Monday morning we woke up, had breakfast and started our drive up to Carentan, a strategically important city in between Omaha and Utah beaches. When we arrived, we found ourselves in the middle of a farmers’ market. We walked around the town, visiting the church there, and doing some shopping. Then we took our lunch and went to Utah Beach. At the beach, we found remnants of some bunkers and a sculpture made out of sand. We ate our lunch – veggies, cheese, bread (for Jess) and fruit. Then we walked around the memorials and into a bunker set up as a memorial. There was also a museum there and several tanks and guns. The beach was strange because it was warm out and, in our minds, there should have been people there sunbathing and swimming. However, these beaches attract a different kind of tourism.
Driving through a bird reserve, we wound up back near Carentan and we hopped on the highway and went to Pont du Hoc, another American-run memorial site. It’s located right between Utah and Omaha Beaches, so it was a really important place during the D-Day invasion. Here, US Rangers landed and scaled the cliffs to attack this German stronghold. We could see some gun batteries and a bunker, but the most impressive part of the site was the craters left behind by cannon attacks. This cliff-top area was covered by them.
We had some time left and decided to return to the American Cemetery to see the Visitor’s Center. On the way we passed by the western part of Omaha Beach where we turned-off the road to see a bridge used to connect a mulberry with the beach. Mulberries were the two man-made ports constructed to allow for the goods, cars and men to disembark the boats. These were not put into place until a few weeks after June 6th and they were destroyed by bad weather and storms.
Once we looked at the beach and saw where the mulberries had been, we jumped in the car and drove back to the American cemetery to see the visitors’ center. Passing through the metal detectors (this is a slice of America after all), we were inside the low building. Most of the exhibit was actually underground allowing for minimal intrusion into the surrounding landscape. The exhibit showed items used during the war, things like bandages and canteens, as well as quotes from soldiers and a movie about some of the fallen soldiers. The end was filled with stories of men (each on a separate placard) and included both survivors and “sacrifices.” They were arranged in four groups of four around a round room with light entering in the center. The center was a powerful testament to the lives of these men and I wish we had more time there to really look around.
We had calculated enough time to get from the center to Rouen without traffic. However, upon arriving in Caen, we were suddenly in a bumper-to-bumper, parking-lot style back up. I’m pretty sure there had been a strike or demonstration somewhere, and as we sat on the highway, it became apparent that there had been an accident. Jess couldn’t make our cell phones call French numbers (mine won’t text the US either), so we got off the highway and drove toward the rental agency’s Caen office. On the way, we had to get gas because we chose to return the car with a full tank (saving 30 euro – they would have filled the car for 60 euro and gas only cost us 30!). I pumped the gas, then went inside, told the man which pump I had used (in French), paid and got directions to the train station – IN FRENCH!!! The directions matched what Jessica had already plotted on our very limited maps. We got to the agency, dropped the car off and hopped on a train to Rouen.
French trains really are something to write home about. They’re clean and bright and shiny and I got really excited about them. Jess was pretty non-plused. She’d been on even nicer trains, but I hadn’t. On the one from Rouen to Paris, I sat on the equivalent of a couch with an outlet for my laptop. We got to Rouen at around 9pm, but it was still light out so we could see the Cathedral de Notre Dame which Monet painted 30 times. We also walked to the Seine and crossed a bridge with statues of explorers on it. Rouen is a small city/large town in Normandy. It’s pretty touristy because of the cathedral and it’s also where Joan of Arc was killed.
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