London on $98 a Day - The London Eye

I don't like heights.  Glass elevators give me vertigo and just watching a tightrope walker makes my stomach tingle.  You'll never catch me on the Grand Canyon Skywalk peering into the abyss below. 

But friends assured me the London Eye, the famous Ferris wheel built to mark the millennium, was different.  Being in a capsule with twenty other or so people, having the ability to walk around the capsule, and ascending and descending very, very slowly were all supposed to take the vertigo right out of the experience. 

And they were right!  David and I enjoyed every minute of the thirty-minute trip, and, even better, there was no rain inside the capsule.

Practicalities -
There is an independent ticket office outside the official Eye building, but they sell only packages.  You must buy tickets for two or three attractions (Madame Tussaud was advertised over the loudspeaker as the chance to see the British royal family, Barack Obama, and Brad Pitt!  How's that for an intriguing grouping?), so if you want only a ticket for the Eye, you must go inside the Eye building.  That building also holds a restaurant and free bathrooms.  

In the rain and cold, the line was quite short.  When the weather is balmier, if it ever gets balmier, then I'm sure the line is longer.  Still, since the wheel doesn't stop--you have to step lively to get in the capsule as it's moving--I imagine the line would move fairly quickly.

View from the top, complete with raindrops.

London on $98 a Day - Westminster Abbey

The British know how to hold a grudge. They took Oliver Cromwell, the man most responsible for King Charles I's death, the only British monarch ever beheaded, and had him hanged, drawn and quartered. This uniquely torturous death involves the man* being hanged until barely alive, removed from the gallows while still breathing to be emasculated and eviscerated, and then having his head chopped off while his body is divided into four pieces.

The only problem with subjecting Cromwell to this hideous process was that he was already dead!

London on $98 a Day – Tower of London

David and I first met William the Conqueror in the threads of the Tapestry in Bayeux, France, where William's overthrow of King Harold was recounted. Now, here in England, we see that William, once he claimed England's throne and was crowned on Christmas Day, didn't waste any time getting started on his architectural projects. He began building the tower that was to be the first of many on a fifteen-acre complex that became known as the Tower of London.

In this castle complex, surrounded by what had been an impressive moat, kings and queens lived, the crown jewels were stored, prisoners were held in various towers (Many scratched their names in the walls. One wrote a single word: “Remember.”), and traitors were hanged or decapitated. And, since an exotic animal was judged an appropriate gift for a monarch who had everything, leopards, monkeys, elephants, and other wild animals were caged here.

Each successive monarch added a personal touch to the complex, and the number of buildings grew.

London on $98 a Day – The Ceremony of the Keys

David and I had to order the tickets months ago, and we felt quite special as two of the only forty or so people admitted at 9:30 sharp last Thursday night through the West Gate of the Tower of London. But, despite our anticipation (We worried so about being late that we arrived 45 minutes early.), the Ceremony of the Keys (No photos allowed.) was something of a disappointment.

London on $98 a Day - Victoria and Albert Museum

If you do nothing else while you're in London, be sure to stop by the Victoria and Albert Museum to get a bite to eat.  You'll feel like royalty as you dine in what are surely some of the most beautiful dining rooms on the planet. 

While the dining rooms are consistently stunning, the restaurant stations offer great variety.  You can order a full meal or simply a croissant, and there's a water fountain with glasses for free drinks.  I indulged a long-standing desire and had a scone (pronounced scoun, not scone with a long "o") and clotted cream.  Delicious!

France and England on $98 a Day - France's Election

We were there.  It was yet another rainy day in Normandy.  The BBC said that France was voting to decide between Sarkozy and Hollande, but you couldn't prove it by us.  We heard no TV advertisements, the candidates issued no slogans, and we saw no voting lines.

Elections must be very different in France.  The only posters we saw showed both candidates in high school annual type poses--always side by side.  No one had a sign in his yard or a bumper sticker on his car saying, Surprise with Sarkozy or Happiness with Hollande.

David and I drove around that Sunday, imagining we would witness history with long voting lines.  A British expat had assured us that this election would be definitive even if one candidate only received one vote beyond the 50% mark, so were were certain everyone would get to the polls.  But we saw not a single voter.

Still, the results are in and a new president has been chosen.  This election that silently took place 6 May, will have profound consequences for France with a Socialist president for the first time since the 1980s

France and England on $98 a Day - Hotel Rooms

While we prefer apartments, David and I usually have to book a few hotel rooms during the odd transition/travel day, and this trip was no exception. But this time was unusual because we were in heaven one night with enough room in our room to hold a party, and so little space the next night that we had to take turns moving around the room.

France and England on $98 a Day - Honfleur

David and I have come full circle after an 800 or so mile detour.   We started following the Seine River outside of Paris in Vernon, and after touring the areas of Brittany and Normandy, we've arrived at the river's end--where the Seine meets the English Channel in the port city of Honfleur.

This town has always been important to sailors because of it's protected harbor, and it served as inspiration for artists, especially Eugene Boudin (There's a museum devoted to his work.) and Monet, but today it seems mostly to cater to tourists.  There are souvenir shops everywhere, higher prices than the rest of Normandy, and traffic snarls even in the off-season.

France and England on $98 a Day – Our Spacious Home in Normandy

Ben and Jay, the delightful owners of the Manoir de Founcroup and Les Herissons, the barn from which our gite is fashioned, says these buildings have been around since King Henry the 8^th was speed dating, but we have enjoyed every amenity while still appreciating the place's heritage; the wooden beams, the two-foot thick walls, and the massive fireplace, where a woodstove now rests, constantly remind us of the house's roots.

A painter would be happy here as each of the windowsills holds a still life, but the practical aspects of a vacation have been remembered. No detail has been overlooked. Baskets of jam jars rest on the kitchen sideboard, juice, milk and butter are stocked in the fridge, and there are several cookbooks, one of which is opened to the seasonal recipes celebrating the month of May. Upstairs, candles are clustered on the edge of the huge bathtub ready to cast a romantic glow for that leisurely soak.

France and England on $98 a Day – Omaha Beach

At Omaha Beach, char a voile, low-slung three-wheeler contraptions with a seat and a sail, scuttle across the sand like crabs—just one of the twelve leisure activities available. Vacationers can enjoy the four-mile beach, hotel, snack shops and sport equipment while, just up the hill, almost 9,500 Americans lie buried at the American Military Cemetery and Memorial.

Parachutist hanging from church in St. Mere Eglise

Normandy is full of juxtapositions like this. Everywhere, in thriving cities large or barely visible on a map, are memorials of the war, from the American parachutist who got caught on the church steeple in St. Mere Eglise (A figure still dangles along with his billowing chute. See the movie, The Longest Day, for more details.) to tiny Picauville's memorial to downed American pilots.

Picauville's Memorial

The French clearly know that getting on with the future requires a remembrance of what has come before. In this part of France, they do both well.

They donated the Omaha Beach land north of the holidaymakers' beach to the US government in 1979, and the resulting memorial and cemetery is impressive and inspiring. The path from the parking lot through landscaped grounds filled with flowering shrubs and manicured trees leads the visitor to the two-level center where displays, films, and memorials recount the events leading to D-Day. The biographies of certain soldiers and the stark passageway of gray walls where the names of the dead are endlessly recited personalize the war, while graphic details of the logistics required to bring about the largest invasion in history that eventually lead to Hitler's defeat are recounted in several multi-media panels.

After leaving the visitor center, David and I walked along the path overlooking the beach on our way to the cemetery. We envisioned the scene from the movie, Saving Private Ryan, because veterans say it is the most accurate depiction of that morning, 6 June 1944, when so many Americans died. As we imagined the men facing the challenge of traversing that wide, golden beach with the enemy ensconced behind bunkers up on the ridge, the visitor center, closing for the day, played Taps. David and I both wiped away tears.

We thought we were emotionally prepared for the cemetery, but, then, I suppose nothing prepares you for the sight of white stone crosses and Stars of David as far as the eye can see. As if by prearrangement, David and I wandered apart, each going a different way through the rows and rows of memorials, able to cope only with our own thoughts. Dazedly, we walked past one and then another and another white marker. By the time dusk was falling, neither one of us had found a way to escape the evidence of so much carnage.

Practicalities -
Don't skip the visitor center as it is a moving prelude to the cemetery memorial itself. There are bathrooms and water fountains inside the building as well as housed in a separate building near the visitor center. Everything, the parking, visitor center and cemetery, is free—as it should be.