Normandy (5/5)

A moving experience, Normandy humbles it’s visitors. Omaha and Utah beach, where the American’s landed on D-Day, June 6, 1944, still contains military relics, bomb craters, and German stronghold bunkers. The American Cemetery is as overwhelming as it is beautiful with over 9,000 graves overlooking the English Channel. We visited several museums, saw lots of military paraphernalia, listened to ‘40s music, and saw a movie of old new reel footage from the landing and subsequent deployment of military troops and equipment from this site once it was secured. TIME WILL NOT DIM THE GLORY OF THEIR DEEDS.
See our pictures of Normandy here.

Giverny (4/5)

The home of Claude Monet is located 1hr NW of Paris. Giverny is a very quiet town with lots of art galleries, gardens, and tour buses. Monet’s home and studio is open to public and offers lots of opportunities to walk around his beautiful gardens and lily pond. It’s a lot larger than we both expected and we were thrilled to see the Japanese bridge that’s been painted so many times by this great master. Monet is buried just down the street and we were able to spend a very enjoyable time both at his home and in this charming town. We speculated that he’s making more money per day in the huge gift shop than he made during his entire life!
See our pictures here.

Villa Savoye / Paris (3/5)

We stopped by another Le Corbusier masterpiece, Villa Savoye, located in the suburbs of Paris. The house models the architect’s five points of new architecture in every way. We followed a sefl-guided tour and loved it so much we walked thru each space at least 3 times. In the evening we ventured into Paris for some dinner and to visit the Pompidou (Richard Rogers/Renzo Piano) building. See our pictures of Villa Savoye here, or see our pictures of Paris here.

Versailles, France (2/5)

You must see Versailles to believe it. It’s got three parts: the chateau, the park and the other park. The castle is about 2 blocks long (IT’S EMENCE!), but it is dwarfed by the MASSIVE gardens located in it’s “back yard” – it takes one hour to walk from the house to the end of the grand canal (I am not exaggerating!). We spent the entire day strolling thru the gardens, learning about King Louis XIV, XV, and XVI, Marie Antoinette, and the Hall of Mirrors. The words ‘shock and awe’ were used by us several times during the day to describe our general feeling for this magnificent landmark. See our pictures of Versailles here.

Belleau Wood, France (1/5)

One hour east of Paris is the WWI battle site Belleau Wood. Nancy’s grandfather, Julian Paul Orem, fought here in 1918 as a Marine. The American Cemetery (1 of 8 for WWI) lies below the woods with 2,038 graves. There is a small memorial in the woods which recaps the battle and an American Memorial overlooking the town of Chateau Thierry which commemorates our brave, young soldiers.

Here's some additional information about Nancy's grandfather:
Julian P. Orem was born September 21, 1898 in Switzerland County, Indiana. He was one of 7 children. His father died November 9th, 1904. By November 22nd, 1905 he was orphaned by the death of his mother Nancy Tabitha Orem.

After a "rocky" childhood, he enlisted in the U. S. Marine Corp in Indianapolis, Indiana on April 13th, 1915. He received his basic training at Norfolk, Virginia, and was assigned to the 8th Marine Company at New Orleans, Louisiana.

After duty on the destroyer Kersarge at Verecruz, Mexico and the Dominican Republic, he was sent to Saint Nazaire, France in late June 1917. He remained with the 8th Company which became the 8th Regimental Machine Gun Company in the 2nd Battalion of the 5th Marine Regiment of the Second Division.

He saw action in the following sectors & engagements: Verdun Sector, Chateau Thierry Sector, Soissons offensive and the St. Mihiel offensive.

He was wounded in the left hand September 12, 1918. He was hospitalized in France for about 10 weeks, and then returned to a military hospital in Norfolk, Virginia where he was eventually discharged April 19th, 1919.

See our pictures of Belleau Wood here.

Ronchamps

Ronchamps in one of several architecutral masterpieces by Le Corbusier. Actually it's called Notre Dame du Haut, but it's affectionatly known by and refered to by the town it is located in. We are taking a driving tour of France later this month and were looking into the locations of several things we'd like to see, Ronchamps being one of them. It turns out that it's less than 1.5 hours from Basel so we jumped in the car for a short road trip.

Check out the pictures.

Panama Canal

We entered the Panama Canal at 6:30am. The stern was full of the passengers taking pictures and eating Panama Rolls (sweet rolls with pieces of orange). Our ship only went thru the first set of locks and we took an excursion that allowed us to see and pass thru the other locks. Here are some interesting facts about the canal:

If a ship is just large enough to fit thru the locks it is called a Pana-max
The locks are 110ft wide – our ship was 106ft wide!
There are 3 sets of lock pairs across the 50 mile Panamanian isthmus
The locks are able to function using fresh water from a man made lake (Gatun)
The locks work via gravity; there are no water pumps used
The locks and mechanisms are 80% original from the August 1, 1914 opening
More than 25,000 people died building the Panama Canal
They are currently designing a larger set of locks that will parallel the existing ones
38-40 ships pass thru on a daily basis saving an 8k mile journey around South America
It cost our cruise ship $225,000 just to pass thru the first set of locks

See our pictures of Panama here.

Cruise Highlights

In between all the eating (breakfast, mid-day snacks, lunch, high tea, dinner, dessert and midnight chocolate buffets) we were actually able to make it to Ft. Lauderdale and back without a) careening off the side of a mountain in a tour bus or b) setting the ship on fire. Here are some of the highlights:
•Going to Big Lots for cold medicine and sunglasses before getting on the ship
•Seeing Nancy’s parents for the 1st time since we left (they took the cruise too)
•Half Moon Cay - we have never seen such beautiful water and beaches
•Aruba –cool fish, coral & turtles on our submarine excursion – pina coladas!
•Curacao – Netherlands colony with old world charm, a canoe trip and snorkeling with fantastic, colorful tropical fish
•Costa Rica – thick rain forest, cocoa plants (chocolate), banana plantations, howler monkeys, toucans, and sloths (two AND three toed!)
•On-Board - Jigsaw puzzles, crosswords, old movies, reading on the deck, cheesy stage shows, duty free shopping, exploring the ship, drinks before dinner, origami towel animals, art auctions, BINGO!, losing money in the casino, galley tour, scrabble, shuffleboard, and lectures from a college professor about our destinations. See our pictures of the cruise at Aruba, Bahamas, Costa Rica, Curacao and Panama.