Cono wrote:Hey Sniper,
Did you make the hop? If so, did you make it to all the places you were hoping to go?
Oh ya, we made it and it felt like it was over before you knew it! We did lots of new adventures but I didnt get to do everything that I was hoping to.
We got into london on a sunday morning. My dad's friend picked us up from the airport and he took us to his place. We went to a 400 year old pub for breakfast, just the fact that it was 400 years old was pretty awesome. That's older than america! can you imagine how many people have been through that place and all the things that those walls have saw? It's pretty crazy to think about. Anywho, we all got a full english breakfast and I must say it was pretty friken good! and Im not much of a breakfast person haha
After that he took us out to the country side to some little village where a famous painter lived and made some of his paintings. Then we went into london and it was the complete opposite of what the country side was ha. They brought us around to a few of the tourists spots and we got to see a lot of cool stuff. We stopped and got a drink in a pup, we sat around drinking for a bit just to relax. That was about it and the next day we flew out to the Normady area.
Leme tell ya, that morning at the airport was nutz...it was the craziest airport that we dealt with the the entire trip and we went through eight different ones haha. There we learned that an American carry on was not the same as a European carry on bag. I was able to get all 10 days worth of clothes in my carry on, but with the small jets they used for their cheap flights, the overhead bins were just too small. European carry ons are about the size of a backpack lol. we eventually got to france and picked up out rental car. Driving wasnt too bad, we busted out the old fashion map and drove from Deauville all the way over to Pointe Du Hoc and worked our way back toward Bayeux, we spent the night there and then drove to Cean in the morning as our train would be leaving from there to head to paris. I really wish we woulda spent another day in the normandy area, there was just so much to see that we only got a fraction of it in one day. Seeing the craters from the big guns on the ships and the bomb blasts were amazing! It's hard to imagine that anyone survived that barrage. Going down into the bunkers that were there was a pretty eerie feeling just knowing that the view you were seeing was what they looked at on that morning...to tie it all together the entire day was a wet and rainy one with overcast. So that added to effect of seeing all of that. Id like to find some movies with the Pointe Du Hoc in it, I didnt really know much, if anything, about it before we went through it all. The American memorial at Omaha beach was pretty amazing, I'd say it was even better than Arlington. The crazy thing is whenever we got back to the states I had to fly out to Oregon for work and while sitting and waiting for my plane to come home, there was a large group of WWII vets that were going on a WWII tour of DC. As we were sitting there waiting, I tried to talk to one of the guys about his experiences but all I could really get out was that I just got back from see all they went through over in Europe and said thanks, after that I was just too emotional to keep it up. Just being there and realizing all the men that laid down their lives for us is almost mind blowing, seeing all that they were up against and they continued to fight is amazing. I'll definitely be going back there some day!
The train ride to Paris was actually pretty nice, we paid the extra 10 bucks for "first class" tickets. It was worth it, there were only about 10 of us in an entire train car. They didnt even check our tickets when we were boarding! We thought that was odd lol From the moment we got off the train and tried to make our way to the hotel it was crazy. Paris is a fast paced city and everything was so compacted. We eventually got to the hotel which turned out to really just be apartments that they rented out, it worked out well for the price and what we got so all three of use stayed in one and they had their own separate room. We took a Hop on Hop off bus for the city tour, it was actually pretty nice because there were recording that played while the bus went from stop to stop. There is so much history in Paris, thats the thing I liked about it. I hated the city itself but learning and seeing the difference histroy objects was the cool part. Of course the day that we were there the Louvre was closed ha! What are the chances right? My dads wife wanted to spend more that one day there so I didnt schedule our flight our until the next evening so we were able to come back the next day and make our way through the Louvre. It was pretty amazing to see some of the art that you only see on TV like the Mona Lisa, but unless you were an art nut, it was just art galleries upon art galleries. It was cool to have gone through it through, I woulda been upset if we didnt do it. The other thing we didnt get to do was breakfast on the Eiffel Tower... We made it to it at the end of our first day there but we kinda had to rush seeing it due to the buses only running for so long. I will say that it doesnt seem as big as it is in all the pictures you see of it. Once we actually started to get near it, the thing is huge! So that was a pretty cool fact to learn about it.
Berlin was alright, I wasnt sure what to expect for Berlin and we did the hop on hop off bus tour again there but it was nowhere near as good as paris. If so much wasnt destroyed during the war, then it might have been pretty cool with all the old building and such. But we were expecting a lot more about the war and where things happened and where other things were. From that point of view it was pretty disappointing. You could tell they didnt want to talk about it and mostly everything on the tour was about was the Berlin Wall. I learned a lot about it but that wasnt the reason for me being there so it was eh...I can understand that the war was a bad mark on them as a people and they try to push away from it all. So, if you look at it from that point of view, then it makes sense not to see as much as we thought we would. You could definitely see the change going from paris to berlin, it seemed to get more european. The things you expected to see where there, it was just a lot different. Berlin wasnt bad but Id go back to the other places before I wanted to go back. The next day we actually traveled SE of berlin, we planned on making it to Prague and back but we didnt quite make it there. We ended up stopping in a small village, Herrnhut, where one of the great christan pastors first began. It was an amazingly beautiful place, we spent most of the day there just walking around, eating at a small pub where our waitress was dressed in traditional wear and everything. It was actually some really good food there as well!
After exploring Germany, we flew down to Berchtesgaden. This, was the best experience of the trip for me. Even though we didnt get to do nearly all the things I was wanting, it was still pretty awesome. The entire time we were there it was overcast and rainy. We stayed at this amazing resort up in the mountains just outside of town, this place was the best hotel I've ever stayed at. It was pretty dam expensive but it was worth it. If I ever get married again Id defiantly go back there for a honey moon. all the hotel staff were dressed up in traditional dress and it just added to the entire experience. We were planning on going up to the eagles next the next morning but there was too much snow!! Wtf, snow in may? Yup, they said that was pretty common. Some days it would clear up so that people could go up there but not the two that we were there. There was a few feet of snow and with the weather how it was, there was no chance for us. Just being up in the mountains was pretty cool though, if there were no clouds it must look beautiful! We would get a glimpse of the mountains everyone in awhile, but that was nothing compared to if it was a clear day. We had planned on flying back to london the next day but we changed our schedule around to spend an extra day down in the Alps. It was a good decision even though we didnt get to do everything we wanted to do. So, this is another place Ill definitely be going back to someday. The next day we went to Dachau, talk about a humbling experience. Again, just seeing what these people went through, its a pretty crazy feeling to see and be at the place that all that happened.
After that it was a day trip back to London and we flew out the next morning, the flight wasnt bad at all. The plane was actually pretty empty and I got a whole row to myself the entire flight, no complaints there. I've gota go back through, they talked about going in a few years but instead going to see southern europe...we shall see how that goes.
I've still gota upload all the pictures, I'll be going to FL next week so I can link up with my dad and his wife to get the rest of the pictures.
It sounds like you went right down Gold, Juno and Sword beaches. Yea, the cemetery there is AMAZING!!!! They really take care of all the cemeteries. And, the British do as well. I dealt with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission once when I visited a British WWI cemetery in Ieper and noticed that some graves had been vandalized. I took pictures of them and provided the pictures and the info to the Commission. They responded stating that they would take care of it. I traveled through that area a lot and went back about 4-6 months later and it was taken care of. I was glad to see that. Fortunately, in all my visits to American cemeteries, I never saw any vandalism. Recently, there was some vandalism at a British cemetery in Libya. I hated to hear that. Those people are very unappreciative of what the British did for them. I've been to El Alamein in Egypt. I hope they haven't vandalized it.