D-Day Landings and Mont Saint Michel
Trip Start
Jun 05, 2011
1
9
51
Trip End
Jul 26, 2011
Where I stayed
Le P'tit,Quinquin
Le Mont-Saint-Michel, Basse-Normandie, France
Sunday, June 12, 2011
We really enjoyed our little hotel we stayed in at Honfleur, it was little and cosy and the people who ran it were very friendly and nice. They ran an excellent restaurant. We both had fish and it was presented and tasted beautiful - just as good as a top French restaurant in Australia and it cost us 13 Euros each!
The day started out drizzling just a little and we explored the beaches and memorials of the D-Day landings. It was a beautiful drive also, through lovely little villages and smallish Chateaux every so often. You could spend a lot of time stopping and taking photos (Lee does take a lot!).
It was a great history lesson day. On the morning of June 6, 1944 (so we just missed the anniversary and the crowds!) 6000 ships and tens of thousands of soldiers from the USA, UK and Canada mainly poured into this area. Then there was a 76 day Battle of Normandy, where the Allies suffered 210,000 casualties and 37,000 troops were killed.
The first stop was Arromanches where the Allies (British) set up prefabricated Marinas (code name Mulberry Harbours) - and you can still see parts of it today. It was a real engineering feat - massive in size. It was a massive undertaking that took 2 years of planning to get the landings organized and a massive task to keep it secret.
Then we went to Omaha Beach, where the most brutal fighting occurred - on a lovely wide stretch of golden sand (at low tide). Here there is a huge American Cemetery and Memorial. If you have watched Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan”, parts were filmed here - we actually found Private Ryan’s cross where he was buried. American’s certainly know how to set up a museum - which was excellent - we could have spent much longer. The grounds and memorial sight were very moving and a lot of Americans were there placing flowers on relatives graves - similar to ANZAC cove for Australians/NZs - which really moved us a number of years ago. We could have spent a lot of time visiting the museums in this area and understanding what happened.
We then went to Pointe Du Hoc Ranger Memorial and coastline. Here there was a lot of cliffs for the US Army Rangers to scale to get to the Germans fortified battery of artillery guns that rained shells on the beaches of Utah and Omaha and onto sea craft. You see a lot of bomb craters and concrete bunkers which have a lot of bullet holes in the walls and which are the roof formwork blackened by flame throwers. We decided not to take our umbrellas here as the wind kept trying to blow them inside out. Silly move - the rain got heavier the longer we stayed and so we got a bit wet. We could have spent longer here. Fascinating place, especially for guys with a bent for these things.
So it was lunch in the car to keep warm and dry.
We then drove down to Mont St-Michel which is an abbey with slender towers and sky scraping turrets on an island out from the coast, only connected by a narrow causeway. It is a photographers delight - except the weather just was awful, so we decided to find our hotel and turn in early and try tomorrow morning. The Hotel lady said it had not rained for 4 months. It would break while we came wouldn’t it.
Again we had dinner at the hotel - bargain 3 course meal for 13 Euros. They did a special vegetarian entree and main for me too. Lovely!!! Thanks to all of you who are sending us comments on our blog - it is nice to hear from you! Sorry if we don’t reply to all but is good to get feedback. Love to all
Comments
Ron is totally jealous of this little adventure!
WOW ! your blog is inspiring taking notes maybe one day ? Love to you both Xx
Great blog, thanks for yor travel details to date, we are following with great interest