserts

King Louis XIV is everywhere you look at the Palace of Versailles. His face smiles down at you from dozens of enormous oil paintings, his head is carved into the stone columns supporting the entrance foyer; why, I was surprised they hadn’t cut the hedges out back in the gardens to look like him. Or maybe they did; I wouldn’t know, because the palace gardens are gigantic and would take days to fully explore.

We made it as far as Marie Antoinette’s faux hamlet in the woods, where she would go to pretend she was a commoner instead of the Queen of France.

“Let them eat cake!” Angie shouted dramatically to the passers-by, but apparently they were revolutionist sympathizers because nobody even cracked a smile. C’est la vie.