D-Day Tour Part 2

For Part I of the D-Day Tour, go here
For Part III of the D-Day Tour, go here

During our tour we passed through a number of idyllic French towns. Unfortunately we didn't stop and I wasn't able to get any pictures. But they were exactly as you would imagine little French towns would look. It made me want to come back, rent a car and spend days driving around the French countryside with Quinn. It is beautiful country and we loved the time we spent here.

Pointe du Hoc

After leaving Omaha Beach, we traveled through the countryside to Pointe du Hoc, which in English means 'Cape of the Hook'.

Pointe du Hoc was a significant gun battery as it faced both Utah and Omaha beaches. The 2nd Rangers Battalion was tasked with scaling the cliffs to take out the 105mm artillery cannons.

After doing so at great loss of life, they discovered that the guns were not in fact in the battery. The Germans had made fake guns out of telephone poles lying horizontally out of the ground which looked real from the air, and they had not even finished building the batteries.

A Sergeant and another Ranger on patrol found the five guns, one in horrible shape, one in fair shape, and three pointed at Omaha Beach, but there were no German soldiers near the guns. The Rangers made the guns inoperable while the Germans nursed hangovers in a nearby hedgerow, unaware.

There are over 3000 craters at Pointe du Hoc. The area was closed for 10 years after the war to clean up.

Inside bunker at Pointe du Hoc

Our very French tour guide Stefan, recently retired from the French Legionnaires after 31 years of service. He was incredibly knowledgeable on the events of D-Day and had a great sense of humour. Here he is at Pointe du Hoc.

Sainte-Mere-Eglise

Our next stop was Sainte-Mere-Eglise for lunch and a tour of the museum. Kyle and I went into a Boulangerie and I competely ordered (in French) a quiche, a tartine, and two pain au chocolat for our lunch, which we ate in the sun on a bench across from the church.

In the confusion of D-Day, many paratroopers were dropped far from their intended targets, with some landing in towns instead of the countryside. One unfortunate paratrooper got caught up in teh steeple of Sainte-Mere-Eglise, and there is a stone statue complete with cloth parachute to mark it.

Museum

 More to come in Part 3.

D-Day Tour Part I

I don't usually go for tours, preferring instead to find my own way, but I knew with our limited time and the size of the area to cover that an organized tour would be our best bet. I found Overlord Tours online and read some great reviews. It isn't inexpensive at 85 Euros per person, but it is well worth the money. It would have been impossible for us to cover the ground we did today (160 km over 10 hours) or to find our way to the various locations. Plus on our own we wouldn't have learned even a tenth of what we heard from Stefan, our tour guide. I highly recommend Overlord Tours (plus I'm heavily borrowing from their website for this post).

The Batteries of Longues Sur-Mer

The Batteries of Longues-Sur-Mer are part of the Atlantic Wall, which was a system of fortifications built by Nazi Germany extending along the Atlantic coast of Western Europe.  There are four battery casements complete with 152mm German naval guns behind the control bunker, and we were able to climb in and around all of them.

Inside the battery looking out. See the

The 152mm guns were trained on the Atlantic across the English channel, able to shoot as far as the horizon. Here's a view from the batteries to the coast where the Allied forces landed.

 

Omaha Beach

We visited some of the better-defended German positions along Omaha Beach. The tides pushed all of the Allied forces well past their intended drop points, and in many cases the troops ended up facing conditions that they were not trained for.

This beach assault was a difficult assignment, given to US V Corps (General Gerow) whose Force O was made up of the 1st Infantry Division, 29th Infantry Division, the Rangers and several attached Units.

View of Omaha Beach from the bluffs of Colleville Cemetery

Normandy American Cemetery & Memorial in Colleville 

To see row upon row of crosses marking the graves of soldiers both named and unnamed gave Kyle and I greater perspective to the loss of life on D-Day.  The cemetery extends over 170 acres on the bluff above Omaha Beach and honours over 9300 American soldiers who lost their lives in Europe during World War II. 

The reflecting pool, looking down the cemetery toward the chapel.

Many soldiers were unidentified, and their crosses read "Here rests in honored glory a comrade in arms known but to God."

The grave of Teddy Roosevelt, Jr. is in this cemetery.  The names of 1,557 Americans who lost their lives in the Normandy campaign but could not be located and/or identified are inscribed on the walls of a semicircular garden at the east side of the memorial.

Memorial to soldiers lost whose bodies were never recovered.

I have so many more pictures to post - Part I only comprises the first half of our tour. It's already 11pm and the s-l-o-w internet connection at the hotel means I'm going to have to finish this later. We have loved our time in Normandy and I can't wait to show you pictures of the rest of our tour and of Bayeux where we've stayed for the last two nights.

For Part 2 of our D-Day Tour go here.
For Part 3 of our D-Day Tour go here.

Off to Paris tomorrow morning!

As Audrey Hepburn said in the movie 'Sabrina', "Paris is always a good idea."

Normandy

We left Milton Keynes bright and early on the 7:14 train to Euston Station. It was the first time we'd been in London on this trip and the city was bustling with Olympic spirit in and around the station. We walked from Euston to St Pancras International, where we caught the Eurostar to Paris. I completely missed the part where we went under the Channel - will have to watch for it on the way home. It can't have taken very long.

via Pinterest

We had about an hour in Paris, enough time to find our way from the Paris North station to Paris St Lazare, via the Metro. About that time I realized that my French is abysmal, and I was embarrassed at how inept I was at asking for directions.

Gare St Lazare via Pinterest

Seriously, I couldn't have found my way without Kyle. He was able to figure out how things worked and knew somehow instinctively which direction we should go. At one point, after I had done something he found amusing, he looked at me and said, "I bet this is how you used to feel with Nana." Cheeky, right?

Do you see how he's looking at me?

Once we were in Caen, we made our way to Le Memorial de Caen. It is a very large, very well done museum with exhibits on the First and Second World Wars, and has an extensive exhibit on D-Day.  I wanted to see the Museum in advance of our Omaha Beach/Band of Brothers tour tomorrow to give us context.

We then traveled from Caen to Bayeux on the train and walked (for miles) to what may be the smallest hotel room I've ever stayed in. Cheap and clean ... at this point, that's all I can ask for.

Kyle gets the top bunk.

We went for a walk this evening through the medieval town of Bayeux. There is rich history here - from the Bayeux Tapestry and William the Conquerer to the D-Day Landings on June 6, 1944. We went inside the Bayeux Cathedral which dates back to 1077. I plan to go back tomorrow evening to take some pictures of the detailed architecture inside and out.

We had dinner at a Creperie. These pictures are for you, Max.

Kenilworth Castle

Kenilworth Castle is 160 km from London and for almost five centuries served as a royal residence. Most of the castle is in ruin and was built over a number of centuries, beginning in 1210 by King John.

The wall in the foreground was built in 1210 by King John. The keep in the background right was the original building built in the 12th century, and the building to the left and behind was built in the 13th century, and the far left building was built in the 16th century.

The inner court is enclosed on three sides by the keep, the great hall and Leicester's Building. The keep on the left was the defensive heart of the castle.

 The windows of the Great Hall that was built in the late 14th century.

Kyle and me in the Great Hall

The Elizabethan Garden was built by Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester for Queen Elizabeth's visit in 1575. He is said to be her great love, and although she never married, Dudley tried many times to get her to agree to marry him. There was a lot of pressure for her to marry someone who could strengthen England but the fact that he was already married must have been the biggest obstacle to their love.

Leicester's House where Robert Dudley and a succession of wealthy gentlemen farmers lived until the early 1900s.

Rebecca & Caden - our hosts in Milton Keynes

Early tomorrow morning we take the train from Milton Keynes to London, and then the Eurostar to Paris and another train to Caen in Normandy where we will visit D-Day sites. We will be in France for three days and then it's back to London to see my Dad.

England - we're here!

Kyle with Winston and Duncan. We're staying with my friend Rebecca from high school and these are her boys.

I'm more than a little jet lagged right now and while I can't form coherent sentences, I can post pictures. The first are of a church that we drove by on the way here from Heathrow. The second church is in the village near to where Rebecca and her family live. It's called St. Mary's in Shenley Church End.

Good thing we bought our rain coats. We got caught in a very brief rainstorm while we were on our walk, and once we had made it home the skies opened and it hailed.
In August. Did I mention it's 33 degrees Celsius back home?

Emily at Point Roberts

A quick catch up post on Point Roberts. 

Emily's friend has a horse and they rode on the beach. After a couple of days of watching and doubling with her friend, Emily rode Thunder on her own.

 When the tide is out is the perfect time to ride.

Grand Adventure

It seems like forever ago now, but I once told my children when they were sixteen they should pick somewhere and we would go, just the two of us.

Kyle is turning 16 in a few weeks. And he and I leave for London today.

Ever since he was a little boy, Kyle has been absorbed by history - in particular World War II. This trip is all about seeing the sights he's read about all these years, visiting the Imperial War Museum, the Churchill War Rooms, the HMS Victory (not WW2, I know but cool nonetheless).

via Pinterest

We will be there for the last week of the Olympics too, and are hoping that my friend who is working on NBC's coverage will be able to hook us up with some tickets.

via Pinterest

We are also going to visit Normandy to see the D-Day landing sites.

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I traveled a lot with my family as a child and in my early teens. My step dad worked all over the world, and as kids we had some pretty amazing experiences. Traveling opened my eyes and gave me insight that I wouldn't have had otherwise. I am so grateful for that, and for a generous mother-in-law with lots of air miles so that Kyle and I can share this adventure together now.