Day 30

We headed down a straight road with Mark in the back seat. We had to stop on the highway for a potential puke, that did not come to fruition thankfully, and then transferred him to the front seat. He then became the designated shifter of the car and that seemed to keep his mind off of being sick.

The weather had turned cloudy and quite cool when we got to Caen. This is really the first cool, long pants, type of weather we have had. The museum is inside so it did not bother us much. The museum is filled with war history, starting with WW I and continuing through the cold war. Most of the exhibits cover WW II and are filled with quotes from letters of the soldiers, French people, and the politicians. I did not take pictures as it just did not seem like the right thing to do. It was quite a sobering experience. War is hell and this museum did a very good job of showing that. We spent about 3 hours in the museum and did not see the whole thing.

Next stop is the beach in Deauville. It is not really beach weather, but what the heck. The first thing we notice is the buildings are different here. Large plaster buildings with plenty of roof gables, decorated with various metal sculptures, and decorative brown wood battens. The second thing you notice is the seagulls. They are everywhere and none too quiet about it. Clearly they think all those pretty buildings were built for them to perch upon until low tide reveals their seafood buffet or until some café patron leaves a delectable treat for them. The last thing we noticed were the boats, lots of boats, big boats, expensive looking boats.

Deauville is the Hamptons of Paris crossed with the Sundance Film Festival, the playground of the polo set with the extra draw of the annual film festival the beginning of September featuring both French and Hollywood stars. The French hate to admit that they are impressed with anything American, but from the number of photos of Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise, and Jennifer Aniston on the walls of their restaurants and hotels, don’t believe it.

We checked in at the Normandy Grand Barriere, billed as the favorite spot for the French film stars to stay when they were in town and as having a great children’s program. The two seemed incongruent to me, but there were a lot of pictures of stars on the walls and they did have a pretty busy appearing kids club. There were lots of kids running through the lobby at least, trailed by young hotel staff members that were presumably entertaining them. Mark, not speaking French, was not too interested in spending any time in the “club house”. We did go use the indoor pool with the retractable roof, which was not retracted as it was cool and raining. Mark had lots of fun playing by himself near the other kids. In typical French fashion there was a pool monitor that would hiss at the kids when ever they laughed or yelped a bit too loud. (In France, instead of saying shhhh when someone is too loud or doing something you do not like, the all purpose, SSSSSSSSS is used.) It did not seem to be terribly effective on a pool full of children and their nannies on a rainy day at a beachside resort. I did notice the noise did not draw any of the mothers out of the spa in the next room to see what the trouble was.

Following the swim, we went to explore the town itself. It is a very charming town of expensive shops and sidewalk cafes. We found a spot for a snack as it was 3:30 and we had not eaten yet that day. We sat for quite awhile as there was a war of wills involving the consumption of a sugar crepe occurring between the male members of the family. What Mark did not understand is that we really did not have anywhere to go and we did not care how long it took for him to eat. As we watched the stylish Parisians stroll down the streets of their home away from home we noticed that the seagulls were particularly riled up. A moment later a falcon flew by at break neck speed, just above the cars. He was followed by a very fast falcon handler, running next to the cars, and behind him a camera crew. Now this seemed like it may be worth eating a crepe for, just so we could leave and see what was going on.

With crepe digesting, we walked down to a large crowd of people on the ground and an even larger crowd of seagulls flying in circles in the sky. A lone falcon was sitting on a building ledge having a war of wills with his handler, who was standing on the ground waving inducements to the bird and muttering obscenities not quite under his breath. The falcon appeared to be unaffected by any of this, he seemed to be saying, “I have had enough and I will not work without a change in these conditions”. We finally wandered off and several hours later, following a late dinner, we wandered by the same spot and all the commotion was gone. Presumably either the handler or the falcon had given in eventually. SKC

written by  pscossette on July 17, 2007 from Deauville-les-Bains, France
from the travel blog: The Cossette Family Sabbatical
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