We did less driving today as the things on the plan were conveniently grouped together. We drove out to Colleville-sur-Mer, about 30 km from the hotel. The Plan was to start with outdoor stuff, but it was raining annoyingly hard. So we went to the Overlord Museum first. Luckily, it was “in season” so it was just opening (0930). I couldn’t take pictures inside. It’s a massive building featuring WWII-era equipment and wax figures in authentic World War II gear. Very well done, probably the best of the lot we saw.
(Sam advises that off the main highways, this is typical of France and Germany). The main roads start with an “N”; the N13 is the main East-West route on the Normandy coast. These are Interstate quality roads, divided highway, at least two lanes in each direction, controlled access via well-marked on/off ramps. Side routes start with a “D” and outside a substantial town, they are almost always undivided, single-lane affairs that vary in quality from a decent state route in the US to a wide driveway that was paved once in the 1950s. Side roads, with no route numbers, are usually two cars wide, sometimes have paint somewhere on them, and are full of quaint stone houses, fields, walled courtyards, and blind driveways/crossroads.
The parking lot for the museum nearly adjoins the rather large parking lot for the Normandy American Cemetery, our next stop. It was still drizzling, but Sam had two rain coats, conveniently.
I have mixed feelings about this one. First of all, it is effectively US property. It’s the first American cemetery on European soil in WWII, and Americans operate it. That means bullshit security theater. To enter the visitors center, you had to have your bags inspected and pass through a metal detector. WTF? They are ALREADY DEAD! And further, beach access from the cemetery was closed for “security reasons.” I almost don’t want to know what the reasons are because I am sure they are dumb as shit. It’s a paved path down a wooded draw to a large beach.
Well, I refused the visitor’s center on principle. You can access the cemetery from 0900 to 1700 for free and without passing through it, so we did.
The cemetery itself is on the top of the bluff overlooking part of Omaha Beach. Very dignified and immaculately maintained, as you would expect. It is on par with Arlington in my opinion. The rainy weather was apt, much like the real invasion faced. Pictures included of that.
The third stop was, you guessed it, Omaha Beach. I mentioned the road thing above because even though we weren’t going that far as the crow flies, it was a 10km drive along very small roads to get to where we wanted to go.
Well Omaha Beach is miles wide and accessed in several draws (places that slope down from “ground level” to sea level; around 50-75m). We accessed it via the draw at Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer, the site of the iconic (i.e., weird) sculpture The Brave.
This was a legitimate tourist trap and therefore easy to understand and navigate. The weather briefly improved, and we walked out to the surf line and looked back. That’s a really big beach to cross, loaded with gear, and people shooting at you. Hell of a thing.
After that, we drove along the coast a ways and then back out to the highway, where we stopped at the Normandy Victory Museum mainly because of the large adjoining restaurant, since it was past lunchtime. Brasserie et bières Artisanales. Food was good, and the servers were suitably amused at our pitiful French (practically none in my case).
The museum was fine, middle of the pack, I would say. And the 10€ admission was also average. It was slightly more French-oriented than the others in terms of signs and other printed materials. No pictures there either unless you want to see what I had for lunch.
After a siesta, we went into Sainte-Mère-Église and found a pub open where we could get a sandwich. It’s Sunday evening in rural France, and not a lot is open. We had a fine ham & cheese for only 3.50€ each, a bargain.
Suitably fortified, we headed to Utah Beach, as it was left over from Day 1’s navigation error, was close by, and it was only 1900, with plenty of daylight left (sunset at 2030). I intentionally picked an approach road away from the monument and tourist trap, so we shared the beach with exactly five other people and a dog. Nice. It’s a beach, with some only concrete bunkers overlooking it, but nowhere near as formidable a task as Omaha Beach was, and the casualty figures reflect that.
Overall, I haven’t taken many pictures. You could easily confuse rural Normandy with rural Pennsylvania. And since I am at heart a landscape photographer, I haven’t been inspired by much. The rest are museums where either photography is discouraged or it’s dark, and most of you don’t care about this nicely restored, running order M8 Greyhound armored car. Sorry about that.
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