Driving & The D-Day Beaches

Today we picked up a rental car to go see the D-Day beaches, which aren’t reachable by train or bus unless you join a tour group, but it’s really expensive (like 80 euros per person). This was our first time driving in France and there’s only one way we can describe it  – it’s all about the roundabout!  I don’t think you can drive more than 10km without going through a roundabout.  I know they”re supposed to improve the flow of traffic and reduce the number of crashes, but is it really better to have this many roundabouts?  We’re not convinced…

For those of you who don’t know, the D-Day beaches are made up of five beaches (Sword, Juno, Gold, Omaha and Utah) in the  Normandy region of northern France, along the English Channel coast.  On June 6, 1944 (D-Day), U.S., British, and Canadian troops of the Allied forces invaded northwest Europe (which had fallen under Hitler’s rule) by landing 160,000 troops on these beaches.  Despite fierce opposition, these troops managed to advance inland and get a foothold on “Hitler’s Fortress” so D-Day is regarded as the beginning of the liberation of Europe and the defeat of Nazi Germany. Knowing this significant history, we felt that our visit to France wouldn’t be complete without a visit to these beaches, so we made a plan to drive to all five, going from east to west.

However, like most plans, we quickly got off track.  After a brief stop at Sword beach,  we got lost looking for Juno beach (you get to the beaches through towns, but we didn’t know which town corresponded to which beach and our GPS didn’t know either!).  We managed to follow signs to a town called Saint-Aubin-Sur-Mer (which turned out to be in the middle part of Juno beach) and decided to eat lunch at a restaurant by the water.  While the food was terrible (Paul had spaghetti carbonara and I got a seafood pizza, and I’ve come to the conclusion seafood just doesn’t belong on pizza) the people working there were friendly and confirmed that we were in fact at Juno beach.  Since this is where the Canadian troops landed, we spent some time here after lunch, reading the information at the various monuments around.

We then headed to our next stop, Gold beach (which was the main invasion beach of D-Day), but got detoured because there was some kind of marathon happening.  After following the road for quite a distance, we ended up at Arromanches, the sight of one of two Mulberry Harbours built on the Normandy coast.   These temporary harbours were developed during World War II to offload cargo on the beaches – they were built in England, floated to Arromanches and Omaha beach, and then sunk to be used as ports.  You can still see remnants of the port at Arromanches, and when the tide is low (which it was when we were there), you can walk right up to some large remaining pieces and be amazed at this engineering feat. 

From here we made our way to the American Cemetery at Colleville-Sur-Mer, which overlooks Omaha beach where American troops landed on D-Day.  I would say this was the most touching part of the day – 9,387 American soldiers are buried here and when you walk from the visitor center to the graves, all you see are rows and rows of white crosses (the gravestones).  There is also a large memorial where you can see the names of 1,557 soldiers who lost their lives in the conflict but could not be located or identified. The cemetery covers 172.5 acres of land (which France has given the U.S. free permanent use of), and is managed by the American Battle Monuments Commission.  The whole place is immaculately kept and has a sad, but inspiring feel to it – imagine what our lives would be like if these men hadn’t made the sacrifices they did!

Although we missed a few things along the way, our day of driving the D-Day beaches was pretty incredible and we saw some things I will never forget.  These beaches are now part of a peaceful Normandy coast filled with peaceful little towns, but once upon a time these little towns were completely destroyed by war.  Today I learned a lot about the sacrifices so many men made during World War II and I got to reflect upon how much the world has changed in just over 60 years.  Let’s hope we never have a D-Day again