Wednesday, April 17, 2019
Exploring France: D-Day Beaches in Normandy
Hello All!
I'm back today to reminisce about a very memorable day from the road trip portion of our honeymoon in France. On our way out of Paris (after one overnight in Rouen) we stopped at a few of the D-Day beaches in Normandy.
We had a beautiful, sunshiny day while we were exploring the D-Day sites. The beaches in this area are used by the French as family friendly beaches, so there was a good number of sunbathers, sandcastle makers and swimmers at each of these sites. That was a fun thing to see!
The other interesting thing about vacationing in this area of Normandy (this was true in Brittany as well), is that there was plenty of English being spoken, but nearly everyone was British! We met very, very few (if any, none come to mind!) other Americans when we were traveling through this area of France! They were catering toward English speaking tourists especially in this area, since the sites are memorializing the American and British involvement in WWII.
Our first stop was the beach at Arromanches, where out in the water and along the beach you can see the remainders of what was meant to be a temporary port where the Allies docked boats and unloaded supplies for the war effort.
While Cam (my husband) was engrossed in the historical significance, neither of us could deny the charm of the small town. It has a small main stretch with small tourist shops (not without charm!). At the end of this stretch we found a creperie right along the beach. We had the best seat in the house looking over the beach, enjoying our crepes and boules of cider!
"Gelato" in this town is made soft-serve style from a machine. It's definitely not traditional Italian gelato, but the French really know how to make desert. It was delicious!
Our next stop was Longues-sur-Mer which was a German artillery battery constructed for D-Day. The guns and bunkers were built into the landscape. I found the most incredible things to see was how the ground looked appeared like sand dunes; many holes and pock-marks in the ground were left from the bombs used that day.
It was also so crazy to see the holes left from guns in these huge sheets of metal. Even more striking is all of this juxtaposed against the picturesque French landscape. Just next to this site were fields with huge bales of hay, and gently rustling fields of wheat.
We visited one museum in the area, the Overlord museum, which featured a good history of D-Day and WWII overall, and had original vehicles used set up with lots of props. I would definitely recommend.
Overall, this day was something like a history day for husbands dressed up as a beach day for the wives. I really enjoyed seeing a piece of the moving history of D-Day, but also loved soaking up the French countryside.
With Love, Katie
No comments:
Post a Comment