Day in Caen, France

The day after Christmas, my parents started their journey to Paris.  We decided it was a good day to doing a little sightseeing.  The weather was gorgeous!  Sunny and in the 50s. Not a bad day for winter in France. My father-in-law had seen a church in his France book that he thought looked interesting. The way he made it to sound was that it was some little church off the beaten path.   But I was ready to get out of the house, so we piled into our rented Mercedes Vito.

Turns out we were heading to Caen.  Joel and I had been the day before to pick up Rachelle at the train station.  Very nice town from what I had seen of it.  There had been a beautiful bridge that I wish I had gotten a pic of.  It was fairly easy to find the church.  Once my father-in-law told us where we were going. LOL.  Abbaye aux Hommes or church for Men was very well signed.  I was highly amused once he told us what church it was…. it was on all our lists of places to see.  Finding parking with the bus was a little annoying.  But we ended up with a prime spot behind the Church.  Unfortunately, we could never figure out the pay to park machine

Thankfully, no ticket or getting towed!  After that experience, we quickly got some change!   The town itself was worth the visit.  I loved all the beautiful architecture.  Since it was the day after Christmas, most of the shops were closed.  I had hoped to find a nice place for lunch.

Caen VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

We headed toward the church and found signs directing us to the Welcome Center.  The kids love running around the large gardens in front of the Hotel. 

The guided tour had too many stairs for my MIL and we didn’t think the kids could handle the 40 minute wait.  So we opted for the self guided tour.  Which was just fine with us.  Elly and Nate do really well but it takes a lot of effort to keep them that way and I end up missing everything. 

 

Since Christmas was the day before, it was still decorated .

 

Abbaye Aux Hommes VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I was surprised how much Jocy said she enjoyed it.  But she did get two years of Catholic School.

The kiddos hanging with William the Conqueror

 

Elly lit a candle and said a prayer to Mary.  It was very sweet.  She thanked God for moving us to Turkey and for sending us to France.  And wished Jesus a Happy Birthday. She asked if she need to sing too.

 

We headed back to the van and went in search of the Château.  After driving in circles and crazy one way roads, we finally found it.  The kids were excited to see a real Moat.  But Elly was concerned because there was no alligator or water. LOL.  Inside were a few museums.  But the kids were pretty tired, so we let them run around on the playground.  When they were well worn out, we decided to walk the walls.  It was a little nerve wrecking since there was NO railings.  Thankfully, that was only the first section or we would have had to leave!

		On the playground VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

 

 

The view from the walls was amazing!!

Since there’s not much to say….. it will be a bunch of pics! Enjoy!

Chateau VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

We were all very exhausted when we got home, but I highly recommend Caen.  It is a well kept clean city.  It’s hard to tell the new from the old.  There was so much more to see, but we only had an afternoon.  My parents were arriving the next day and Rachelle and I wee spending a day in Paris.  Just the two of us.  NO kids!