Last night I discovered Pascal was lost in action, there were only 2 places he could be, Livarot Cheese tasting factory or The House of Camembert. We all felt quite sad - especially me as Pascal has been everywhere with me even in New Zealand since 2014 - the thought of our epic bike trip felt empty without him - how could one become so attached to a little bear - I also discovered everyone on Facebook is attached to him too. An email to Livarot Cheese factory found him, Jacqueline from our Farmstay picked him up and took him home to be with her until we could collect him - whew!!! With this news the next day Rod & I both cheered up. 

After cruising around the cider country it was time to head to Caen Memorial to visit, learn and think about those that lost their lives in the fight for a free world. The Battle of Normandy lasted 100 days. D-Day 6th June 6000 died on the 1st day!!! Over 425,000 Allied & German troops were killed, wounded or went missing during the Battle of Normandy.

The Caen memorial is huge, there were still ques at 3.30pm and this was off peak. I am not a history buff or a museum freak, however I this was very well done and the movie that they showed in black and white of original footage was a insight into real people, the look of terror, fear and hopelessness on faces was very upsetting. France suffered huge loss in the battle of Normandy with many innocent people loosing their lives in the bombings that took place.

It is written;  "After 4 years of German occupation, the people of France had the most to gain from an Allied invasion - and the most to loose. More than 18,000 French civilians were killed during the Battle of Normandy. But despite the terrible risks the French Citzens rose to welcome their liberators."

We visited Arromanche 360 degrees movie - well worth a visit and again made it feel real, the beach is cluttered with remains of the temporary bridge they used to come ashore. The logistics and putting this together is hard to imagine. The day we were there is was freezing the wind was blowing in from the north and one could only wonder how these mean dealt with that cold sea being soaked before they even got ashore. Juno Beach where the Canadians landed had many memorials of recent flags that had been laid - it was so cold........

A typical experience of how you can get it wrong by booking via booking.com awaited us in Arromanches-les-Bains - this gite had amazing reviews great photos and yip it was a dump, it stank, toilet didn't flush properly, cigarette butts everywhere it was depressing.

I snapped into action and found somewhere else, luckily only 2km's down the road. We jumped in the car and went to see if they had room for us all for the last 2 nights were were together, it is how you imagine, a quaint french home, with lovely bedrooms, bedding, it was wonderful, a french breakfast included in the beautiful kitchen, a far cry from what we had just left. We were all very happy. Once settled we headed out and stumbled across a small seaside village selling seafood off the wharf and couldn't resist the fresh scallops and prawns - so hence home for more cider, prawns & scallops.