France

Travel Tidbits: Fly to Paris, cruise the Seine

The Stuck at The Airport cruise team recently sailed as a guest on the Viking Radgrid on Viking’s Paris & the Heart of Normandy itinerary.

Here are some snaps and notes from the trip in case you’re thinking of heading that way once all the stories start flowing about the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics and the June 4th anniversary marking the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings along the Normandy coast during World War II.

We took advantage of a day and half docked in Paris to join a walking tour, visit a museum, ride the Paris Metro and take a food tour during which we drank wine and ate cheese and macarons, of course, but also spied some other edible treasures.

A few stops to savor

The village of La Roche-Guyon, about an hour from Paris on the Seine, is home to Château de La Roche-Guyon, a curious 12-century castle that’s been transformed over several centuries.

Fans of Vincent Van Gogh make sure to visit Auvers-Sur-Oise, the town where the artist painted and drew 74 pictures in a fervish 70 days and where he is buried alongside his brother, Theo.

Rouen, France

Joan of Arc, the patron saint of France, was burned at the stake in a marketplace in Rouen, France in 1431. But the town is also known for the Notre Dame of Rouen Cathedral, a much-photographed 14th-century astronomical clock, museums, and more.

Normandy: Caen Memorial Museum, American Cemetery, Omaha Beach

Many book this cruise for the full-day excursion that includes a visit to the Caen Memorial Museum, the Normandy American Cemetery and the Omaha Beach Memorial.

The museum is immersive, with sections (often very graphic) detailing events the causes, consequences, key players and decisive battles of World War II, the D-Day landings and the Battle of Normandy.

It is shocking and difficult to see some of the images and read many of the documented stories in this museum, but we were heartened by the sight of this crystal radio receiver hidden inside a vegetable can that and used by a French Resistance fighter.

The cemetery contains the graves of 9,387 military dead and, On the Walls of the Missing, an additional 1,557 names, with rosettes marking the names of those since recovered and identified.

And at Omaha Beach, the Les Braves (The Brave) memorial by Anilore Banon was installed in 2004 as the offiical sculpture of 60th anniversary commemoration of the World War II Normandy landings.

Airbus getting ready to deliver its 10,000th aircraft

AC-763

On Friday, Oct 14, Airbus will deliver its 10,000th aircraft – the A350 XWB pictured above – to Singapore Airlines at the Airbus factory in Toulouse, France. On Saturday, this A350 delivery flight – SQ8895 – will take off for Singapore.

Airbus bills the A350 XWB mid-size, long range aircraft family as “the world’s most modern and efficient aircraft family” with an “all-new efficient design” that includes “the latest and unique technologies improving performance in operation,” and making it competitive with the 787 and the 777 (made by, you know, Boeing).

Stay tuned for more details as I’m in Toulouse for a tour of the factory and for the delivery ceremony of the plane. Lots to learn!

Pretty darn exciting..