Normandy

The second part of the spring break trip was the Normandy countryside (WWII sites next post). Normandy is a beautiful place, seaside on the English Channel. People are very friendly, its a very nice place to visit. Oh, and their cheese is good. Real good, world famous good. Same goes for their seafood, and their sparkling cider and calvados, which you all get to try, assuming the bottles dont break in my bag again. But anyways, heres the pics:

1) Pont du Normandie cable stay bridge

2) Cottage on the English Channel

3) Sheep

4) Lion sur Mer at night

5) Country church

6) St. Pierre Cathedral in Caen

7) Random town

8) Church at Longues sur Mer

9) Carentan

10) Michigan???

11) Caen castle

12) Caen guard tower

13) Cherbourg harbor

14) Cherbourg fishing fleet

15) Holy Trinity church in Cherbourg

16) Ecoquenaville

17) Norman bocage

18) Garvay

Sorry....

Jake distracted me from finishing my trip summary, then another trip set me back more. So, heres the rest of my Spring Break. The Vienna and Budapest trip pics probably wont be up until after I get back from Italy next week.

Oh, and no pics of the CZ plant, its on the other side of the country, and I'm not going that far, considering that they don't offer plant tours.

Jake is here!

And not into any trouble, yet. We went to a hockey game tonite, Prague beat Liberic 2-1 in game 7 of the playoff semi-finals, so I get a few more weeks of hockey in Prague :)

The Palace of Versailles

So heres the plan. I can't get lots of pictures online all at once, so spring break will be described to you over the next few days, a little at a time.

The first place we stopped was the Palace of Versailles. This building served as the house of the Royal Family and the site of the French government from 1682 until 1789. More importantly, it was where the peace talks were held and the treaties signed that ended WWI. It is still used for special state functions today. Anyways, if you want to know more history, Wikipedia exsts for a reason. I'll tell you more when we get to the Normandy and WWII stuff. For now, I'll just share pretty pictures with you.

Oh, and the pics didnt come out good, but I brought snow with me to Versailles, not that you can tell looking at these pics. It was snowing pretty good for about 10 min while I was inside, meaning I have had snow in ever country I've been to so far.

From top to bottom:

1 & 2) Ouside the front of the palace

3) Stairway leading to the royal apartments

4) One of many cool statues

5) Hall of Mirrors, King Louis throne room, and location of signing of the Treaty of Versailles, ending WWI

6) Marie Antoinette's bedroom

7) Palace Chapel

8) Hallway leading to the Royal Opera

9) Entry room to the Queen's Bedroom

10) Back of Palace

11) Overlooking the ponds out the back

12) Fountain

13) Fountain with rainbow

14) Sitting area for artists to draw

Mont St. Michel

So, if y'all wanna see the castle where I just was at Monday night, suprisingly enough when I opened up CNN.com after getting home, they decided to do a piece on it: http://edition.cnn.com/2008/TRAVEL/getaways/03/28/mont.st.michel/index.html

HA, I beat the rush that will now ensue!

Geneva INTERNATIONAL Airport

Well, Geneva is the first truly international airport I have been to. When you get off the plane, you have two doors to choose from. One takes you into France, and one takes you into Switzerland. I kid you not. Walk through the wrong door, and you're in the wrong country.

How do I know this? I manged to go back to France before making my way into Switzerland.

Anyways, the snow covered mountains look like fun, I'm gonna go play now.

PS - Switzerland is WAY cheaper than France.

Oh....

In my haste last night, I also forgot to mention that before Notre Dame, I did the Eiffel Tower.  If you go, walk to the second floor, and just get a ticket there to go to the top.  You'll save about half the price and half the time waiting in line.

This morning, I am headed to a castle town about 4 hours via train from Paris, to stay the night.  Hopefully spending the night in a castle will be fun!