An Emotional Journey - Omaha Beach, Pointe du Hoc, American Cemetery

We all wanted to see this, probably Kevin most of all but I didn't really anticipate the strong effect it would have. Omaha Beach is beautiful, a place you would love to go spend a day - and indeed I was tired and would have liked nothing more than to lie in the warm sand awhile.... but it is so haunted by every D-Day movie or picture you have ever seen. You can almost imagine the ships approaching, landing craft coming ashore. You have to imagine in the barricades and imagine out the shrubbery and plant growth that were cleared by the Germans .But you don't have to imagine the big guns and bunkers - those are still there.

So we found the meeting place for Overlord Tours bus - and waited for our driver and the other four people taking the tour with us - they were four friends from the US east coast who travel together frequently - but definitely a different way than we do. When I mentioned the bike tour of Paris to one of the women, she said "oh, our group would not be doing a bike tour". Or staying in a little B&B. But they were interesting.... kind of talked us into going to the Louvre by how clueless the one guy was. His discovery at the Louvre - that Whistler's Mother is actually a picture not just a joke... We used that line a few times.

Here is our 8 person van at our meeting place.

Of course the landmark of the town was in view.... this is an amazing cathedral for a relatively small town (population about 14,000)  and shows how important this town (or at least it's Bishop) was in the middle ages.

This sign we photographed because of the mention of Le Molay - which was an airbase after the D-Day where my dad was stationed for some time before the liberation of Paris when they moved through Paris and on into Belgium.

First stop - Omaha Beach. Bunkers still in place although some have been at least partially destroyed.

Its a beautiful beach even if haunted by images of The Longest Day and Saving Private Ryan...

Here we are, Dad. 

We had a very good guide. Interestingly, he is German although now married to a French woman. 

American Cemetery is very moving. I couldn't decide which hit me more - the many graves with death date of June 6, 1944 or the ones with no name, the unidentified remains.

The beach from the Cemetary area

The Germans had removed all vegetation to make it harder to find places to hide but its lush now.

Pointe du Hoc

We all had the same idea - taking a picture of the barbed wire and the beach.

In Normany hard cider, not wine, is the typical drink. This one we liked a lot.

And the train back. 

We decided to give the guy across the street from our other Crepe place a try - he never seemed to have a lot of customers. We decided maybe there was a reason for that - his crepes were not as good...

Another night eating at home on our terrace - crepes, fruit and wine...

Bayeux in Normandy

There are a huge number of tours of the D-Day beaches and surrounding area - it was difficult to decide on the right blend of time to give to this, extent of history we wanted to hear, and number of sites to see.

But finally I settled on one that left from Bayeux - a couple of hour train ride from Paris and would allow us to have a few hours in Bayeux and 1/2 day tour. 

There are limited trains to Bayeux so we had to leave very early in the morning. We walked to Gare St Lazare station to catch the 7AM train and changed trains in Caen, about 20 min from Bayeux. We had asked Jacques and Helene to prepare a small box breakfast for us to eat on the train and then dozed much of the way. Sandwiches, cookies and fruits. We weren't even sure what the fruits were but they were good!

After a very early trek to the train station, a little nap was in order.

Bayeux was first a Gall-Roman settlement in the 1st century BC. It was of course destroyed more than once over the years but is a beautiful medieval town.  This is one of the first sights in town coming from the train station and I expect it is well photographed! I know we took a bunch of shots trying to get difficult lighting to work out - so here are a few of them of this old mill.

Bayeux is a major tourist attraction, best known to British and French visitors for the Bayeux tapestry, made to commemorate events in the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. According to the legend, the tapestry was made by Reine (Queen) Mathilde, wife of William the Conqueror.  It is displayed in a museum in the town centre. The large Gothic Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Bayeux, consecrated in 1077, was said to be the original home of the tapestry.

After consulting a few maps

We found the tapestry museum

 Bill and Kevin were a little dismayed that Judy and I actually wanted to spend money to go in and look at the tapestry. BUT - there is also a military museum in Bayeux. We decided to split up - Judy and I saw the tapestry and went in the Cathedral and Bill and Kevin went to the military museum - and planned to meet again for lunch. 

Photography was not allowed in the tapestry museum so here is an online picture of a small part of the tapestry. You walk through a darkened long room with audio guide explaining the scenes which are numbered - this also keeps the people moving so its easy to see the whole thing but not take too long...

This is unbelievably long and detailed  - and told the story of William's conquest to an illiterate population.

Ok, here is the military stuff.

The cathedral was quite beautiful and interesting to visit. It has a very interesting history and the Bishop of Bayeux was one of the participants in the battles shown in the tapestry - he went along with William the Conquerer.  Judy and I had time to go inside and walk through it and the crypts. 

Lunch at the Domesday Creperie-Pizzaria turned out to be a very good meal! 

 We wanted to try to remember what we got... let's see if I can do it.

Bill had Cocotte Bouchere du Moment - Pot of the Butcher

a stew of the day I guess - and really good!

Kevin and I had Galette Complete - a pancake with egg, ham and cheese 

Judy had hmm, don't know, but it was also very good. Maybe it was a special of the day?

This restaurant was right down from the Cathedral so I guess we couldn't resist a couple more pictures... just to show you the atmosphere  - and what a GORGEOUS day it was to sit outside almost in the shadow of the cathedral.

 As we were leaving to join our D-Day tour - this caught our eye. A remainder of the old Gallo-Roman wall. The glass (bluish part) supposedly lets you see down in side but with the sun's glare, we really couldn't see any deeper. 

and off to D-Day....