Pining for the Fjords

In Part 10 of the Paris posts, we'd finally made it to bed at Les Tournelles for the last time, after a late night involving opera and experimental food. Chris outside Monet's house at Giverny When planning our trip quite a few months back, we knew that, while we'd have more than enough to occupy us while we were in Paris, we wanted to take a few days to get out of the city proper.  Since seeing the Tour de France finish a stage there several years ago, I've always wanted to visit Mont Saint-Michel (MSM), and with that as our end destination, we scoped out a route that would take us out of Paris, allow us to visit Monet's house and gardens at Giverny, and see the American D-Day sites along the Normandy coast, all in one day.  We started our day (a Sunday) early, having one last breakfast in the cave before checking out of the hotel and taking an Uber to the George Astotel Hotel in the Pigalle area of Paris, where we'd drop our large bag for the next few...

In Part 9 of the Paris posts, we climbed up the hills of Montmarte and had our best meal of the trip at Jeanne B's! Getting our culture on! After we'd finished our shopping for the afternoon, we spent some time at the hotel pre-packing for our departure the next morning and getting all gussied up.  Our plans for the evening included seeing the modern ballet "Decadence" at the Palais Garnier (the opera house we'd passed a few other times during our travels around the city) and having a multi-coursed dinner, and we wanted to look nice. The ballet started at 8, and our dinner reservations weren't until 10, so we grabbed a quick snack at the Breizh Cafe to tide us over until we ate again.  Breizh was just up the street from Les Tournelles, and it featured cider and crepes/galettes, all of which were great.  As I was researching the trip, Breizh popped up on almost every site and blog I read, so I was worried it would be packed, but we had only a short w...