Day five of our trip was May 28, 2001. Memorial Day. In honor of the holiday, we went to Bayeux, France to visit the D-Day invasion sites. We arrived in town at about 1:30 in the afternoon. We took a taxi from the train station to the hotel, and on our way to the hotel the taxi driver offered to take us on a tour of the D-Day sites. He only spoke French, and Penny really wanted a tour guide that spoke English, so that she could get more out of the experience. So we declined his offer and headed into the hotel to get cleaned up and inquire about other tours.
When we asked at the desk about tours, we were told that we had arrived too late. The only option it seemed was for us to take a taxi tour. For Penny's sake we could hold out hope that we would get a different taxi driver who might speak some English. Unfortunately for her, we didn't. He was a nice guy, and he put up with my rusty French, so I was able to ask him a few questions. I made the mistake of not telling Penny what I was trying to ask him or what his answers were... so she set me straight on that, and I did my best to translate the gist of what I understood. I hadn't thought to pass along what I understood, mainly because I wasn't always sure that I understood!
He took us first to Pointe du Hoc, which is where the initial rangers came ashore and tried to scale the cliffs to get to the Germans. Everyone who has seen Saving Private Ryan has an understanding of what went on at this point. There are massive cliffs that needed to be climbed; at the top of these cliffs sat the Germans and a bunch of guns. The thing that struck me when we actually saw the site is just how well-fortified the Germans were. It is truly amazing that anyone could have been beaten back from that vantage point. The Germans had built all sorts of steel and concrete bunkers and casements which pretty much survived the bombing that went on in the days before the invasion. That bombing left huge craters all over the area. The craters are probably 15 feet deep (give or take), and they riddle the landscape around these bunkers.
Next we went to Omaha Beach, which is pretty much just a beach... there is a memorial, which was dedicated on the 50th anniversary of D-Day... and some flags... but otherwise it's a beach. Penny dipped her feet in the water and hunted around for rocks and shells and things, and then we went to the U.S. Cemetery. Many of the flower arrangements that you see in the picture to the right were given by the various cities in the region, still showing their appreciation for the efforts of the Allies some 57 years later. As far as that is concerned, we saw several houses in the area flying U.S. flags, including one great flag with a picture of a 18-wheeler right across the old stars and stripes.
After that, we had the taxi driver take us to Arromanches, which was one of the beaches that the British came into. The town was completely destroyed, but the artificial port that the British built can still be seen. There is a museum there, where Penny and I went to try to get some greater understanding of the circumstances surrounding the invasion. We hung out in the area for a while before calling the cab to take us back to the hotel, where we had dinner.
We actually never got to see much of the actual city of Bayeux, since we came in kind of late, and had to be up pretty early the next morning so that we could catch our train to Vienne... Maybe some other time...
