InvictaMoto's Family Travels

Posts that would have gone on here but sadly this blog didn't exist back then. So here's a link -  http://invictamoto.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Campania However, what I do have are the photos taken whilst we were there and stored on Flickr .

Bank Holiday Monday and it's time to pay the hotel and set off.   The trip I planned was to avoid the motorway and take the coast road as far as Honfleur. Due to a problem with the Garmin not charging on the bike it decided to die before we had really got to where we wanted  which included a crossing of the Greenwich Meridian. As  we approached  Houlgate I saw that 64000 miles was about to pop up on the odometer, and so I  stopped for Claire to take a pic of me! From here it was on into Honfleur.  Parking up in the centre of the town where I saw a couple of other bikes. It was okay until we had to get away and I had to ride along the pavement and squeeze through the barrier at the end. We had a walk around the harbour and took a break in one of the cafes, sitting in the burning heat of the day. The harbour area is a mass of cafes, restaurants and gift shops.  With the Garmin not working and the deadline of the Shuttle ahead of us we reluctantly set off.

The plan had been to include Pegasus Bridge into the main beaches day but as it turned out it's a good job we didn't as Day 2 was pretty full. We had a late breakfast and we set off for the Bridge a little later that anticipated.  The new bridge was open and we had to wait in a long column of traffic waiting for it to close.  I have to admit to being a little underwhelmed by the place. We parked alongside the Gondree cafe with a few other bikes The cafe was full of British tourists having lunch and we had a drink across the road before we decided to move on to Ouisterham. Pegasus Bridge , originally uploaded by  Invicta Moto . Pegasus Bridge , originally uploaded by  Invicta Moto . Read more  here . The weather was a bit chilly and we had a walk through the village near the casino and had lunch! We always have lunch. We had a gentle ride back down to Caen and parked the bike up round the corner from the hotel and went in to change into civvies.

These are some additional photographs taken on the Normandy Trip. German bunker at Juno Beach Longues Battery Broken barrel at Longues Battery Destroyed gun at Longues The Sherman Tank looking out to sea above Arromanches Mulberry Harbour at Arromanches Beached section of the Mulberry Harbour. Me and the GS at Bernieres sur Mer by my lovely wife Claire.

Day 2 – The D-Day Beaches Saturday dawned bright and sunny and after breakfast we made sure the SatNav had the route in and we were off out of Caen. Me and Baloo outside the hotel I have to admit that as the basis of the route I used a waypoints file that was posted on the BMW Club forum enhanced from the Major and Mrs Holt’s Pocket Handbook to the D-Day Landing Beaches. If anyone is interested I’ll post the file on the forum once I can get it off the unit, this is the one that I downloaded plus some places they didn’t get to! From Caen centre we headed out past the Castle and towards Ouistreham, better known to the British as a cross channel ferry port. Brittany Ferries run a service from Portsmouth. The first stop was just to the south of Colleville-Montgomery and a bunker, dedicated a national monument to the Suffolk Regiment that took this one codenamed “Hillman” and another just down the road codenamed “Morris”. Hillman was attacked on 6th June 1944 by the 1s

I checked the bike out the night before we were to leave. The tyres were perfect and I had to give her 250ml of 20w/50 to take it back to the full line in the sight glass. Then I checked and double checked the maps and routes were in the Garmin SatNav. On Friday morning all I had to do was load the Touratech bags into the Touratech panniers - German panniers for a German bike! We left home a little late for the Shuttle, but only 3 minutes! We checked in and were given the next train after our booking. A little bit annoyed but that’s the way the Shuttle does it. In front were loads of Harley’s on a trip across for the day. They went off onto the 0820 and we had to make do with the 0843. It left late. Superb. The 50 minute wait at Folkestone makes it as long as the ferry to make the crossing, except of course we have to sit on the floor and no coffee, unlike to ferry! Once on French soil it was evident that the hurricane that had been crossing the Atlantic had arrived.