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[chittlins]

Wow
https://youtu.be/IgOYMTWjF8w

[Joy]

Hooolllyyy COW. That was... that was AMAZING. I legit CRIED, it was so beautiful!

Thanks for bringing this to our attention! This is so incredible!

[chittlins]

Hooolllyyy COW. That was... that was AMAZING. I legit CRIED, it was so beautiful!

Thanks for bringing this to our attention! This is so incredible!

Your Welcome.

It's been penciled in the plans for our 2018 Euro trip. It replaces Disney Paris, and that doesn't make me sad. Only other Disney park outside of the States I need to see at the moment is Tokyo for Disney Sea. After three days in Paris we are going to hit the Normandy area and end up at Mont St. Michel and from there we go to this park and then to Limoges/ Oradour-Sur Glane( site of the Nazi massacre) and then Bordeaux and from there we'll fly to Strasbourg and Europa Park.

[runner1960]

Hooolllyyy COW. That was... that was AMAZING. I legit CRIED, it was so beautiful!

Thanks for bringing this to our attention! This is so incredible!

Your Welcome.

It's been penciled in the plans for our 2018 Euro trip. It replaces Disney Paris, and that doesn't make me sad. Only other Disney park outside of the States I need to see at the moment is Tokyo for Disney Sea. After three days in Paris we are going to hit the Normandy area and end up at Mont St. Michel and from there we go to this park and then to Limoges/ Oradour-Sur Glane( site of the Nazi massacre) and then Bordeaux and from there we'll fly to Strasbourg and Europa Park.

Since my Europe trip had to be postponed from 2015 to this year or next. Not sure if my daughter can get enough time away from work this year, but we are trying. Plans are.
Fly into Paris with a 21 day rail pass.
Train it up to Normandy for a couple days then over to the Ardeen's.
A few days seeing WW 2 battle sights around Bastogne.
Train to Amsterdam then to Brussels.
Concentrate on hitting the Micro countries. ( Luxembourg, Lichtenstein, San Marino. Already been to Vatican city but would love to spend a couple days in Rome. ( My favorite European city I have been to ). A couple days in Tuscany and museums of Florence. Probably stay in a old Hill town. Then into the Italian ALps and the bucket list item, is to hike from somewhere in Italy to Gimewald Switzerland. Finish up in Lucerne Switzerland then back to Paris for 4 or five days before going home. Its a very demanding itinerary but we kind of play it by ear. With the rail pass and the fantastic European train schedules its easy to change plans. 

[chittlins]

Hooolllyyy COW. That was... that was AMAZING. I legit CRIED, it was so beautiful!

Thanks for bringing this to our attention! This is so incredible!

Your Welcome.

It's been penciled in the plans for our 2018 Euro trip. It replaces Disney Paris, and that doesn't make me sad. Only other Disney park outside of the States I need to see at the moment is Tokyo for Disney Sea. After three days in Paris we are going to hit the Normandy area and end up at Mont St. Michel and from there we go to this park and then to Limoges/ Oradour-Sur Glane( site of the Nazi massacre) and then Bordeaux and from there we'll fly to Strasbourg and Europa Park.

Since my Europe trip had to be postponed from 2015 to this year or next. Not sure if my daughter can get enough time away from work this year, but we are trying. Plans are.
Fly into Paris with a 21 day rail pass.
Train it up to Normandy for a couple days then over to the Ardeen's.
A few days seeing WW 2 battle sights around Bastogne.
Train to Amsterdam then to Brussels.
Concentrate on hitting the Micro countries. ( Luxembourg, Lichtenstein, San Marino. Already been to Vatican city but would love to spend a couple days in Rome. ( My favorite European city I have been to ). A couple days in Tuscany and museums of Florence. Probably stay in a old Hill town. Then into the Italian ALps and the bucket list item, is to hike from somewhere in Italy to Gimewald Switzerland. Finish up in Lucerne Switzerland then back to Paris for 4 or five days before going home. Its a very demanding itinerary but we kind of play it by ear. With the rail pass and the fantastic European train schedules its easy to change plans.

You are defiantly spending more time in the Normandy-D-Day area than we are allotting . We too are going to hit the Bastogne area but only for a day. We are going to use rail but we wanted to drive a bit as well. We are planning on maybe four weeks. A major component of the trip is the EuroStar from London to Paris.

We are in a bit of stalemate on getting there. We will likely fly out of Memphis because that's where my dogsitter (mother) lives. Otherwise, we would just fly nonstop out of Dallas or one stop out of XNA. I have discover it is much cheaper flying to Dublin than London using your traditional airlines (AA/BA, Delta/KLM/Air France, ect). We are  talking if we went this June, a savings of nearly 700 per person and there's 4 of us. That's a chunk, so the option of using Dublin as a starting point for 2 or 3 days and adjust to the time difference (plus a Guiness and Irish Whiskey tours) was appealing. We would ferry over to Liverpool, train to Bath and on to London. This, however eats in on the backside of the trip and requires us to fly back to Dublin to come home. That's not expensive at all using Ryan Air , it's only like 35 bucks a person to fly from Dublin to London on RyanAir, heck BA is under 70 bucks a person. The flight from Rome back to Dublin would be around 400. This takes luggage into account. So it's still much cheaper than Flying to London and leaving from Rome on a traditional carrier. The Wife is indifferent on Dublin and the Daughter wants that time better spent in Italy. Another option is to fly into New York spend a day or two and fly to London Nonstop much cheaper. Carriers like Norweigian make that very attractive to bookend the trip there. The cost of a roundtrip to NY from Memphis has plummeted in the past year. Only 800 for one stops and 1200 for nonstops for a family of four. Norweigian nonstops from NYC to London Gatwick even with luggage fees are under a 1,000 a person.

We have basically said around a month over there. This would be the girl's Sweet 16 and the boy would be 14.

Being we love theme parks. We planned on Europa, Phantasialand,  and Efteling just cause they are highly themed parks plus they offer nice lodging. PouduFou has been added, we are just intrigued by it.

I'd love to go to places like Plopsa De Panne and Toverland but just don't see the time for it

[shavethewhales]

Thanks for pointing this one out. If we had something like this stateside I'd have it on my immediate to-do list. Kind of a pain to get to France right now though, but I'd love to do this, Phantasialand, Efteling and Europa Park some day.

[runner1960]

Hooolllyyy COW. That was... that was AMAZING. I legit CRIED, it was so beautiful!

Thanks for bringing this to our attention! This is so incredible!

Your Welcome.

It's been penciled in the plans for our 2018 Euro trip. It replaces Disney Paris, and that doesn't make me sad. Only other Disney park outside of the States I need to see at the moment is Tokyo for Disney Sea. After three days in Paris we are going to hit the Normandy area and end up at Mont St. Michel and from there we go to this park and then to Limoges/ Oradour-Sur Glane( site of the Nazi massacre) and then Bordeaux and from there we'll fly to Strasbourg and Europa Park.

Since my Europe trip had to be postponed from 2015 to this year or next. Not sure if my daughter can get enough time away from work this year, but we are trying. Plans are.
Fly into Paris with a 21 day rail pass.
Train it up to Normandy for a couple days then over to the Ardeen's.
A few days seeing WW 2 battle sights around Bastogne.
Train to Amsterdam then to Brussels.
Concentrate on hitting the Micro countries. ( Luxembourg, Lichtenstein, San Marino. Already been to Vatican city but would love to spend a couple days in Rome. ( My favorite European city I have been to ). A couple days in Tuscany and museums of Florence. Probably stay in a old Hill town. Then into the Italian ALps and the bucket list item, is to hike from somewhere in Italy to Gimewald Switzerland. Finish up in Lucerne Switzerland then back to Paris for 4 or five days before going home. Its a very demanding itinerary but we kind of play it by ear. With the rail pass and the fantastic European train schedules its easy to change plans.

You are defiantly spending more time in the Normandy-D-Day area than we are allotting . We too are going to hit the Bastogne area but only for a day. We are going to use rail but we wanted to drive a bit as well. We are planning on maybe four weeks. A major component of the trip is the EuroStar from London to Paris.

We are in a bit of stalemate on getting there. We will likely fly out of Memphis because that's where my dogsitter (mother) lives. Otherwise, we would just fly nonstop out of Dallas or one stop out of XNA. I have discover it is much cheaper flying to Dublin than London using your traditional airlines (AA/BA, Delta/KLM/Air France, ect). We are  talking if we went this June, a savings of nearly 700 per person and there's 4 of us. That's a chunk, so the option of using Dublin as a starting point for 2 or 3 days and adjust to the time difference (plus a Guiness and Irish Whiskey tours) was appealing. We would ferry over to Liverpool, train to Bath and on to London. This, however eats in on the backside of the trip and requires us to fly back to Dublin to come home. That's not expensive at all using Ryan Air , it's only like 35 bucks a person to fly from Dublin to London on RyanAir, heck BA is under 70 bucks a person. The flight from Rome back to Dublin would be around 400. This takes luggage into account. So it's still much cheaper than Flying to London and leaving from Rome on a traditional carrier. The Wife is indifferent on Dublin and the Daughter wants that time better spent in Italy. Another option is to fly into New York spend a day or two and fly to London Nonstop much cheaper. Carriers like Norweigian make that very attractive to bookend the trip there. The cost of a roundtrip to NY from Memphis has plummeted in the past year. Only 800 for one stops and 1200 for nonstops for a family of four. Norweigian nonstops from NYC to London Gatwick even with luggage fees are under a 1,000 a person.

We have basically said around a month over there. This would be the girl's Sweet 16 and the boy would be 14.

Being we love theme parks. We planned on Europa, Phantasialand,  and Efteling just cause they are highly themed parks plus they offer nice lodging. PouduFou has been added, we are just intrigued by it.

I'd love to go to places like Plopsa De Panne and Toverland but just don't see the time for it

Chittlins, You many have misunderstood my 21 day rail-pass. I do not expect to spend 21 days in Normandy, but with the 21 day pass you can ride unlimited in all EU countries that honor the pass. So my intent is to use it to travel all over Europe while I am there. 2 days in Normandy is the max. Then 2 in Bastogne and the Ardeen's. We used this 2 years ago when we were over there and it worked great. Flew into Moscow for 7 days then a plane to Munich after that it was railway for the other 21. Some places I would have loved to drive but Europe is built for rail travel. Even did a overnight in a sleeping car from Vienna to Rome. Had to pay a upcharge for that but it was about the equivalent of a hotel night.
I am planning on at least a month and maybe more depending on how I plan to hike in the Alps.Unlike you I am not A theme park Junkie so they do not interest me in the least bit . But to each his own. If you want a great ride take the Gondola up Mt. Titlas in Switzerland. Better than an coaster you will ever be on.

Good luck with your planning.

[chittlins]

I understand the rail pass and it will be used though not exclusively.

Normandy will go like this:

Paris to Caen
Caen to Bayeux
Bayeux to Omaha Beach
Omaha Beach to Pointe du Hoc
Pointe du Hoc to Sainte Mere Eglise
Ste. Mere Eglise to Dead Man's Corner
Dead Man's Corner to Mont St. Michel

We may very well look for a B&B over a hotel between that, but we want to Stay at Mont St. Michel overnight