We started our journey at 0430 with a bus ride to the airport to catch a 0730 flight, which was pretty uneventful ending with us at Charles de Gaulle. We had planned to take a train down to Normandy, but when we had to wait 3 hours for the next train we decided to look into renting a car instead. We really didn't do a lot of planning for this trip other than the flight and hotels. Turns out not only was the car cheaper than the train it was also a necessity, once we got to Normandy. We had thought we would bike between the beaches which would have been cool, but it was quite a bit chillier than we expected with a lot of rain showers (Phil had to buy a fleece) and we would not have seen as much (turns out the beaches are pretty far apart).
We arrived in Arromanches (Gold Beach) Saturday afternoon and the history lesson from Phil began almost immediately. I joke (and won't admit it to him), but it was really cool to learn things about it that I either never knew or merely had forgotten since my High School history class.
We spent two days exploring the beaches and museums. Phil was like a kid in a candy store and I was along for the ride. We went to Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword Beaches as well as Carentan, the Easy Company Memorial, Point de Hoc, Pegasus Bridge, and Sainte Mere Eglise. My favorite was Sainte Mere Eglise which is where members of the 82nd Airborne Landed on the early morning of 6 June 1944. The museum there is really well done and the town is very friendly and quaint.
The most interesting aspect of all of Normandy is that in almost 70 years little has changed. They have repaired houses, churches roads and bridges, and there are museums a plenty, but it doesn't have the resorts or tourist traps one would expect for a beach area. You can still very much see what it was like in 1944 with the German pillboxes still riddling the coast and countryside.
Outside the historical significance, the most interesting thing that happened was that we got interviewed by someone writing an article for a magazine (no idea what his name was or what magazine he was writing for so he could have been lying) but it led to an interesting conversation and some cool probably unknown stories. He asked us why we were visiting, apparently there were comments made after the 60th anniversary that people would stop visiting because there aren't many veterans from the war still around. I personally think this would be a travesty and hope that people never forget what happened on those shores or anywhere/time else men and women have fought for a greater cause. They deserve remembering.
We also took a day trip out to Mont Saint Michel. This is a very beautiful old castle on an "island" (it is attached by a channel). A few bad things were that it was a very overcast day, we didn't have the whole day to spend there, and there was a lot of construction which interrupted the beauty of the place. But the town around the castle is really amazing and I think would be very cool to explore a bit more than we could. We said that "next time" we would stay on the Mont for a night.
The last thing we did before going to Paris was stop in Versailles. Versailles is another beautiful place with amazing palaces and grounds to explore. Fortunately it was really nice when we went to being outside and wandering gardens was perfect, but it is yet another place where you can spend all day if not two days - we didn't even walk around the city.
We arrived in Arromanches (Gold Beach) Saturday afternoon and the history lesson from Phil began almost immediately. I joke (and won't admit it to him), but it was really cool to learn things about it that I either never knew or merely had forgotten since my High School history class.
We spent two days exploring the beaches and museums. Phil was like a kid in a candy store and I was along for the ride. We went to Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword Beaches as well as Carentan, the Easy Company Memorial, Point de Hoc, Pegasus Bridge, and Sainte Mere Eglise. My favorite was Sainte Mere Eglise which is where members of the 82nd Airborne Landed on the early morning of 6 June 1944. The museum there is really well done and the town is very friendly and quaint.
The most interesting aspect of all of Normandy is that in almost 70 years little has changed. They have repaired houses, churches roads and bridges, and there are museums a plenty, but it doesn't have the resorts or tourist traps one would expect for a beach area. You can still very much see what it was like in 1944 with the German pillboxes still riddling the coast and countryside.
Outside the historical significance, the most interesting thing that happened was that we got interviewed by someone writing an article for a magazine (no idea what his name was or what magazine he was writing for so he could have been lying) but it led to an interesting conversation and some cool probably unknown stories. He asked us why we were visiting, apparently there were comments made after the 60th anniversary that people would stop visiting because there aren't many veterans from the war still around. I personally think this would be a travesty and hope that people never forget what happened on those shores or anywhere/time else men and women have fought for a greater cause. They deserve remembering.
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| We especially remembered Papa |
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| & visited Phil's Grandmother's First Husband's Grave |
We also took a day trip out to Mont Saint Michel. This is a very beautiful old castle on an "island" (it is attached by a channel). A few bad things were that it was a very overcast day, we didn't have the whole day to spend there, and there was a lot of construction which interrupted the beauty of the place. But the town around the castle is really amazing and I think would be very cool to explore a bit more than we could. We said that "next time" we would stay on the Mont for a night.
The last thing we did before going to Paris was stop in Versailles. Versailles is another beautiful place with amazing palaces and grounds to explore. Fortunately it was really nice when we went to being outside and wandering gardens was perfect, but it is yet another place where you can spend all day if not two days - we didn't even walk around the city.
