The main focus of our pilgrimage to Normandy, France was {naturally} World War II history.
I went with a broad knowledge on the subject, but I returned home with something that textbooks do not teach...
*First, I want to apologize on my feedburners behalf. For some odd reason, every now and then it'll email notify some of y'all about a 'new' post, but with an older post. It's buggy and not supposed to be doing this. Still looking into it.
When we arrived in the picturesque area of Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer, Normandy, there weren't any visible signs of war ravaged land. We were amazed to see masses of cows, farms, green crops for miles, and very narrow old school country roads; where two cars could barely squeeze a fart in between each other when passing in opposite directions.
It was odd to know that much of the area had changed very little since the German occupation. My first thought, after my husband nearly side-swiped the passenger side of our vehicle when driving through a village, was "How the hell did they drive Sherman tanks down these roads back then?"
We stopped at the first place on our list: Musée Mémorial d'Omaha Beach.
We had an early start to our morning; leaving Paris, stopping at Giverny, and from there trekking towards the coast of Normandy, where we'd be spending the next few days.
Our plans for D-Day sites weren't in any particular order, though they were grouped together in regards to their vicinity of each other and other sites.
I read so many reviews on museums while planning this trip that I only picked out a handful of the crème de la crème reviewed museums. I'll explain my reasoning later on.
The one thing I knew for certain is that I wanted the American Cemetery to be one of our final destinations, only to pull the whole of the D-Day sites in together, and last.
Musée Mémorial d'Omaha Beach:
Address: Avenue de la Lib̩ration 14710 SAINT-LAURENT-SUR-MER РNORMANDIE
FRANCERates: €6.70 adult, €3.90 child (7-15 yrs)
This museum isn't super fancy on the outside, and reminded me of army museums on installations back in the states; smaller, genuine, and far from the maddening tourist crowds.
Musée Mémorial d'Omaha Beach was a good start to our D-Day museum visits. Overall, our family ranked this as our 2nd favorite. It offered a decent amount of knowledge, was well organized, and the captioning for every exhibit had English translations. We watched the 15 minute movie at the end, which helped the kids to grasp a moving visual on exactly what took place during the landings.
The museum is a stones throw away from the Omaha Beach Memorial, so from the museum, we hopped in the car, drove a block, whirled in a roundabout, and found a parking space next to the shiny, strange metal sculpture on what is Omaha Beach.
Omaha Beach:
Soon after we arrived, dark clouds formed above and light rain began to speckle our jackets. There weren't many people around, and the few that were there began to walk back to their cars. Once again, we found the place solely ours for the moment.
There was something about standing on this particular beach that cannot be put into words. A pesky knot formed in my throat and silence endured.
I didn't take very many photos. A single image, or a thousand, cannot begin to explain this sacred place. We aimlessly walked around for a bit, in the rain, and with our thoughts. It was one of the most humbling feelings I have ever experienced in my lifetime, and something tells me it will remain as such.
Juno Beach:
Our rental townhouse was located about a minute's walk from the shores of Juno Beach. This beach may not be as widely popular among many average American tourists because it's where the Canadian troops came in on landing day under British command.
Kind of interesting that our history books in the United States sometimes oversee the efforts of others involved...
The Canadian army lost over 350 men on this beach on D-Day, yet made it the furthest inland on June 6th out of all of the forces. We weren't the only folks taking hits; something I find important to remember. Most people compare/argue numbers with losses, but I won't hesitate to say that one lost is too many.
Musée Mémorial Bataille de Normandie:
Address: Boulevard Fabian Ware 14400 Bayeux - France
Rates: €7 adult, €4 child (over 10 yrs)
On day two of our Normandy excursion, we headed into Bayeux to check out Musée Mémorial Bataille de Normandie. Found easily enough, we ventured on inside.
Much of this museum was in written form, not so much visual. We read as much of the information that our brains would handle, checked out some weapons, vehicles, and were on our way. This was the least favorite of our museum adventures. But I will give it this, I still learned a few things during my visit, so I'd say it was worth it.
Pointe Du Hoc:
Pointe Du Hoc was a bitch to find in GPS. It has no real address and the coordinates given to me on a tourism website didn't seem accurate. Luckily I have a weird thing with geography, thus I can pin point anything on an unmarked map of Europe (if you take enough World Geography courses in college, this is normal).
After finding the place on a blank map on the Garmin, we found ourselves in the middle of nowhere, but we weren't quite lost. We knew we had arrived only because a parking lot within the middle of nowhere had tour buses parked in it. Sometimes tour buses are a good sign, like in the case of Pointe Du Hoc.
Pointe Du Hoc is the area of Normandy where the US Army Rangers landed on D-Day.
The beach is cliff side with most of the cliffs averaging at 100 feet in height. The Rangers breached the area by scaling the cliffs. Yes, they had ladders. No, they weren't tall enough.
The grassy land area is littered with craters from shells and such. There are remnants of old German bunkers on site that tourists can weave in and out of. It is believed that bodies of some German soldiers still remain unearthed in the area, which is kind of creepy.
People aren't allowed on the beaches below only because there is the possibility that not every mine has been recovered since the war.
All in all, this was one of the neatest sites regarding WWII that we visited in our travels.
Mémorial de Caen:
This museum ranks as our third favorite. I guess for the €51 I paid for a family of six, I expected to be blown away. Not entirely the case.
It was beautifully laid out; reminded me of the Louvre lobby in some ways, but that didn't make up for the lack of wow.
The museum takes visitors down a timeline of the events leading up to war, the beginnings of war, and the rest is literally history. It's somewhat high-tech-ish, but mostly just a bunch of reading. We did enjoy the bunker at the end of our visit, which was different than any other we had seen during our adventures of Normandy.
Charlie Sector, Omaha Beach:
About 2 km west from the Omaha Beach Memorial is an area called "Sector Charlie". It's not a huge tourist spot, but there are two memorials commemorating the efforts of American Forces here.
Charlie Sector is one of five divisions of Omaha Beach; in other words, just a name to understand a location on the same beach. Charlie Sector is just on the other side (east) of Pointe Du Hoc. There isn't much to do in this area, although I have to admit the scenery is beautiful. Stop to read the memorial, or stop just because.
Overlord Museum:
Address: Lotissement Omaha Center, 14710 Colleville-sur-Mer, France
Rate:€7.50 adult, €5.50 child (10-17 yrs)
Our family collectively rated this as our favorite WWII museum!
The museum is beautifully planned, organized, and has just as much information as it does visuals an exhibits. A nice balance. It also has a decent sized gift shop, should one need to pick up a random trinket for their travels.
Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial:
One of our final stops was the massive cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer where many (but not all) American troops who died in WWII are buried. Just like Omaha Beach, this was another place where one can 'feel' rather than just 'see'.
:
Overall, we had an amazing time visiting the D-Day sites in Normandy, though it feels awkward to state it that way.
There's so much to learn in this area if you're an American History buff, but even if you don't find yourself curious of the past, it's still a beautiful area to visit.
I studied history for a few years in college (still studying, and working, and all of the above. It's ever evolving).
I returned home with some neat pieces of information on WWII that I never knew or gave much thought before visiting the above museums and sites.
Thought I would share a few:
Those are just a few interesting things I had learned. I knew about the decoy paratroopers, but guess I never learned they had a name. But I found the post card thing to be a neato fact. The graves facing west was a "Oh, really?" moment for myself {I know way too much cemetery trivia, and was stumped as to why they faced west...until I read a plaque}. It happens.
We only spent three full days in the area and missed a few places (we missed Utah Beach, a site of US landings, and did not visit Sword or Gold Beach; both of which were stormed by the British).
I believe in order to fully see the grand majority of Normandy D-Day sites, a person would need about a 5-7 days, and their own vehicle (we had ours, but many folks try to tour without one, which is nearly impossible. Public transportation basically stops at Caen).
I hate to say it, but the museums all present the same information, for the most part. They're all just situated differently, and some have better upkeep than others. The 'big daddy' museum in Caen is more so about the timeline of WWII. An overall picture, not just the Normandy landings. This is why I mentioned that I picked to visit the best reviewed museums in the land. There are dozens and dozens of war dedicated museums throughout Normandy. Some aren't even located on Google maps, and to see them all would take an eternity. The museums aren't all about the US landings; some are solely about the other allied forces and their involvement.
We enjoyed visiting the landing sites and small villages more so than the museums, but I wouldn't say the museums were a waste of time.
I hate the realities of war, I truly do.
But visiting Normandy put a lot into perspective for me, especially now that I have adventured around Europe and have seen the remains of devestation.
Without the allied efforts on D-Day, and the rest of the efforts that took place during WWII, this may have been a very different Europe, and chances are that I wouldn't be living here now.
Some of the small wonders I have come to love about Europe may not exist.
Cultural diversity and heritage could have been lost, oppressed, or strained.
No one can say with certainty what Europe would be in modern time if the US and Great Britain took a relaxed approach to the war, but I have more appreciation for those brave folks after my visit to Normandy. Had it not been for them, Europe may have been a dream much further out of reach.
I went with a broad knowledge on the subject, but I returned home with something that textbooks do not teach...
*First, I want to apologize on my feedburners behalf. For some odd reason, every now and then it'll email notify some of y'all about a 'new' post, but with an older post. It's buggy and not supposed to be doing this. Still looking into it.
When we arrived in the picturesque area of Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer, Normandy, there weren't any visible signs of war ravaged land. We were amazed to see masses of cows, farms, green crops for miles, and very narrow old school country roads; where two cars could barely squeeze a fart in between each other when passing in opposite directions.
It was odd to know that much of the area had changed very little since the German occupation. My first thought, after my husband nearly side-swiped the passenger side of our vehicle when driving through a village, was "How the hell did they drive Sherman tanks down these roads back then?"
We stopped at the first place on our list: Musée Mémorial d'Omaha Beach.
We had an early start to our morning; leaving Paris, stopping at Giverny, and from there trekking towards the coast of Normandy, where we'd be spending the next few days.
Our plans for D-Day sites weren't in any particular order, though they were grouped together in regards to their vicinity of each other and other sites.
I read so many reviews on museums while planning this trip that I only picked out a handful of the crème de la crème reviewed museums. I'll explain my reasoning later on.
The one thing I knew for certain is that I wanted the American Cemetery to be one of our final destinations, only to pull the whole of the D-Day sites in together, and last.
Musée Mémorial d'Omaha Beach:
Address: Avenue de la Lib̩ration 14710 SAINT-LAURENT-SUR-MER РNORMANDIE
FRANCERates: €6.70 adult, €3.90 child (7-15 yrs)
This museum isn't super fancy on the outside, and reminded me of army museums on installations back in the states; smaller, genuine, and far from the maddening tourist crowds.
Musée Mémorial d'Omaha Beach was a good start to our D-Day museum visits. Overall, our family ranked this as our 2nd favorite. It offered a decent amount of knowledge, was well organized, and the captioning for every exhibit had English translations. We watched the 15 minute movie at the end, which helped the kids to grasp a moving visual on exactly what took place during the landings.
The museum is a stones throw away from the Omaha Beach Memorial, so from the museum, we hopped in the car, drove a block, whirled in a roundabout, and found a parking space next to the shiny, strange metal sculpture on what is Omaha Beach.
Omaha Beach:
Soon after we arrived, dark clouds formed above and light rain began to speckle our jackets. There weren't many people around, and the few that were there began to walk back to their cars. Once again, we found the place solely ours for the moment.
There was something about standing on this particular beach that cannot be put into words. A pesky knot formed in my throat and silence endured.
I didn't take very many photos. A single image, or a thousand, cannot begin to explain this sacred place. We aimlessly walked around for a bit, in the rain, and with our thoughts. It was one of the most humbling feelings I have ever experienced in my lifetime, and something tells me it will remain as such.
Juno Beach:
Our rental townhouse was located about a minute's walk from the shores of Juno Beach. This beach may not be as widely popular among many average American tourists because it's where the Canadian troops came in on landing day under British command.
Kind of interesting that our history books in the United States sometimes oversee the efforts of others involved...
The Canadian army lost over 350 men on this beach on D-Day, yet made it the furthest inland on June 6th out of all of the forces. We weren't the only folks taking hits; something I find important to remember. Most people compare/argue numbers with losses, but I won't hesitate to say that one lost is too many.
Musée Mémorial Bataille de Normandie:
Address: Boulevard Fabian Ware 14400 Bayeux - France
Rates: €7 adult, €4 child (over 10 yrs)
On day two of our Normandy excursion, we headed into Bayeux to check out Musée Mémorial Bataille de Normandie. Found easily enough, we ventured on inside.
Much of this museum was in written form, not so much visual. We read as much of the information that our brains would handle, checked out some weapons, vehicles, and were on our way. This was the least favorite of our museum adventures. But I will give it this, I still learned a few things during my visit, so I'd say it was worth it.
Pointe Du Hoc:
Pointe Du Hoc was a bitch to find in GPS. It has no real address and the coordinates given to me on a tourism website didn't seem accurate. Luckily I have a weird thing with geography, thus I can pin point anything on an unmarked map of Europe (if you take enough World Geography courses in college, this is normal).
After finding the place on a blank map on the Garmin, we found ourselves in the middle of nowhere, but we weren't quite lost. We knew we had arrived only because a parking lot within the middle of nowhere had tour buses parked in it. Sometimes tour buses are a good sign, like in the case of Pointe Du Hoc.
The beach is cliff side with most of the cliffs averaging at 100 feet in height. The Rangers breached the area by scaling the cliffs. Yes, they had ladders. No, they weren't tall enough.
The grassy land area is littered with craters from shells and such. There are remnants of old German bunkers on site that tourists can weave in and out of. It is believed that bodies of some German soldiers still remain unearthed in the area, which is kind of creepy.
People aren't allowed on the beaches below only because there is the possibility that not every mine has been recovered since the war.
All in all, this was one of the neatest sites regarding WWII that we visited in our travels.
 |
| And sometimes you find a greenbean superhero on site. |
 |
| I made him do it. |
Mémorial de Caen:
This museum ranks as our third favorite. I guess for the €51 I paid for a family of six, I expected to be blown away. Not entirely the case.
It was beautifully laid out; reminded me of the Louvre lobby in some ways, but that didn't make up for the lack of wow.
The museum takes visitors down a timeline of the events leading up to war, the beginnings of war, and the rest is literally history. It's somewhat high-tech-ish, but mostly just a bunch of reading. We did enjoy the bunker at the end of our visit, which was different than any other we had seen during our adventures of Normandy.
 |
| This was an actual bunker used by the commander of the 716th Infantry regiment of the German forces. It was originally used as a firing range by the French until the occupation. The museum was built on top of the bunker. It's super dark in this bunker, so I'm surprised I was able to catch a pic without a tripod. |
Charlie Sector, Omaha Beach:
About 2 km west from the Omaha Beach Memorial is an area called "Sector Charlie". It's not a huge tourist spot, but there are two memorials commemorating the efforts of American Forces here.
Charlie Sector is one of five divisions of Omaha Beach; in other words, just a name to understand a location on the same beach. Charlie Sector is just on the other side (east) of Pointe Du Hoc. There isn't much to do in this area, although I have to admit the scenery is beautiful. Stop to read the memorial, or stop just because.
Overlord Museum:
Address: Lotissement Omaha Center, 14710 Colleville-sur-Mer, France
Rate:€7.50 adult, €5.50 child (10-17 yrs)
Our family collectively rated this as our favorite WWII museum!
The museum is beautifully planned, organized, and has just as much information as it does visuals an exhibits. A nice balance. It also has a decent sized gift shop, should one need to pick up a random trinket for their travels.
Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial:
One of our final stops was the massive cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer where many (but not all) American troops who died in WWII are buried. Just like Omaha Beach, this was another place where one can 'feel' rather than just 'see'.
:
Overall, we had an amazing time visiting the D-Day sites in Normandy, though it feels awkward to state it that way.
There's so much to learn in this area if you're an American History buff, but even if you don't find yourself curious of the past, it's still a beautiful area to visit.
I studied history for a few years in college (still studying, and working, and all of the above. It's ever evolving).
I returned home with some neat pieces of information on WWII that I never knew or gave much thought before visiting the above museums and sites.
Thought I would share a few:
- The French do not refer to D-Day as D-Day. In fact, they call it Jour-J (yes, they have a D in their alphabet). And other languages/countries have their own reference.
- Small paratroopers, all bearing the name of "Rupert", played an interesting role in D-Day. Who were they? They were child size burlap sack dummies equipped with chutes and recordings of gun fire to distract the enemy away from the real troops coming to shore. There are quite a few of them still hanging around in the museums, and oddly, I find them kind of cute.
- The British government used the BBC in efforts to gather post cards and photos from the public for reconnaissance in planning the landings. In other words, they collected them from listeners (noting that they were going to be used for European tourism, just in case the enemy caught word), and the vacation post cards helped give further insight into the surrounding areas along coast of Normandy. Normandy was a vacation destination before the war. And post cards aren't a waste of souvenir money, after all.
- Each grave in the Normandy American Cemetery faces west; towards home. Not east in the 'rising sun' tradition like other national/federal cemeteries located in America.
Those are just a few interesting things I had learned. I knew about the decoy paratroopers, but guess I never learned they had a name. But I found the post card thing to be a neato fact. The graves facing west was a "Oh, really?" moment for myself {I know way too much cemetery trivia, and was stumped as to why they faced west...until I read a plaque}. It happens.
We only spent three full days in the area and missed a few places (we missed Utah Beach, a site of US landings, and did not visit Sword or Gold Beach; both of which were stormed by the British).
I believe in order to fully see the grand majority of Normandy D-Day sites, a person would need about a 5-7 days, and their own vehicle (we had ours, but many folks try to tour without one, which is nearly impossible. Public transportation basically stops at Caen).
I hate to say it, but the museums all present the same information, for the most part. They're all just situated differently, and some have better upkeep than others. The 'big daddy' museum in Caen is more so about the timeline of WWII. An overall picture, not just the Normandy landings. This is why I mentioned that I picked to visit the best reviewed museums in the land. There are dozens and dozens of war dedicated museums throughout Normandy. Some aren't even located on Google maps, and to see them all would take an eternity. The museums aren't all about the US landings; some are solely about the other allied forces and their involvement.
We enjoyed visiting the landing sites and small villages more so than the museums, but I wouldn't say the museums were a waste of time.
I hate the realities of war, I truly do.
But visiting Normandy put a lot into perspective for me, especially now that I have adventured around Europe and have seen the remains of devestation.
Without the allied efforts on D-Day, and the rest of the efforts that took place during WWII, this may have been a very different Europe, and chances are that I wouldn't be living here now.
Some of the small wonders I have come to love about Europe may not exist.
Cultural diversity and heritage could have been lost, oppressed, or strained.
No one can say with certainty what Europe would be in modern time if the US and Great Britain took a relaxed approach to the war, but I have more appreciation for those brave folks after my visit to Normandy. Had it not been for them, Europe may have been a dream much further out of reach.
Tara, this is a wonderfully laid out pictorial and narrative history of the Second World War. Now I want (more than ever) to visit those sites and experience the entire atmosphere. Thank you for sharing this with us.
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