The Western End of Route 66

Jellyfish tank at the Santa Monica Aquarium

I picked up a cold in LA - probably due to jet-lag, and so decided to take it easy today as I was planning on going to Disney on Monday. At this point I regretted not using my LA City Pass the day before as most of the easy-going stuff I felt like doing was closed or had restricted hours on Sundays, or you had to book in advance.

Santa Monica Beach & Pier - view from Palisades Park

So I decided to go to the beach!

Santa Monica is really beautiful, albeit a bit touristy. There's a very famous pier called the Santa Monica pier which is the last point on the Route 66 trail.

By Santa Monica beach there is also Palisades park - just a stretch of grassy tree area as far as I could tell - and the Santa Monica Aquarium. Apparently there is also the original Muscle Beach here too but I didn't see that (or have any interest to).

The Santa Monica Pier as the sun was starting to drop in  the sky...

Entry to the Aquarium was included on the LA City Pass - it's only $5 (or Free for kids under 12) but I'm not sure I would have bothered if it wasn't included. It's run by "Heal The Bay" - a not-for-profit environmental group who also run bay clean-ups and educational workshops. The Aquarium is great if you're interested in rocks, bones, shells, and fish eggs - not so much if you want to sit and watch fishies and other sea creatures swimming about as there's not really very many to look at. They do have interactive activities like touching seaweed or doing shell rubbings though so probably worth it if you're being accompanied by small people.

Ferris Wheel at Santa Monica Pier

Historic Route 66: The End of the Trail
A little ironic that this is where I started my journey...
One day I intend to drive along the whole thing.

On the pier there is a fun fair - rides all day are also included in the City Pass; again, not a massive save, and something I wouldn't have paid to do separately, but I had a nice time going on the Ferris Wheel and some spinning cups etc.

There are also lots of shops - beach ones selling buckets and spades, touristy ones selling postcards and souvenirs, and then a few stalls with people selling handmade jewellery or driftwood carvings. Plus all the typical fun-fair food stands with hot dogs, churros and candy-floss. Towards land, there are also some restaurants like Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.

Just like everywhere in LA (and probably any major tourist destination or city), there are loads of buskers.

Santa Monica is Beautiful

Overall, I'd recommend visiting. Even if you're like me and completely adverse to all things sand, the views are spectacular!

Cherbourg Ferme le Lundi

Harbourside view towards Cherbourg

This afternoon I had to take Aurianne for a walk to make sure that she had a long nap. As she needed to sleep for about 2 hours, I thought that it would be worth actually doing something/going somewhere so decided to walk to Cité de la Mer as I've yet to visit the biggest (only) attraction in Cherbourg.

We set off at 1:30pm, and Aurianne was asleep before I'd even done the buggy straps up! It's about a 40 minute walk to Cité de la Mer and so as I needed to be back for 4:45pm, I'd get just over 1.5hours to explore the exhibitions (which I anticipated would be plenty of time, but if not I could always go again).

Irish Ferries, Ferry is called 'Oscar Wilde'

I arrived at Cité de la Mer and thought 'hmm, not many cars in the car park, it must be a quiet day today'. But when I got to the doors I realised it was shut. It doesn't even shut every Monday, just random Mondays between November and May. The annual schedule makes no sense.

Cité de la Me

I was pretty annoyed - we'd walked much further than I would have liked to, for absolutely no reason!

As I didn't want to completely waste the trip, I wandered around on that side of the harbour for a while. I came across a memorial for fishermen lost at sea which was quite interesting.

After about 20 minutes of wandering, I started to head back in the direction of home thinking I could sit in a café and eat cake in town. However, when I got into town, I realised that it was largely desserted. This is because it was Monday.

Absurd opening times of Cité de la Mer

People in Cherbourg (and across France for that matter) refuse to work more than 35 hours a week, and insist on having two days off.

As the town centre is retail area, many people actually want to go shopping on Saturdays when they're home from their office jobs etc. Therefore, most shops and cafés will close on Monday to make up for this 'lost day off'.

It is very annoying.

View out to sea

Memorial for Fishermen lost at Sea

This meant that I couldn't sit in a café and get cake because there weren't many open! Instead, I went to the Petit Jean street bakery and bought myself a Cherbourgeois and a Pepité au Chocolat (which Marc had yesterday - there's also the option of 'Pepititée' or something, which is the same thing but with a chocolate topping too).

By this point it was about 3:15, but Aurianne was still asleep (she clearly needed it) so I went home via Parc Liais and sat on a bench eating my chocolatey goodness.

I got back home at around 3:45pm and then had to sit in the foyer waiting for Aurianne to wake up, which she finally did at about 4:05pm! A very long nap for Aurianne, and very tired legs for me!

Harbourside view

Cherbourgeois
(wasn't as good as last time)

Pepité au Chocolat
(sweet bread with chocolate chips, and folded into
three with Creme Patisserie in the middle. Yum.)

Un Parc en Bord de Mer

View of the park and sea from the car park

Today was Wednesday which means no School! So, I took Marc to the Park (excellent rhyme) while Fran went to 'Boobie Group' - a kind of Breastfeeding coffee afternoon support group with like-minded mums. The group is quite far away (can't remember where) but this means Fran has to go in the car.

As it was a lovely day, I thought me and Marc could go out and so Fran suggested a park near the beach as this was on the way. The park was near to the Navy base and had two really modern play areas, one of which apparently had lots of trampolines (we didn't go up there). It was also right on the beach and had lots of stony rockpool areas too!

Marc spent over an hour playing in the park. It had loads of fun stuff in it - small climbing frame with slides etc. for smaller kids, and a bigger one on the other side, lots of spinning and wobbling equipment too.

On one of the spinning things, Marc kept wanting to go faster and faster and didn't want to get off. After 5-10 minutes on this thing, he announces that he feels a bit poorly so I got him off. He told me that he felt much better now and was going to run to the slide (the slide being straight ahead). He started running, but ended up almost doing a U-turn and then fell over as he was so dizzy! I asked him if he was ok and he said 'yes, but first the sky was there (pointed up) and then it was there (pointing down)!' Hilarious!

'Let's go see the big carrer', says Marc. (Anchor)

Plaque by the Anchor

After the park we went down to the rocks, where Marc collected lots of shells and stones. He found some 'snail' ones - tiny crab/sea snail ones and kept putting them down on the big stones so that they could 'walk away'. I had to explain that these shells were empty so there wasn't a snail or otherwise to walk away with the shell!

Lovely views across the harbour to the forts

Information board showing where we were
in relation to the rest of the harbour/beach

Beautiful views

"Ah, the Big Blue. What's it like?"
"Urm... big... and blue...?"
"I knew it."

Cherbourg Promenades en Mer

L'Adele Bateau
(Taken from the tour website)

French Flag flying on the Boat!

Forts around the Harbour

View of part of the forts

On my first day here (Friday 29th August), Fran took me on a boat tour with the children. It was about 20 minutes to the Harbour so we left at 3pm to get the 3:30pm boat tour.

You can embark on the boat from either the 'Pont Tournant' - the bridge at the harbour near to the shopping centre, or la Cité de la Mer. The harbour is much closer so we got it from there (the first boarding place) and then the ferry swings round to the Cité de la Mer. Fran was really glad we got it from the Harbour as to board from Cité de la Mer you had to climb down some precarious looking stone steps, and with a baby and a 3yo, not the safest!

It was very interesting and went all around the harbour, lasting around an hour. It was guided and they gave us lots of interesting information about Cherbourg and the harbour, well, at least I think they did... it was all in French! (Their website is in English though oddly enough www.hagueapart.com)

One of the forts in ruins
"Probably the Germans", says Fran.

The boat, called 'l'Adéle', went right up to the walls and forts which are all around the Cherbourg Harbour. These were built towards the end of the Napoleonic War, designed to keep the British out, but the French then ironically invited Queen Victoria to come and open them at a grand ceremony!

We saw lots of marker buoys which Marc got very excited by (probably because he could easily spot them and told us about them every time he saw one!) and also saw lots of Ferries going to and from Rosslare, Poole and Portsmouth.

We went past the Cité de la Mer (the Aquarium and Sea Museum) which apparently had/has an exhibition all about the Titanic. Cherbourg was (one of) the last places for the Titanic to stop and they're rather proud of that fact.

It was a pretty bumpy ride. Marc kept wanting to go and sit outside, but after the first 15 minutes, the seats had all been splashed and were too wet to sit outside. We had sat inside to begin with (Marc insisted) so hadn't gotten wet like a lot of other people, but this meant that we didn't really have a good view. He also wanted to run around a lot, which wasn't the best idea given how bumpy the ride was... We're lucky he didn't fall over!

Cherbourg harbour is actually quite big. There's a couple of beaches and the Ferry port, as well as the boat docking bit too.

It was quite a good boat trip all in all. Perhaps I'll do it again when it starts again in April (they're closed from October - March) and hopefully I'll be able to understand a bit more of the tour then!

View of Cherbourg from Sea!