On the bus from CDG to Caen to Cabourg

Once everyone arrived we jumped on the bus and headed towards our hotel, Hôtel Mercure, in Cabourg. On the way we stopped at the museum in Caen for a few hours. We took in a thirty-minute film that covered most of the war … ok, it was twenty-five minutes of D-Day and Battle of Normandy and five minutes from there to Berlin. The museum is built on top of the bunker of German HQ in western Normandy. It's dubbed a “peace museum” but has exhibits on WWI, WWII, and the Cold War. I guess they subscribe to the theory of détente or peace through strength or some such.

In another interesting twist of irony, we saw a bunch of these posters along the roadside. Our guide told us these were in support of the French Fascist Party. They don’t have any seats in government yet, but had a strong showing in the last election and made it to the second or third round. Interesting is probably not the right word – disturbing is better. One would think after suffering so much under fascism, France would have no tolerance for such politics. OTOH, it’s not politically correct to be intolerant of anything but intolerance! :)
Our guide is Jon and he his half-French, half-English and lived in Italy. He’s got a great style and has been very informative. Conveniently, our bus driver is also named Jon and they will both be with us until Berlin.

Time to go take a dip in the pool and get ready for dinner.