Normandy Day 1: Alligator Bay

Our first day in Normandy was jam packed full. We did Le Mont Saint Michel earlier in the day and had the afternoon free. The second big attraction in the Mont Saint Michel area is Alligator Bay. It is a large reptile park which fantastic exhibits of every reptile imaginable, except a Komodo Dragon. They did not have one of those. 

The first tortoise encounter. There were tons and tons of different types of turtles. We are quite the turtle/tortoise experts after going through this part of the "bay". 

My hunky handsome husband. I could not do any of this without him.

Inside the turtle's lair! 

She finally got up the nerve to touch them. And then we could not get her out of the petting area. I must say, coolest petting zoo ever!

We can never have to many pictures of this darling boy! We love him so. 

Do you remember the lizard Joanna from the movie the Rescuers Down Under?  Well this is that lizard! Not as big as I thought it would be. It kept following Cosette around its enclosure.


And here come the gators! The alligator exhibit was quite impressive. There was a great dispaly of alligators like this. I think these are American Alligators. They also had several exhibits with different species of alligator, caimans, crocodiles. There was even an albino alligator. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves here.

Got a nice big smile from this one. 

This place was off the chain! Haha. These exhibits had all sorts of different ways to view the snakes. There were ones like this one where you could crawl through tunnels under the exhibit. There were a few that had ladders so you could crawl up and down in the exhibit, and others where you could look down on the exhibit. Like I said, off the chain!

Saw a chameleon in real life. It's eyes are huge!

I take a lot of pictures of these two like this, but it melts my heart to see them interact so sweetly. They love each other so much. They are not always like this. Cosette often times takes Henry's toys which makes him cry, and he is into pulling hair so we have to tell him to be gentle. But then there are moments like this. They are going to be good friends.

The view of Le Mont Saint Michel. We could not get enough pictures of it. It is absolutely beautiful. 

We enjoyed a tasty dinner that night of the foods that are famous in the region. The lamb by Le Mont Saint Michel is supposed to be extra good. The lambs graze on the tidal lands giving their meat a salty flavor. We also enjoyed an appetizer of apples and Camembert cheese which the region is most famous for. We are going to miss the French cheese. 

And for dessert apple tart with home made ice cream. The day could not have been more complete. 

The restaurant we ate at was called Le Ferme, which we thought was odd because ferme means closed in French. Later we found out that it also means farm, which makes sense because the restaurant was a converted farm house or stable. It was a lovely building. 

Like I said earlier, Normandy is famous for their apples and cheese. So there are a lot of cow statues. Cosette like finding all the different colored cows in the are. There were about five just on the road by our hotel. We had to document them. The lovely red one by the grocery store.

The nice Andy Warhol inspired blue one by our hotel. Andy Warhol inspired pictures like on the cow were all around the hotel. I really loved it. I did not realize how fun post modern decor could be.

Our first full day in Normandy could not have been better. France is such an enchanting place. We are so lucky to have this opportunity here. xoxo