The tourist season has definitely ended.
Not quite so white.
Rounded but far from round.
Over the Pont de Normandie at Le Havre.
This is an amphibious (duplex) Sherman tank used by the 6th Canadian Armoured Regiment. 07:30 6/6/1944. Kept afloat by inflatable rubber tubes. Now displayed in the town square.
The irony of it having been recovered from the sea after 27 years seems to have been lost!
We quietly hope we (and anyone else) will never find out.
We had a quiet night in the Aires at the eastern end of town.
We were really just passing and the car park was 5 Euros. We didn't feel the need to visit the cinema and other tourist attractions. For us the caissons were the important bit.
A bit more than landing a few troops on a beach. More of the industry of war.
The German Batterie de Longues was four 152 mm guns built in 1944.
It threatened Gold and Omaha beaches and was finally disabled by naval bombardment then over run by troops.
This was used to aim the guns.
And a chance encounter with a tourist tout while Ali was waiting abortively in the tourist info office for a map. Slim pickings for the bottle of beer carrying tout - had to wonder at the image!
Had it been a nicer day we would have seen Mont St Michel in the distance.
Fortunately we've been there on a previous trip.
Avranche also has the Scriptorium. A museum containing papers from Mont St Michel. There wasn't much evidence of English sub titles so we gave it a miss.
A nice touch though, the ceramic tile sign seems to be weathering well.
And in weather like this it doesn't seem to make a lot of difference to the interest..
Our aim is the nearby megaliths of Carnac.
Intrigued by the seven sided area taped off.
This is the Cote Sauvage. Open to the Atlantic which has carved the course granite.
Hard not to tread the sand into Tardis.
A walk along the coast and an obliging bird.
We did a bit of housework and busied ourselves doing nothing.
Similar to other Aires in the area.
Only accepts credit cards.
On the basis we'd tried hard we took the back way in. Good clearance has to be useful sometimes.
Originally built in 1636, then rebuilt for Napoleon III as a signal tower, then rebuilt again in 1976 after being destroyed during the war.
With little lanes just right for a game of boulles.
Didn't get a close enough look at the "how to lift a boulle without bending" device.
These people are trying to escape.
After 15 minutes of trial and error they finally made it.
Failure rate at entry is about 30%. Some people simply park and sleep at the entrance.
There's no contact phone number.
Eventually someone in a queue of 7 for the gate made a few phone calls so after 3 hours a repair man turned up. No admin menu or built in diagnostics so let the post down until further repairs!
All this did mean we met and had a friendly drink with Denis, Martine, Francoise and Jaques. We now know a bit more about France.