Honfleur and The Beaches of Normandy: D-Day Invasion

Our first destination in Normandy was for Bayeux. The plan was to just drive along each day and stop at random cities en route to the city we would stay the night in. Our first stop was in the small town of Honfleur! Nathan had to drag me kicking and screaming out of this town! I've never seen a place so beautiful in my life, and I've seen a lot of beautiful places. Everything about Honfleur was great: the weather, the people, the scenery! I guess the parking was a little confusing. but hey, no place it perfect! We drove through the town until we made it to the center and found a place to park. I actually stopped an elderly couple to ask if we could park where we did and they ended up being from England and had no idea about the parking rules in Honfleur! Another French man saw us all confused and came over and heped us figure out where we could park! On a side note, Frenchies get a bad wrap and being rude, but in both my experiences visiting France, the people have been the kindest and most helpful people I have come across. Even Nathan was surprised!

Oh! Honfleur!

Once we got over to the shore, we did what we do best: Walked. We just walked and walked and walked all over Honfleur! First we came up to the Old Pier and checked out the boats and buildings over there.

We found a walkway that followed the water, so we decided to start following that. We walked all the way to the end and then turned around and started heading back. On the way back, Nathan caught a glimpse of something swimming in the water. At first I thought he was crazy until I stared for a while and sure enough, a dolphin was swimming super close to us! We probably watched it bob up and down in the water for a good half an hour! A few of the times it even made its dolphin sounds, whatever that is called! It was so exciting! Another person caught a glimpse of our little friend as well. I attempted to talk to him, it was a really poor attempt, in french. There was a fishing boat nearby and in the end, somehow the man concluded from our conversation that I thought French fishermen eat dolphins! :/

After our little dolphin watching adventure, we started walking around the neighborhoods in Honfleur! We climbed the old cobblestone roads and admired the buildings.

Finally, when it was dark and I couldn't salivate over all the beautiful homes and buildings any longer, I agreed with Nathan that we could leave. If Nathan told me we had to move to Honfleur, I would be packed and ready to go tomorrow!

After Honfleur, we decided to take the scenic route to Bayeux and possibly stop at some more pretty towns, even though it was already dark, on the way there. Most of our drive was right along the coastline! I was slightly jealous that people lived right there, in those beautiful houses, right along the ocean. It was dreamy!

We didn't really stop in any other towns on our way to Bayeux. Once in Bayeux we needed to get directions to our hotel. This is where my most favorite place in the world came into play: McDonalds! Most people wish the mother of all fast food stores would burn in eternal damnation, but Nathan and I jumped for joy everytime we saw that big beautiful golden "M' shimmering in the sky! McDonalds meant free WiFi! Luckily, Bayeux did have a McDonalds, which wasn't hard to find at all because there are street signs all over pointing you towards it. We stopped inside, got directions, and then continued on our way to our hotel.

We ended up staying at a quaint little hotel in the center of town called the L'hotel Lion d'Or! Our room was super cozy and super lavender-y! I mean, it was purple from head to toe, but it wasn't awful, and it was the cleanest room I have ever stayed in. I swear I could have eaten off the toilet!

The next morning we woke up bright and early and began our real quest to explore the D-Day landing beaches. We decided to back track a little bit and ended up heading towards Benouville. We were hoping to see Pegasus Bridge, but it ended up being a little bit of a nightmare so we just drove through and headed towards the beaches, which also didn't work out so well because we ended up in Caen instead of any beach! It was okay though because we had a plan for Caen! We headed over to the memorial museum to do a little research about the events of that day in June.

The museum was probably the best museum I have ever been to. It was put together in such an interesting way that really kept my attention. There was so much to see, but not in an overwhelming Louvre sort of way. If you ever decide to visit the beaches of Normandy to get your WWII fix, definitely visit that museum first. It was amazing. We grabbed some lunch there and then decided, for reals this time, to head towards the beaches.

We started at the most eastern beach, Swordfish. Then we continued stopping twice along the coastline in small towns, one was Courseulles-sur-mer and the other's name I have already forgotten, sadly. The first stop had some remains of a war ravaged German bunker. The next stop had a large monument erected.

The drive from town to town was half the fun! It was soooo beautiful! Big 'ol catherdrals and grand ancient churches stood majestically in every little town we drove through. By the end of our journey we were like, "Oh hey, another super old beautiful cathedral. Let's keep driving!"

Another teary moment here. According to the sign, all the men in this tank lost their lives in battle.

Arromanches was next on our list. I was pretty excited to visit hear because I have heard several interesting things about it. We didn't have time to do the 360 degree movie, but we did walk around the site and saw some pretty amazing stuff. This picture does not do those floating object things in the water justice. According to the sign, those giant concrete monstrosities were up to 5 stories tall!

We stopped at Omaha beach near the town of Coleville-sur-mer next, if I remember correctly. This area really gave us a good idea of what the German lines looked like before and during Operation Overlord came to fruition. 

 

I have a weird obsession with rule breaking, or maybe it has to do with my authority complex and need to "stick it to the man." It's not a disrespect thing, though; for some reason little things like this make me feel like I can honor the people, connect and really "experience" the events which took place. They took these HUGE risks in order to stand for freedom so I take little risks to honor them! This part of the bunker was blocked off for no good reason other than to tick me off, so I had nathan boost me up, and let me tell you, it was worth it!

We made it over to the American cemetery just in the nick of time. We literally got there ten minutes before it closed. We were sad we could not spend more time there, but so grateful we got to see it even if it was just for a few minutes.

 

Walking through the cemetery, we saw way too many of these crosses. Every single time I came across one, without fail, I chocked up. These were somebody's brother, uncle, cousin, father, son and their families never knew what became of them, or at least, not really.

We finished off our day at Omaha/Utah beach to see Pointe du Hoc. If you haven't read the story, you should go read it now. It's quite heartbreaking. The sacrifice so many young people made during this war left me humbled and grateful. 

 Something that really touched me was that throughout this area of France, there are little tolkens of appreciation placed here and there showing that the people of France have not forgotten the ultimate sacrifice the American, British, Canadian, and Belgian soldiers made to free them from the Nazis occupation.

It couldn't have been a more beautiful day to visit! The sun was peaking through the clouds lighting up the cliffs, giving the land an even more sacred feeling.

After finishing up at Pointe du Hoc, we hit the road again en route for the floating abbey, Mont Saint-Michel.