Day 8, Thursday, April 25

We are off to Juno Beach and Paris today!

First stop was Beny-sur-mer: (Benny by the sea) a Canadian Cemetery commemorating victims of Juno Beach. The Gardens are immaculate and there is always someone working on them.

Second stop of the morning was Juno Beach. We had another detailed history lesson of the offensive launched by the Allies and the trials they faced they stormed the beaches at Normandy along with the British and Americans. It reenforced the sacrifices given by so many for the freedom that we enjoy today. It also was highlighted by the number of young people in our group as many would have been the same age as the soldiers were then. This was a beautiful and moving spot.

As part of our fees to EF, a plaque was made available to us to show remembrance at Juno. Because we are technically two groups, we had two plaques made which will be left forever at Juno.

We stopped for lunch at Arromanches which is right along the beach. Truly beautiful and without sounding crazy, it was as if you could see the events from years ago in the water and beaches.

We have a student who found a tombstone of a great-uncle. This truly made the experience more personal for all of us, but especially Dean.

We drove 3-4 hours to Paris. When we arrived we made a surprise stop at Versailles Palace! Our bus driver and tour director surprised us by letting us have a peek at it and get a few pictures. This was quite incredible and a great surprise as we were not scheduled to go there. The kids loved it!

We said goodbye to our wonderful bus driver today as he, Tomas Cook, was in his way back to the Netherlands. He did some amazing driving down little streets!

We had a delicious dinner of turkey cordon bleu with fries and salad. Hmm hmm hmm mmmm

We then walked to Sacred Ceour where we had the chance to climb a gazillion steps to see a beautiful church or do a little souvenir shopping. A little of all was done.