Normandie 2019 Day Two

Ann arranged for a guided tour of the Normandie D-Day beaches and we traveled with Marianne and Guy. He was the driver, and she was the guide and a font of information and stories. I longed for headsets and a mic for her so we could move along. When I move slowly, I become exhausted. We stopped for lunch at a cafe that caters to busloads of Americans, so that was disappointing. Otherwise it was a great day.

 Nice breakfast at the Churchill Hotel

 Delicious

 View from the hotel

 Pointe du Hoc where the rangers landed on D-Day

 Craters still visible

 Gun emplacement

Marianne, Kris, and Opa

 Gun emplacement with barracks

 The commemorative monument and the Point beyond

 The wooden beams were turned to charcoal by the

intense heat of the explosion that took out the emplacement

 Barbed wire greeted the Rangers as they scaled the cliff to take

out the German guns

 Marianne had stories

When the hospital was destroyed, the explosion threw these huge

precast concrete stones hundreds of feet

 SKT reading at Omaha Beach

 The beautiful American Cemetery above Omaha Beach

View toward the English Channel

Omaha Beach

It is sobering to understand that each cross represents 

the life of a human being

 

Chapel

 Memorial

 Enormous bronze vase in the memorial

 Memorial and gate as we left

 A beautiful park-like setting

 Huge floating steel barges formed a breakwater and harbor 

at Arromanche that were a little-know, but extremely critical

in the success of Operation Overlord

 Hotel Churchill back in Bayeux

 Supper at Le Garde Manager

 Nice meal

 Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Bayeux

 Evening light on the cathedral

 Baroque pulpit canopy, Romanesque arches, Gothic windows

 Cathedral facade

 Bayeux

 Lots of Medieval architecture

Aure River flows through the center of town

Tomorrow we head north to Calais to catch our train to London. There will be more, but this is all for now.

OXO

D.