Since visiting the World War 1 site of Verdun in 2013 I have wanted to respectfully visit the Normandy landing beaches of World War 2.
It is important that our boys appreciate the hardship, sacrifice, terror and incredible loss of life that occurred during the 1940’s in pursuit of peace and our current quality of life.
A significant part of our holiday experience is the pre-trip research. And our planned visit to Normandy is no different. A single day can never do a site such as these landing beach’s justice, unfortunately this is all we can allocate on this trip. So it was even more crucial that we get the most we could out of this visit.
The direction of our tour route dictates the direction of our visit, from east to west. Departing Hornfleur (A), our fist visit is to the battery museum of Merville-Franceville (B).
Next is a visit to the Grand Bunker Atlantic Wall Museum (C) at Ouistreham. It is a 5 floor former command and control post designed to protect the port in preparation of an allied invasion. The internal space has been reconstructed to depict how it functioned when operational.
The remnants of the mulberry floating harbor at Arromanches beach (D) seen hopefully at low tide (which research tells me will be at 6:05am & 6:51pm on the 4th of July 2019) is right next to the Longues-sur-Mer battery (E) which is a well preserved coastal defense system with 4 guns used on D-Day still in place.
Our final two visits will be to Pointe du Hoc (F) at Cricqueville-en-Bessin which was captured by US Rangers on 6 June 1944 and looks frozen in time since. Lastly we will visit Utah Beach (G) and the
See the map of our planned visit locations below