Statue outside Caen Museum- Nuala to show scale

We spent the last day in France, at The War Memorial of Caen museum and then took the night ferry from Caen to Portsmouth. We are near the end of our Gap Year.

Foyer of Museum

The museum is large and we were there from 10.00 am to 4.00 pm. It’s on a very large site over a bunker that housed the Nazi HQ used when the Germans tried to stop the Allies landing in the Caen area. The bunker was built into the cliff face and was totally self contained. They have refurbished it and you can walk through it. The museum has an extensive collection of documents, photos and uniforms. It focuses on the horrors of war and why we should never end up with another World War. Mr Putin of Russia and some of the Russian Separatists in Ukraine should be made visit it. It might make them stop attacking Ukraine. Unfortunately the museum has very few large items like vehicles, tanks or planes, which I think would make it more interesting.

Nuala plays her I Pad in museum waiting on Adrian!

After the museum we headed for the port of Ouistreham 15 km from Caen from where the Brittany Ferry Mont Saint Michel left for England. We left with plenty of time to spare because of our car problems, so ended up there far too early, five hours before the ferry was leaving. Using our usual trick we found a local hotel, La Mare O Poisson went there booked dinner for 7.30pm, got the WIFI code and settled ourselves in the foyer. This gave us a couple of hours to look at our laptops in comfort. Luckily we booked as shortly after we sat down to dinner the restaurant filled up! The dinner was fabulous, a great restaurant and we then we learned that it was very well known the area. It was one of the best meals we had in France and a great way to finish our stay in France.

Nuala on car deck. We stocked up on Camembert cheese

The night crossing was smooth. Because as Nuala gets sea sick she asked if we could book a deluxe cabin on the upper decks. This turned out to be a good decision both financially and economically as we got a great night’s sleep, I bought a bottle of wine in the duty free and had a drink in the room (there were signs up in the shop saying not to drink duty free on board) and breakfast in the cabin was included. So we arrived fresh and fed in Portsmouth at 7.00 am.

We were at Neil and Bernie’s front door at 8.00 am.

Cabin on boat

Foyer of Museum