Villers-Bocage, France

Our B&B/Farm for the next few days of our trip was actually in a tiny little hamlet near Villers-Bocage.

What's a hamlet, you ask?  Well.... something smaller then a village.  And I would say that there was probably 4 or 5 other homes near the farm where we stayed, just outside the village of Villers-Bocage.

The farm has been in the owners family for over 400 years.  We're guessing the wife got bored of farm life and wanted to make it into a B&B.

Here is a link to the site:  http://www.bandbnormandie.com/  and you can see for yourself how beautiful it is.

This is the cottage where we stayed.

There was a photo album that showed the total remodel.  Pretty impressive.

We stayed in the red room; it had a Queen bed and two twins.  When we put the girls down for the night, we were able to go downstairs and use the living/dining area.   There was one other lady from Australia staying in the cottage one of the nights we were there, but we didn't really see her much - she had just traveled 35+ hours and went to bed early.

This was the view from one of our windows.

 And this was Grace's favorite past time.... picking up apples that had fallen off the apple trees and playing Apple Ball.

We loved this place.  Every morning the table was set for breakfast, with cheeses, breads, pastries, coffee, hot chocolate, fresh, local honey, jams..... and then the owner came and made us omelets, too!  And she encouraged us to take whatever leftovers we wanted from the massive breakfast spread for picnic lunch, too.  And we did!

Audrey enjoyed breakfast, too.

Old, french high chairs do not come with wiggle bottom restraints, so we improvised, and Matt took his belt off and tied it around her waist.  Did the trick! ;)

The last morning we were there we found a book showing Villers-Bocage before and during the war.  We had remarked several times driving through the village that the building were all so new...relatively speaking, like 1950s new.   And this book showed why (not that we didn't know).....  the town was almost completely destroyed in the war.    I wish I could find some pictures from the book online showing what it looked like in 1930.  There are a lot of images of what it looked like during the war....  but seeing the before pictures had quite the impact.

But it's a beautiful place now, too.