Quite an early start today after a
nice breakfast in the Hotel and then off for a long day to visit the beaches
and other areas of interest along the Normandy coast. So on to the motorway via
Caen in the direction of Bayeaux and shortly after we arrived in a place called
Grandcamp –Maisy (which was an important area during WW2) where we had a coffee
and visited the fish market for a while and then drove along the coast to
Pointe-du-Hoc which is the location where the US rangers climbed to cliffs to knock
out the guns at the start of the WW2 invasion. The place is still littered by
large holes where bombs were dropped but it was the ranger who knocked out the
guns.
We then toured along the coast until
we reached Arromanche but as the town parking is limited whilst a better view
can be obtained from the hills surrounding the place and you can see the
floating harbour, or what’s left of it, and then we decided to go and see the
360 degrees (wrap around) cinema in HD of a 20 minute film covering the
important parts of the first few days of the invasion. This was certainly worth
visiting and gives you a good understanding of the sequence of events of the
start of the invasion.
The next stop was the US Cemetery
where John and Denise wandered around by
themselves exploring the site and when you see the amount of white crosses it
does bring home the extent of dead Americans lying in French soil From
here we we drove through the countryside to the Caen Memorial Museum which also has magnificent coverage of all things up to
the end of the second world war and a separate section which looks at
subsequent wars around the world, this museum is well designed and most
informative but you really need a day to fully explore the place.
Dinner that night was at the Cafe
des arts in the village square and just across the road from the Hotel but also
parked there was a Pizza takeaway man which I think Denise preferred. Anyway we
had a good meal and a nice couple bottles of wine before retiring for the night.