The Beaches of Normandy

Normandy

We woke up early to hit the road so we could see as much of Normandy as possible. We left the hotel at about 8 AM, and while still jet-lagged, we started the day of travel with smiles on our faces. Our first stop was a gas station on the side of the highway for breakfast, a ham and cheese baguette was my choice. Don’t judge me, when in France.

Sainte-Mère-Église

Our first real stop was in Sainte-Mère-Église, this is a small town full of WWII history. A paratrooper’s (JohnSteele) parachute was caught on a spire of the church and he had to play dead for two hours until the Germans took him prisoner. He later escaped and rejoined his division. The church still has a parachute hanging on its spire as a memory of that night. This was also the first town to be liberated on D-Day.

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Utah Beach

We needed to keep moving as today was our only full day in Normandy. The next stop for the day was Utah Beach. Again, this location is one of the best-known battle sites of WWII and D-Day. It is a sobering area, we saw many soldiers in uniform paying their respect. It is hard to imagine how June 6th would have been for the soldiers. I won’t go into the history of this site; it has been covered in detail in history books and movies. Utah Beach is a place to reflect on the events that occurred here over 70 years ago.

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Pointe Du Hoc

We set our GPS for Pointe Du Hoc, this is the battle site that has been depicted in movies over and over. The ocean flows up to the steep cliffs (90ft /30m). There are massive craters around the top of the cliffs from the bombing on D-day by Allied forces. When we arrived, there was a heavy fog over the cliff; the fog was so thick that it was more of a mist of water you were walking through. Due to the heavy fog, it was hard to see the cliffs and the D-Day landing zone below. I was able to get a couple of pictures of the cliffs, but they do not do justice. There are a dozen or so old German fortifications still on the site that were used for massive cannons and troops. Most of the structures were heavily bombed and are in ruins now.

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Normandy American Cemetery

The next stop for the day was the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial at Colleville-Sur-Mer. The cemetery encompasses 172.5 acres and there are 9385 graves, most of them lost their lives during the D-Day landings. We toured the museum and exited the lower doors on the beachside. The setting is very park-like and surreal. It is hard to explain the feeling you have walking through the cemetery knowing what these men and women endured on that day. As we were walking towards the memorial, Taps began to play. I had to stop and reflect as a human and a Military Veteran. It was a very moving moment on the day after the US Memorial Day.

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Bayeux WWII Museum

We wanted to visit a WWII museum in Bayeux before it closed. So, we headed back towards our hotel and the museum. The museum was full of artifacts from all of the forces that were in the Normandy area during WWII. They had everything on display from canteen items, communication equipment, clothing up to heavy equipment and vehicles. The museum was not very large and only took about an hour or so to complete the tour. We decided to return to the hotel to relax and decide where we were going next since we still had a couple of hours of sunlight and it was our last night in Bayeux.

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Bayeux

After dinner and a short walk around town, we decided to see some more of the area in downtown Bayeux. It is a beautiful little town with small streams running throughout. There were cows across the street from our hotel and very close to the city center.

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Caen

Since we still had a couple of hours of sunlight remaining and it was our last night in Normandy we decided to visit Caen. On the way to Bayeux from Paris, we passed by the town of Caen on the highway. It was a short 20 minute or so drive, it was a no-brainer for a quick outing. Caen has about 100,000 residents; it still felt like a small town. We walked around Château de Caen, the old fort/castle overlooking the city, for about an hour. Just below the old fort is the Abbey of Saint-Étienne. This is a Benedictine monastery dating back to 1059. The building now houses City Hall and is stunning at night with the lights on.

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It was starting to get dark and we were tired after a day of driving, walking, sightseeing and jetlag started to kick in. The best plan was to return to Bayeux to get ready for the next day. We needed to return the rental car in Rennes the next afternoon and I had one more place on my bucket list to see before returning the rental car. So we needed to get up early to get to the bucket list location due to when the tide was going out.

Did I mention that Bayeux has roundabouts after roundabouts after roundabouts? Google maps were telling me to take the 2nd exit at the roundabout and before I entered the roundabout it was telling me to take the 1st exit, then the 2nd exit. The roundabouts were so close that google maps would be one or two roundabouts ahead of you and you would have to guess which exit to really take. I dropped quite a few expletives in that short section of the road.