a bit of history.

when i was planning my trip, my mom told me i HAD to do a d-day tour since i was going to be in normandy. to be honest, i wasn't all that excited to do it, but knew it would be one of those things that would be good for me. so i consulted my travel bible rick steves' book and found a good tour company. i had been thinking a half day tour would be just fine. only this company didn't offer half days... but you could do a full day or a whole two days of sights for both the american tour or the british tour. holy smokes... that's a lot of wwII history there... so i settled on the one day tour and thought, well, i'll definitely get my fill of history on this day! and i've got to say: it was an absolutely fabulous, fascinating, sobering, amazing day. i actually wished that i could have had more time to spend and that i could do the second day.



the tour started at 8am and we went to the town of mere st eglise. it was one of the first towns to be liberated in the war and it is now the home of the airborne museum. here are some artifacts from the war.


medical supplies. i can't even imagine. omg, the stories... my guide was tremendously well informed and told us all these stories and really made everything real.


an exhibit in the museum.


the mere st eglise church. there was a movie made: the longest day. it's all about d-day and features this town pretty prominently. you can see a white blob on the steeple of the church- that is a parachute. as the parachute troopers came out of the sky - a lot of them got stuck in trees and other such places - this poor guy was stuck on the chuch. many of these guys were sitting ducks and were killed in action. the steeple guy actually survived.


the town still has scars of war - those are bullet holes.


and then we went to another itty bitty town. pretty much this church and a few homes are it. not sure you can even cal it a town. this is where two medics set up and almost everyone they brought here survived.


these are the pews that the soldiers were laid on. you can still see the dark stains of blood.


the town doesn't have the money to fix the church and so it is still a work in progress. they have collection boxes that people can make donations in, but they don't actively fundraise. this is one of the replacement stained glass windows. the two names are the men who were the medics and saved all those lives. they are still alive and come back to the town often to commemorate.


this was my incredibly well informed guide. he was AWESOME. he really gave wonderful and powerful stories about all these soldiers and places we visited. he made it real. and he's met all these soldiers as well.


here i am at utah beach. one of the sights of the invasion.


and this is pont du hoc where the germans had many bungalows below ground set up. there are big holes all over this field from where US bombs were dropped.


it's beautiful scenery here.


at pont du hoc.


and here is my guide explaining how the US troops made there way on omaha beach which was the deadliest place to be that day.


and this was the final stop of the day: the WWII cemetary.


for a cemetary, it is absolutely breathtaking and stunning. if you look to the left, the trees are pruned so that the tops are cut off. this is to symbolize the shortened lives of the soldiers buried there.


the cemetery sits on a high bluff overlooking the ocean. the rows upon rows of white crosses all lined up perfectly... unreal. and very moving. there are over 9000 soldiers buried here.

on this tour, there were 6 other people - all couples, all american. it was so nice to have english speaking people to talk to! one couple was about our age and super nice. they were so fun! when the tour was over at 530, they invited me to get a drink with them. and so i did. several in fact. and then they invited me to join them for dinner. and so i did. and i tried my first escargot. i actually loved it! and then around 1030ish, it was time to say goodbye to my new friends and head to bed... they were from boston, but moving to denver once they got back. we're now friends on fb. gotta love fb. oh, and turns out they new a couple of people i knew back in newport! it's a small world...