Normandy

After Honfleur it was on to the village of Trevieres just inland from the D-Day beaches of Normandy.  While Normandy has long been associated with history making conflict, it’s the D-Day landings of WWII that we tend to think of today.  This year was the 75th anniversary of those landings, so it was inspiring to see the attention still being paid several months after the actual celebration. Having been here before, we like to revisit some favorites as well as search out new things, so in this post I’ll just talk about a few D-Day items and address non D-Day in another post.

It seems that every village has it’s own D-Day museum, some better than others.  A relatively new one that I specifically came to see is the Overlord Museum near the American Cemetery.  It’s very professionally done and presents a chronological summary of the war with its extensive collection of vintage equipment and uniforms displayed in life size dioramas.  Not surprisingly, French locals recycled and repurposed a lot of abandoned equipment after the war and it’s amazing what, sometimes very specialized, equipment is still coming out of sheds and barns to be restored and displayed.

The next day I took a long walk along Omaha Beach just to get a feel for the terrain and what the soldiers were facing.  Humbling is probably the best word I can think of!  Back up the hill, another visit to the American Cemetery reinforced the scale of the sacrifices made. The next day I also paid a return visit to the German cemetery.  While more somber and subdued, it reminds one of the cost of war to both sides.

Coming soon:  Medieval Normandy.