Normandy and the D-Day Beaches

For our last few days in France, we decided to rent a car in Paris, drive up to Normandy, and then drive down to the French side of Geneva, where we could hop on a train using our Swiss Rail pass. Needless to say, I can't count the number of times we got lost, got stuck in traffic, paid exorbitant $$$ for tolls and gas, pulled illegal u-turns, and just genuinely wished we had just gone with public transit all the way. But it was an interesting experience! We picked up our Ford Fiesta 5-speed at the Gare du Nord train station in Paris and literally crawled for the next 3 hours to Giverny, only 47 miles away. Once there, we headed to the primary tourist attraction in town, Monet's gardens and house (see photo at right). The gardens were gorgeous, but Brian and I both felt that the serene "Monet" atmosphere was ruined by the swarms of tourists everywhere. Once we got out of that claustrophobic area, we strolled through the town down to Monet's gravesite (see pic), and then hopped back on the crowded expressway to our our B&B in the Normandy countryside (see pic). That evening we decided to head to the town of Bayeux (~45 minutes away, if you know where you're going) for dinner (yummy vegetable crepes - see pic), and then had a nightmare of a time trying to find our way back to the B&B on narrow country roads in the dark. And we of course were assisted by enormously helpful roadsigns like the one shown below, that tell you what town you are NOT in. I really thought we were going to have to just pull over into a field and sleep in the car that night!

Monet's house	Monet's grave
Our B&B	Bayeux
Crepe	Street sign

The next morning we drove back to Bayeux (fewer wrong turns in the daylight) to view the famous medieval Bayeux Tapestry, which dates from the 1070s and is a very impressive 230-ft-long cloth embroidered with scenes from the Norman Conquest of England, to tell the story to the illiterate residents at the time. (The photo is from the UNESCO website, since photography was not allowed.) A parody of the tapestry was even featured in an episode of the Simpsons a couple of years ago as the opening couch gag. :)


After seeing the tapestry, we drove over to Caen and toured the Memorial WWII Museum (see pic), and then headed over to the 172-acre Normandy American Cemetery at Omaha Beach (see pic), which honors American soldiers that died in Europe during WWII (most of them during the invasion of Normandy). We took some time to hike down to the beach, and Brian explored the remains of the German pill boxes above the shore while I marveled at how tiny male European bathing suits can be. Leaving the beach, we drove to the Longues-sur-Mer Battery, where Brian got a thrill checking out the giant German guns (see pic). And last on our self-guided Normandy tour, we drove to Arromanches to see the Mulberry Harbors, which were a British military invention for the war to provide a huge manmade harbor to assemble and offload cargo and men heading to the beaches of Normandy, since it would be some time before French ports could be captured. They were only supposed to function for 2 months, but the complex near Arromanches was used for 10 months and parts of it have survived in the channel for 66 years now.

Memorial Museum	American Cemetery
Omaha beach	German gun in concrete defense

The next morning we got an early start for our 9-hour drive from Normandy, back through Paris, and on to Geneva. The drive was long, rather uneventful, and cost us $90 in tolls. But we did get to see quite a bit of the countryside and a ton of vineyards... and we even passed right by Dijon, France, so of course I had to stop to pick up some local mustard! (see pic)