Utah Beach

Utah Beach lies to the West of Pointe du Hoc and even further West from Omaha Beach. Not so many cliffs here as at the other beaches. We arrived just before sunset, at high tide, when the beach was at its narrowest. At low tide, at the time of the landings, crossing the beach would have been like running the length of a football field of sand. The only hope for cover would have been to reach the dunes above the high-tide mark.

The Statue of Peace

I'd never heard of this before. The picture shows the statue of peace, between Pointe du Hoc and Utah Beach. Near it (or as part of it...I did not figure it out) is a memorial to the US National Guard.

Pointe du Hoc

Omaha Beach was the most difficult and bloody of all the beaches of the D-Day landings. On the Western edge of Omaha Beach was Pointe du Hoc, a point where the land juts into the ocean in the form of high cliffs. These cliffs were a perfect place for long range guns to cover both Omaha Beach (to the East) and Utah Beach (to the West). All the intelligence at the time said that the Germans had placed such guns here. A crack group of US Army Rangers were given the mission to climb the cliffs and capture these guns.
At the top of the cliffs, on Pointe du Hoc, today you can still see the scars from 1944. The landscape is cratered like the moon with depressions from the bombs from planes and shells from naval guns. Grass grows in the craters today, and 60 years of erosion have done little to hide the scars.
In the end, the rangers fought to the top of the cliffs (at great cost) only to find that the guns had been removed. I guess intelligence was difficulty in wars then as in wars now. The gun emplacements still remain, as empty today as they were on June 6, 1944. But there is no sense of futility. You can only admire those men, or more truthfully boys, who fought their way up those cliffs on that day.

Today, you can still meet the men who took part the landing. They come to the beaches and the cliffs around Normandy. They are old now. Very old. Each year, there are fewer and fewer I suppose. On that day in 1944, they were the same age as my boy Jake. I look at those cliffs and I can't belive it. I can't imagine the heart it would take in a person so young to do such a thing.

Omaha Beach

The French living in Normandy must feel like the British and Americans came in 1944 and never left. Every little village has a D-Day museum of some sort and each museum is surrounded by shops that peddle books and post cards and mementos to the visitors.

This is OK with me. I was one of the visitors.

Theresa and Katie and I drove the coast road from the cemetary down to the beach. That would have been Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944. Today, the Normandy coast has found its calling as a summer home for vacationing Parisians. The beach front is peppered with "vacation colonies" and campgrounds. In the months of July and August, the Parisians come in droves to Normandy beaches to enjoy three weeks of vacation in the sun. (Parisians either head South to the Mediteranean or North to Normandy.)

We ate a dynamite lunch in a seaside hotel-restaurant. Then Theresa and Katie went shell hunting on the beaches. The opening picture, though not the best, shows the two of them in a moment of pause. The remaining pictures below give a feel for the coast. As you might judge from the clouds, there was rain rolling in on this particular afternoon.

The US Military Cemetery at Normandy

If you follow the beach roads west from Arromanches, you arrive at the town of Colleville-Sur Mer. This seaside village was in the heart of the 3.5 mile stretch of coast with the codename of Omaha Beach.

Just outside of the village is the cemetery.

The Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial. This place is where they gathered the men who fell in western France during the invasions of 1944. In the movie Saving Private Ryan, this cemetery served as an emotional backdrop - a symbol of the cost of WWII. When you visit in real life, it is humbling. The cost is measured in endless rows of white crosses looking out over the deep blue ocean. Endless rows of white crosses under deep blue skies. I don't really want to say too much, because it doesn't seem right, it doesn't seem respectful. At the risk of disrespect, I include a photo of the grave below. The cross bears no name. It says "Here rests in honored glory a comrade in arms known but to God."

Gold Beach

About 10 miles North of Caen, you run into the beaches of the Normandy coast. The beaches are sandy and broad and slope gently out into the channel. The land rises quickly from the beach to form high bluffs overlooking the beach. In some places, there are no bluffs or beaches, but only cliffs that drop down to the ocean.

To the North of Caen is the village of Arromanches. On June 6, 1944, Arromanches was the westernmost point of Gold Beach, where British troops landed. After the British secured the beaches and bluffs, then the allies used the waters off of Arromanches to create an artificial harbour. They towed in huge concrete barges and sunk them to form a breakwater. Then they brought in huge pontoons to serve as the platform for bailey bridges. For a few weeks, the artificial harbour here was the largest port in the world - landing men and material in support of the allied invasion of France.
The pictures here show the area around Arromanches and Gold Beach. You can still see the old concrete breakwaters in the picture above. In the picture below, you can see the old pontoons stranded on the beaches like dead whales.

Caen

We started the day at Amiens, spent the better part of it at Lisieux, and then finished it at Caen. Caen is one of the larger cities in the heart of Normandy. It lies about 10 miles from the beaches of the English channel. In the 11th century, it became a stronghold for William, Duke of Normandy, who built a castle there. (The picture above shows this modest little home as it appears today.) Later, he crossed the channel to become William the Conquerer of England. 900 years later, in 1944, the British returned the favor and bombed the town into ruins.

Caen has risen from the ashes of WWII to reclaim its place as a leading city of Normandy. It has a WWII museum that is a tourist trap for the D-Day visitors from the UK and US. Also, they have done major restoration to the bombed out architecture of the churches and ducal palaces. The one thing lacking is half-timbered houses.

Normandy, like Alsace, is famous for the half-timbered houses that were typical of homes built in the 15th - 17th century. The Norman houses are distinctly different from Alsatian houses in that the wooden beams tend to have fewer diagonal beams and more curves. Thanks to the bombings of 1944, there are very few of these homes remaining in Caen. The musée de la poste, shown below, is one of the few exceptions.
The following picture is another one of the old houses. This one is not so typically Norman, but I thought it was impressive enough to merit a picture.Finally, the best thing about Caen is that they have jalapeno peppers there. There was a tiny little Tex-Mex restaurant that offered an honest-to-goodness plate of nachos. Corn chips, cheese, and jalapenos. French food is good, but it lacks spice. I've been dying for 12 months to find food that makes my tongue burn. Finally, in Caen, we found what we had been craving.For the record, Theresa and Katie found the restaurant also served a mean margarita. Magaritas are hard to find in France and, when found, are not that good. Caen once again came to the rescue with a margarita as good as any in the US.

Calvados

Within France, the Normandy region is best known for cheese, crêpes, and apples. The cheese (especially Camembert and Livarot) comes from the seeming billions of cows that speckle the hillsides. Crêpes are a local dish that went national. You can find a crêpe stand on almost any corner in any city in France. And the apples....well, if the land isn't covered by cows it is covered by apple trees.

Many of the apples end up in cider. Not your gallon jug sweet Indiana cider, but rather a fizzy hard cider that is bottled like champagne and treated with the same respect. If the apples are really lucky, they end up as Calvados - the local apple brandy.
Calvados, the apple brandy, takes its name from the Calvados region of lower Normandy. There seem to be hundreds of local producers who sell there products from their houses or roadside stands. Almost like moonshine.

The serious producers turn out a product that is prized as much as fine cognac. They age the calvados in wooden barrels for 10 years or more. In some places, you can buy stuff that is 40 to 50 years old. It is serious business. In France, anything involving food or drink is serious business.

Lisieux: The Pilgrimage

Just down the road from Amiens is the town of Lisieux. For us, Lisieux marked our first stop in the Normandy region. It is an old town with an old cathedral where in 1152 they say Eleanor of Aquitane married Henry II, King of England and Duke of Normandy.

The most famous resident of Lisieux, however, was Thèrése Martine who lived in the Carmelite convent on one of the hills overlooking the town. She was canonized a saint and is known to the French as Sainte Thérèse de l'Enfant-Jésus et de la Sainte Face. To English speakers, she is Saint Theresa the Little Flower. The Carmelite convent has become a place of pilgrimage, second only to Lourdes in the number of visitors.
A huge basilica has been built upon the hill to serve as a focal point for the pilgrims and a resting place for the saint's remains. The interior of the church is decorated with colorful mosaics which, unfortunately, do not photograph very well. The picture below shows a small chapel in the crypt. The picture above is a statue of Sainte Theresa. The custom is to leave pictures of loved ones and small notes of prayer around this statue. You can't see in the picture, but the floor around the statue is covered with these offerings.

Amiens: The Little Details

Following are a few pictures from around Amiens, with stress on the little touches. Afterall, it's the little things that make the masterpiece.

Amiens: The Pàtisserie

Since arriving in France, Katie has been hypnotized by the pàtisseries...the bakeries that specialize in pastries and pies and other sweets. This is no weakness on her part, as Thersa and I and everyone we know become hypnotized when standing in front of the window of a pàtisserie. Like moths drawn to a flame.

Following are a few pictures from a pàtisserie in Amiens. We came, we saw, we purchased.

Amiens: The Oysters

Previously, we mentioned that Katie's motivation for visiting Normandy was that her father had landed there during WWII. For Theresa and I, however, the motivation was food. Normandy is one of the best places in France to enjoy seafood such as lobster, crabs, and oysters.Our hotel in Amiens was in the same block as the Brasserie Jules Verne, one of the best seafood joints in the town. The opening picture shows one of their plates of oysters. In France, oysters are graded by their size from 1 to 5; with 5 being the smallest and 1 being the largest. The plate shown in the picture contains some oysters of "size 0"....so large that they are almost the size of your hand.

mmm...mmmm...good eating

Jules Verne, by the way, was a resident of Amiens. This explains the name of the restaurant.

Amiens: The Cathedral

We could not start our trip until afternoon on Friday, Sept 15. This is because I had to take lessons for a French driving license in the morning. (That, however, will be another story.) In the afternoon Theresa, Katie, and I drove for 4 hours or so to reach the town of Amiens. This is where we spent the night.

Amiens is not in Normandy, but rather is leading city in the adjoining region of Picardy. Of course, every major city has a cathedral...and the cathedral at Amiens is one of the best in France for sculputure and ornament. Following are a few pictures for your enjoyment.
Historians say that the church statuary of the middle ages was intended to tell a story to the illiterate faithful. The portals of the Amiens cathedral are a wonderful example of this. Even an illiterate like me can read the story of the day of judgement in the carvings. The first picture below shows the big picture...of Christ at the top sitting in judgement of heaven and earth. Below him, the angels are sorting out the souls between heaven and hell. The last picture below shows a close up of the souls being sorted by both angels and demons.