21 August 2012

Day Three - Part Two

Once we had finished breakfast at the Logis we packed the car where it had been parked overnight and set off down the street to the old town.

Beaumont sur Sarthe
At the entrance they have a wooden mock castle built over the road. I'll add some photos later as they are on the camera not phone.

The new bridge and castle
We had a look at the market and then went downwards hoping to find the old bridge over the river.

Beaumont market

Watches and Basket Weaving & Chair Repairs

Old Bridge
A new bridge carries current traffic across the Sarthe and it is hard to imagine how they managed before it was built.

Once we had bought something for a picnic lunch we set off for the first Plus Beaux Village de France of this trip; Sainte Suzanne.

St Rémy sur Sillé

Once again TomTom did a good job and we arrived untroubled about 11am. It was a short walk from the parking into the village and plus beaux it is too. Photos to follow!

Sainte Suzanne

Sainte Suzanne

Sainte Suzanne
The trip wasn't as long today and I programmed the overnight stop into the TomTom. Altogether it was around 75 miles with TT set to no tolls. Lunch was in a picnic site alongside the road. In France many of these sites are created when they change the road and leave the old tarmac section to be used for parking.

It was still hot, hovering around 30C, and by the time we arrived at Fleuré to the south of Argentan I had the beginnings of a headache.

I pulled over by a hedge and a couple of tricolours and found that this was the Leclerc Monument about 9kms south of Argentan itself.

Leclerc Monument
This is the spot where Patton and Leclerc's armoured divisions engaged the German panzer divisions in August 1944. How fitting that we are here 68 years almost to the day later.

From Fleuré we decided to go to the hotel at the Domaine de la Tour just to the north of Falaise.

TomTom decided that it would take us in what can be described as the back way. The road was a path with a chain across. In the end after retracing our steps several times we decided to go a little further up the D6 and were rewarded with the right way in!

The Domaine is a B&B in what looks like may have been the stables etc of the nearby chateau. They are separate entities now and the owners have restored the buildings.


Domaine de la Tour

We have a large room with armchairs and huge bathroom. It's a little noisy ad they floors ate wood and the people upstairs appear to be wearing army boots!

Tomorrow, we have two places to visit before we arrive in Rouen for our lady night of the trip.

The first is the museum and monument at Montormel. This is where the Polish and other allied armies finally closed the Falaise pocket and destroyed the German panzer army.

http://hulsmann.home.xs4all.nl/falaise.html

2 comments:

Trobairitz said...

I am glad you are having a good time.

We stayed at a 100 year old Inn last year and were on the bottom floor. They had the original and very creaky wood floors in the Inn so I think we had the same clunky neighbors above us.

But at least we got to stay in a piece of history. It sounds as though you did too.

InvictaMoto said...

Yes it was superb. For the price it was such good value, quirky and individual.