Martragny, France: 2 July 2016
Day 2
Yesterday was all about art and nature and beauty.  Today was a totally different.    Gemma started her day by chasing a red chicken who she found sitting a clutch of eggs.  This is not funny when you are on a farm that makes a business of serving eggs for breakfast and selling honey.
We headed west to Mont St Michel.  We expected traffic, but not as much as we encountered.  We didn't need to speak French to figure out that we were in the middle of the bike racing world -- not just a race, but for the START of the Tour de France!  We found ourselves about 25 meters from the starting line at about 15 minutes before the ride began!  Of course we sat in all kinds of traffic afterward to get to the parking spot to go to the island, but we saw the start of the Tour de France.  We couldn't have planned that better!

 Mont St Michel, second in annual visitors in France only to the Eiffel Tower was magnificent.  Susan Hemmer gets credit for encouraging us to go to Giverny while Eileen Goff was the first to encourage us to come to this granite island that since the early 700s has been dominated by an abbey.  Our time spent on this gothic and majestic island compared sharply to our next stop at Arromanches-les-Bains.  This town marks the east end of the 54 miles of beach of the D-Day landing.  We saw significant remains of the foundation pieces of artificial harbour that Churchill envisioned.

 Our day ended after a fabulous French meal in a family owned restaurant in this picturesque sea-side town-- La Ripalle translated as " The Feast."  Not surprisingly, the French know how to do escargot, au poivre sauce and here in Normandy, a fabulous Camembert sauce!

 When we got back home, Justin went to look for the red chicken.  She had found her way back to her eggs and although she appeared to be tending her clutch, she also appeared to be dead.  Justin even tossed a stick her way with no response.  We haven't figured out how to fess up yet.