France 2025 - Day 5 (June 5)

     We had a train to catch at 12PM, so we were able to have a leisurely morning. We took advantage of the free breakfast our hotel offered and made a few last minute purchases.  We were able to secure an Uber to take us to the train station.  When we arrived at the train station, the worker was asking a woman waiting for the train if she had reservations for her bags.  He said something along the lines that the train does not have any room for non-reserved bags.  It gave us a few moments of panic, but he did not say anything to us.  When the train arrived, it was wide open and there were plenty of spaces.  He must have been talking about her connection.  Our connection city was Caen, where we had 1.5 hours to kill.  There was no train station in Caen, so we lugged our bags across the street to a cafe for some lunch.

Here we go.  One minute to get 200 
pounds of luggage on the train

Our Normandie chariot

You can call me anything, just not Jennyfer

I ordered a hamburger that came out with two large hash browns for buns.  Despite the strangeness of that burger it tasted fabulous. Jennie found a little shop called Jennyfer where she picked up a coat for 8 euros.  It appears that Jennyfer the store is cheaper than Jennifer the wife.  We caught our next train to Lisieux at 4:08PM and arrived at 4:35PM.  We were greeted to rain, no Ubers, and no taxis.  Our hotel was over a mile away, which was too much with 200 pounds of baggage.  We decided to take a bus to the hotel but a random taxi appeared and Jennie was able to snag it for us.  We arrived to a room that appeared to be an apartment that is rented out to tourists when the owners are not around.  We had a kitchen, living room, shower and bedroom.  The room was incredible and was half the price of the ones we had in Paris and Mont St-Michel.  

Hashbrown burger

Palatial Living Room    

A woman's place is in the kitchen?

Nice bedroom, no A/C

Where a saint was forged

We made our way to the Cathedral of St. Pierre for their 630PM Mass.  I wandered around before the Mass started and found some interesting items.  One of the side chapels had the confessional were Therese Martin used to receive the Sacrament of Confession.  Another chapel had a relic of St. Therese.  They also had a beautiful painting of Our Lady Undoer of Knots.  This one spoke to me as by Ruthenian parish in Tucson commissioned an icon under the same name for a shrine on Mt. Lemmon outside of Tucson.  Right before the Mass started, a group of 150-200 middle school kids arrived, along with a handful of teachers.  They were in Lisieux on pilgrimage and took up the entire front section of the church.  My middle school teacher wife noted that these kids were poorly behaved.  I'll say that the teachers had their hands full with them.  

Side chapel housing confessional

A relic of St. Therese    

Looking quite medieval

Tu Es Petrus....That pesky Bible verse
that destroys protestants

Chapel of Lourdes

Be the light in the darkness

Beautiful high altar.  Bring them back!

Genevieve and Therese

This is the parish church Therese attended from 
age 4 until she entered the convent

After Mass we tried to find an open restaurant but we learned that Lisieux closes up early.  We managed to find a bar that served food and we parked ourselves there.  After a few Moscow mules and glasses of wine, we made our way back to the hotel.  We had a busy day planned for June 6th.