Normandy-From Bayeux to the D-Day Invasion

The color is breathtaking!
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At 9:15 p.m.on June 5th, the BBC announced to the French Resistance that the landing was imminent, signaling to the underground to start dynamiting the railways. By midnight, Allied planes had begun bombing the NormandyCoastand by 1:30 a.m., June 6th, members of the 101st Airborne were parachuting onto German-occupied French soil. The "longest day," also called D-DAY – June 6, 1944had started. The day soldiers, sailors, warship, landing craft, tugboats and jeeps that had been assembled along the southern coast of England set out for the Normandy Coast, for the landing on the beaches of Juno, Gold, Sword, Utah and Omaha.

Bon Appetit
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We started our tour with a visit to the nearby city of Bayeux, capital of the Normandyregion called Bessin. It was the first French town to be liberated after D-Day and was fortunate not to have been damaged during the war. The town has been miraculously preserved through all these years and offered us the charm of its old streets bordered by typical timber framed houses.  Here we had a chance to admire the world famous Tapestry of Bayeux, known as Queen Mathilda's tapestry. It is embroidery on a 70-meter (230 feet) length of linen cloth. It narrates the causes and the beginning of the conquest of Englandby William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy, who became King of England after the battle of Hastingsin 1066. The tapestry is considered as one of the most accurate and lively documents to survive from the Middle Ages and provides detailed information on the clothes, ships, arms and general lifestyle during this period.

Bayeux Tapestry
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Our lunch was amazing – we ate in a quaint French farm house called Ferme de la Ranconniere– the pictures describe it best – a 4 course lunch with aperitif and merlot.

We visited the American Cemeteryof Coleville. Overlooking OmahaBeach, it contains 9,387 perfectly aligned white crosses on a 170-acre plot. The last stop we made was that of Omahabeach, where the American troops suffered heavy casualties in one of the most costly of the D-Day battles.

Remember
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The yellow field of flowers is called rape and it is used to make canola oil.  They were field throughout the countryside…just beautiful!

This was quite a day – Stephanie now we know why you recommended that we go to Normandy– the D-Day beaches were both emotional to see and very touching – the weather was raining which somehow seemed fitting.