July 3rd and 4th blend together for me since I didn’t get any sleep and just had to slog through the airport system. I will call that Day 0. So, Day 1 began with the discovery that the promised “nice” breakfast was really a thinly disguised continental breakfast. Long on carbs and sugar, short on protein. Meh.
After chatting with several locals and much searching on Google Maps, there are no better options for a “real” breakfast outside a major city. Normandy is really a fairly off-the-beaten-track part of France and generally a sleepy farming area. The nearest thing you could stretch and call a city is Caen, and even that probably didn’t have a hot breakfast.
Except for near the D-Day landing areas. Normandy is completely rural. And even there, it’s not built up much at all. It’s dozens of small-scale tourist traps, lacking the thorough integration we’ve come to expect from more highly developed destinations (e.g., England, Iceland, etc.).
So, the best we can do is eat what we can at the hotel and then get a sub (the French do like their bread) at a small shop somewhere on the way to or at our first stop.
The first stop was the center of the (very small) town of Sainte-Mère-Église. The home of the famous church, Église Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption de Sainte-Mère-Église, and the Airborne Museum.
It’s immediately clear why the church was chosen as a landmark for the invading troops. It’s the largest structure for miles around and is located on high ground. Easy to find. The church itself appears somewhat run-down, in sore need of maintenance. They need someone with an eye for milking tourist dollars to run it, like the many nearby places in town.
The nearby Airborne Museum, however, was on the other end of the spectrum. It filled six buildings on a sprawling, landscaped campus. There were kiddie-level carnival rides outside and several old tanks and artillery pieces on display around the grounds, not counting the dozens of tanks and other vehicles in the various buildings.
I don’t remember the cost, but I think it was around 19.50€. It included an iPad that you could take around to provide an audio background and other information. It was too tedious for us since we were already well-versed in what we were seeing, so we didn’t use it after the first exhibit. For other folks, it is probably quite helpful.
As you might expect, given the name of the place, the focus is on the four divisions of parachute and glider-borne troops that were landed behind the beaches in the hours before the troops began landing.
This place, and almost all the others we visited, was comprised mainly of these life-sized dioramas with wax figures in appropriate gear in and around restored military vehicles. Some of them are even in running order. The photo above is representative. Most places were not keen on photography. Non-flash with a phone was OK, but I didn’t even try to bring the Nikon into these.
After the museum, we walked around the little center of town. I bought a hoodie from last year’s 80th anniversary celebration because, I was cold. I packed for four days in a backpack and a small camera bag and didn’t expect to be cold. It was only 29.50€, so I considered it a donation to the town.
From here, there was some confusion regarding the preplanned Google Map, and Sam drove us towards Caen instead of to Utah Beach. By the time I realized we were driving the wrong way, we were 20 km down range, so we swapped plans somewhat and rolled with it.
By the way, if you haven’t looked into creating custom Google Maps, and you do road trips, it’s worth the hour or two to work out. Once made, you can share a link that has everything marked. There are some subtleties that can trip you up, like this one, but after you learn how it works, it’s great.
Our amended plan’s next stop was the D-Day Experience & Museum and the adjacent Dead Man’s Corner Museum outside the town of Carentan-les-Marais. Two museums for one low price (not really) of 19.50€. That fee also included a Flight Simulator “ride”.
Both museums had gift shops, of course, but unlike the usual stuff, which filled the main museum’s shop, the Dead Man’s Corner’s gift shop was all real and reproduction WWII gear. So that was cool. You could buy a somewhat used bayonet from a Garand for 195€ (good luck getting that home without shipping it). Or a reproduction fleece lined bomber pilot’s leather jacket only 690€.
After all that, we were famished, so we headed into Carentan to find some lunch. Hamburgers and fries were a staple here and a safe choice if you, like me, cannot read a French menu.
That accomplished, it was pushing 1500, so it was nap time. Ha! Jet lag is a thing.
After a nap, we went back into Sainte Mère Église and ate at the Brasserie Chez Jeanne where the server was amused at Sam’s feeble French, but knew Spanish, something he’s almost fluent in and I could at least follow along after a fashion. Then it was back to the hotel to crash for the night.
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