Links
London
Westminster / Churchill War Rooms
Tower of London / Tower Bridge / Queen Mary's Rose Garden
Windsor Castle
Imperial War Museum
Paris / Eiffel Tower / Trocadero
The Louvre / Luxembourg Gardens
Notre-Dame de Paris / Eiffel Tower Tour
Versailles / Arc de Triomphe
Family Pictures / Eglise Saint-Michel / Montmartre / Palais Garnier
Rouen
Bayeux / American Cemetery / Pointe du Hoc / Longues-sur-Mer
Omaha Beach / American Cemetery / Pointe du Hoc / Widerstandsnest 82 / Carentan
Caen
Back to London
Getting breakfast before the train to Normandy.
Gare du Norde.
At the train station in Rouen. Our time in Rouen started out a little rough. We get a rental car and it's a stick shift. No problem, I drive stick, in America. This is a six speed Citroen, and the reverse is in the top left. So
I figure find reverse, move over one, there's first. I had no idea they have a lockout cuff though, so you don't accidentally start in reverse. So, we're leaving the lot and have to go up a ramp. I get the car started but it's a
little rough and then I stall out on the ramp. I can't seem to get the car to go and then the guy that helped us with the paperwork just happened to show up behind us. So, he moves the car up the ramp for me and says everything
is fine, have a good day.
I get into the city, and we get over by the church and I stall out on a hill. I have a car behind me, and I can't get the car to go. I end up having to roll back and turn down the hill. So, then I see the gas gauge and think I'm
on empty because there is a vertical red line on the bottom. So, we go to a gas station, but their gas is all different than ours and I had no idea what I'm putting in this. First, I get a guy that speaks no English help me and
show me what gas to put in but then it stops right away. So, another guy that speaks very little English tells me it's probably full. That's when I notice the white line above the red. Doh, I was looking at the low gas line.
Everything being in French and then the clutch problems, I was on overload and went full on, well the picture below describes it.
As I'm messing with the gas Natalie is having a conversation with ChatGPT and finds out that there's a lockout cuff. I was trying to start in 3rd gear the whole time. I mean I should have figured it out when I got into the gas
station and I tried putting it in reverse and moved forward but again, on overload with everything going on and couldn't figure out why the hell I couldn't hit reverse. So it was all smooth after that, except it wasn't.
My great-grandpa long ago, William the Conqueror died at this site September 9, 1087. This church wasn't there at the time but there are two plagues on the church nothing this is where he died. He was then moved to Caen and
where he was buried.
We got gas right after visiting that church and then had to find a place to park downtown. That is when even more fun began. The driven in Rouen was beyond confusing. They have all these weird signs that don't make sense,
they have bus and taxi lanes (which I later learned are the red roads), and then it goes one way. At one point I'm following the GPS and Adri screams that I'm going the wrong way, so I quickly swerve out of my lane. I wasn't
going the wrong way. This is why she thought I was going the wrong way. Told her she doesn't even drive so stop the backseat driving. If we die, it's gotta be all on me.
So, we had to do a series of U-turns, which at one point led me to wonder if I was going the wrong way on a one-way, but I don't think I actually was. Then we get to this street downtown that comes to a t with a media
between the lane we turn in and the bus/taxi lane. The bus taxi lane is moving to my left, so I don't know if it's a one way and I turn left or if I turn right. I have a line of cars behind me but I don't want to go the
wrong way so I had to ask a pedestrian who said I could go either way. It was so weird.
I believe this is where that was, and where that woman is walking is the actually for cars. Both directions have no red circle with Sauf under it but the red circle is for bikes, not cars. There were no signs indicating
which way you can turn there. A sign or an arrow painted in the road would solve a lot of headache.
After a near couple near death experiences we stopped at Notre-Dame de Rouen. This one is under construction but I actually liked this one a lot more than the one in Paris. There was hardly anyone in there. I really don't like crowds.
Great Grandpa Rollo
This is where Richard The Lionheart's heart is buried.
I thought these stairs looked really cool.
Great Grandpa, William Longsword, son of Rollo, second Duke of Normandy.
After visiting the cathedral we walked the town. These are the most amazing streets I have ever walked in my life. They largely reflect the medieval period and are exactly what I was looking for when touring France. Other
cities we visited in Normandy had their own attractions and charm, but nothing can compare to the streets of Rouen.
Gros-Horloge
Gros Horloge a 14th century clock
I'm not sure if the building was built this way or started leaning but it looks really cool.
This is where another distant cousin of mine, Joan of Arc, was executed. I only learned after our trip that we are related to Joan of Arc. There was a weird feeling at this site, while sitting there reflecting on what happened.
The way the world is today, it's hard to imagine a teenaged girl doing what she did and then being imprisoned and publicly executed like this.
We walked up on a park and I thought to myself that looks like a young Sequoia. Sure enough, it is a Sequoia.
Don Jon
Don Jon, the tower where Joan of Arc was imprisoned.
While walking Zach was looking for bullet holes from the war. He found some in this building.
It wasn't hard to figure out where the bullets likely came from.
We stopped at KFC for some dinner and ate like it was our last meal. If you think the KFC in France can even come close to what we have in America, well, you're wrong. No mashed potatoes, just fries. No biscuits. Still we
devoured that chicken.
After dinner we got some ice cream. I was talking to the girl that works there about the driving, asking if it gets better outside of the city. She said she was new there and hasn't really been out of the city. She just moved
there from Algeria.
As I was waiting for my ice cream I noticed a guy that was somewhat sketchy. I couldn't tell if he was eying my bag or the ice cream. No worries though, remember the bag from the beginning of this post? I fiddled with my
lock a little and then the dude walked off a minute later. Don't know if it was the long line or the fact that he realized he's not getting my stuff. Natalie tells me afterwards she was eyeing him because he was sketchy and
looking at me, like I wasn't aware of that.
I think this was the first time I've ever not been able to finish ice cream.
This pigeon was hit by a car and then murdered by a seagull. The kids wanted to stick around and watch it.
As I suspected the driving out of Rouen was easy. I was nervous about it though so we made sure to get out long before dark, even though I would have liked to see more of the city. We had an almost two hour drive to our
Airbnb. We got there around 9:30PM and it was light there until almost 11PM.
Our Airbnb was really close to Utah Beach. It was the cheapest one we stayed at the entire trip but by far the best. It's three stories with a nice yard, view of the ocean, a sunroom, 4 bathrooms, and a dank basement. My
only complaint was that there was a washer and no dryer and not a single fan. They had racks to dry the clothes on in the sunroom but no fan.
I took this picture of our rental car when we got to the Airbnb. A little more excitement I left out from the beginning of our trip in Rouen. The car was big enough for us, but the trunk was too small for our luggage. We had
to drive to and from the Airbnb with a lot of the luggage in the front seat while Natalie and the kids were all in the back seat unbuckled. It just made it that much more chaotic. Once we got the luggage out, everyone had
their own seats.
On our drive to Bayeux. I found these streets very interesting. The towns were build like mini-fortresses with all the houses and walls connected.
A small park by the parking lot in Bayeux.
Notre-Dame de Bayeux. This is from the 13th century.
Before going in the cathedral, we had to get some breakfast. They didn't have fruit crepes though so we got a whole lot of sugar to start the day off.
The crypt inside the cathedral.
The Bayeux Tapestry. This stretches 230 feet in a u-shaped room. It depicts the Battle of Hastings. They gave us headphones and we did a 25ish minute tour. I never heard about the history of the tapestry until this trip but I
found it quite interesting. They used to bring this over to the Cathedral a couple weeks every year to show it off. I read that after we got back they are now planning on sending it to a London museum for a while.
After Bayeux we went to the American Cemetery. Unfortunately, we left too late. I was surprised they kick everyone out at 5 and we got there just before 4.
The pictures don't describe what you feel when you tour this cemetery. This is where some of the worst fighting took place on Omaha beach.
Every picture or video I've seen here has been with murky choppy water. I was shocked how calm and blue the water was when we visited.
After they kicked us out of the cemetery we drove over to Pointe du Hoc. This site doesn't show it closes on Google Maps but they do close off some of the bunkers. They used to allow people to climb on top of a lot of the
bunkers and go in the craters but they have since closed them off. Two of the bunkers we wanted to go in were closed for the day, so of course, we had to come back.
The crater looks like it came from a Navy shell.
The scale of the entire invasion is unreal. Even more unreal is standing here imagining Army Rangers climbing these cliffs with full gear as German soldiers are shooting at them and cutting their ropes.
Sorry, we're closed!
155mm German Howitzer
After Point Du Hoc we drove over to Longues-sur-Mer to see another battery of 4 guns. The road was closed on the way and there were no detour signs and I saw another car drive on through so followed. It was a narrow road
that went through a little town that looked like it got bombed and never rebuilt during the invasion of Normandy. I really wish I had stopped and looked around. It looked like the village was at least a couple hundred years old
and everything was overgrown. The houses were going up the hill and every yard was walled in, like a mini fortress. I could have spent an entire day just exploring those ruins.
I stole this from a website to give perspective on shell sizes.
This was the first gun. It's not clear which ship actually hit it. HMS Rodney was in the area but apparently didn't fire on the battery. The French light cruiser Montcalm had a 155mm gun and did fire on the battery. It looks
like the shell went inside, hit the ammo, and blew the roof off. The back is all overgrown with vines and plants so we couldn't see inside it. The roof was a good 50+ feet behind the casemate. It probably weighs a good 10-20
tons easily so it's impressive that it got blasted so far back. The gun was split in two and there's a picture of it from D-Day on the sign below. Now both ends are in the ground 15-20 feet apart from each other.
Top - Cruiser Georges Leygues
3rd picture is French light cruiser Montcalm
Bottom picture is casemate #1 on d-day. You can see here the barrel that is split in two.
Here's one end of the barrel.
The next gun was in pretty decent condition. The pockmarks growing grass in them in the top were probably from 6 inch shells.
Inside the casemate.
All these pock marks are probably from 6 inch naval guns. Although it's in pretty decent shape, this one took the most hits.
I think this was the back of the third gun, on our way back to the car. You can see in the back they had trenches leading out. There are two vents on both sides of the door. These vent all the noxious gases from inside.
Between Zach and the gun you can see one of the vents.
Everywhere the boys found a crater they wanted to play in them.
Now that I've showed off the front and back of intact guns, back to the first gun. This is where the back and the roof were.
And this is the roof. I should have got a picture of me next to it to show how big it really is. It's quite a bit taller than me and I didn't get the whole thing in my picture. My phone ran out of memory and I had to purge some
pictures at this point.
On the way back we found this little church so we decided to stop and take a peek.
Had to stop at a grocery store on the way back. It's not just that the food sucks in France, but even at the store you can't find the stuff you need to make a good meal. I bought some cashews that were stale and the cheese was not great. Their food sucks.
I'll take the cheese, hold the rape please.
I am obsessed with WWII history. This day was absolutely incredible for me and it was about to get even better.
This had me really confused. Everything in French except stop. Apparently they are trying to make this an international standard.
We started off this morning parked under Wilderstandsnest 62. This is just outside of the American cemetery.
As you can see, it's low tide.
During the start of the invasion the tide would have been similar to this. They had to go during low tide so they knew were all the hedgehogs and other obstacles were. This meant the first wave had to run a couple hundred yards
further than those that came in later waves.
It was so peaceful there. A stark contrast from D-Day.
Hiking up the cliffs of Omaha Beach.
I think at this point we were about half way up the hill.
Inside one of the damaged bunkers.
On top of one of the bunkers.
I don't think this was a crater made by the Navy. You can see where Zach is sitting there is a wall with no damage. I think this is one of the holes where they were firing mortars.
This was a huge crater. Over 15 feet deep. The picture failed to capture the depth.
Natalie and Adri at the top of the crater.
A Tobruk bunker. This is a one-person bunker. Technically I think it's for two people, but one is manning the gun while the other is handling the ammo. It's about six feet high inside. The first chapter in
D-Day Through German Eyes is about a German that was in a Tobruk on D-Day. After we made it up to this thing I had Zach go back down the hill until we couldn't see it and then we ran up as fast as we could. I
told him imagine you are carrying full gear, getting shot at, shells and mortars exploding everywhere, and you are running as fast as you can to try to get up the hill, only to get cut down when this thing comes out of
nowhere.
Front side of the Tobruk bunker.
Watching Adri come up the hill from inside the Tobruk.
Dean is a whole 3'10" or so. I wonder how many people bumped their heads going in and out of this thing.
Our climb led us to the American Cemetery. A hedgehog at the museum at the American Cemetery.
500-1000 of these paradummies were dropped on Normandy as part of a deception campaign. The British dummies were named Rupert and the American dummies were named Oscar. They were mostly dropped away from the actual drop zones,
around Brittany and the Seine Valley to divert the Germans. The had timers to self-destruct after landing so the Germans wouldn't find and inspect them.
This is a bangalore, used to clear obstacles like barbed wire, mines, barricades. They used them in the opening scene in Saving Private Ryan.
On the opposite side of the cemetery from where we started out that morning is a gun casemate. I thought we could walk through the cemetery to get there but we couldn't so we had to turn back, get the car, and drive up and
around 10 minutes to get there.
Afterwards we went back to Point du Hoc to see the bunkers that were closed the previous day. This one had several rooms and in the back were a couple windows with metal plates over them. They could open them and fire on anyone
trying to come in the back from a couple different angles. When you go inside one of these it's no wonder they decided to just hit them with a flamethrower and burn everyone out.
After Pointe du Hoc we drove down the coast to Widerstandsnest 82. This was absolutely incredible.
Behind it was a small bunker. You can see some of the concrete poking out.
This could have been either a machine gun or an AA gun.
This is the same spot as the picture above.
This is the bunker behind the big gun. I hiked around the back side alone. There was a bunch of trash inside and it was all overgrown with shrubs so I couldn't go in.
Next up was Carentan. This is from Episode 3 of Band of Brothers. They have a couple museums there. We decided to do Dead Man's Corner.
Dead Man's Corner was a German command post during the war. The tank in front is not the one from D-Day. After we did the museum in the old lookout house we did the flight simulation and a 3D movie. I was so burned out at this
point I fell asleep 2-3 times during a 30 minute movie.
This was the German command post, taken by American forces four days into D-Day. Dr. Roos was a German that treated both Germans and American soldiers without distinction.
Église Saint-Côme-Saint-Damien de Saint-Côme-du-Mont. This church is from the 12th century.
Angoville-au-Plain
Wounded Americans were taken to this church which became a makeshift hospital. The pews still have the blood stains.
Memorial for Major Dick Winters.
Manior de Brecourt.
This is where Dick Winters led a 12 man assault against the German battery of 4 105mm artillery guns that were firing on Utah Beach (Episode 2 in Band of Brothers). Despite being outnumbered Easy Company only lost one man and
killed or captured about 20 Germans with another 20 or more fleeing. Dick Winters recovered a German map that had all gun emplacements, defensive positions, and unit deployments in Normandy.
Now it appears to be a cattle farm. We saw a lot of cows down that road.
We stopped at Boulangerie - Patisserie Opera for pastries. Does it look like the French don't appreciate us? We had a nice chat with the owner, who lived in the states for something like 15 years.
Honoring the 101st Screaming Eagles.
Notre-Dame Carentan. I really wish we had some more time and energy to get out and walk this city but we were hungry and had a long drive back to the Airbnb. We ended up just doing a drive by on the cathedral.
Episode 3 of Band of Brothers - Carentan
It was actually filmed in England but the had a mockup of Carentan. There's a part where the 101st are coming down the road and take fire from Cafe de Normandie. This was Cafe de Normandie. The building to the right likely was
blown to bits, as it looks new. Next to that building is a parking recessed parking lot. It looks like instead of rebuilding they just made a parking lot instead.
It might sound stupid, but this was one of the highlights of my day. Again, I wish I had more time to walk around here.
We walked the road that the 101st walked taking the town. These embankments are a lot bigger than depicted in Band of Brothers. In the show it looks like they just jumped in ditches but these embankments are over 10 feet high.
This was our last day in Normandy. We went to Caen and saw a lot of the stuff I wanted to see but not all of it. We didn't get to see Great Grandma Mathilde's Abbey because we were just too tired and wanted to get back and
see the beach before we left.
Caen Castle, built by William the Conqueror in 1060.
We entered from the keep on the right.
Murder holes everywhere.
That is an impressive moat.
12 acres inside the castle walls.
Donjon du Château de Caen, the main Keep of the Castle. This was bombed heavily by Allied Forces during the Invasion of Normandy. This was built by Henry I of England, William the Conqueror's son, in 1123. It was one of the largest keeps in Europe at the time. I need to get a hold of my genealogy to verify my line to William the Conqueror but I believe it was through King Henry I.
Inside Saint-Georges Chapel. What is going on here?
Église Saint-Pierre de Caen - St Peter's Catholic Church
Inside St. Peters. Construction began on this church in the 12th century. The bell tower was taken out by a 16 inch shell from HMS Rodney on June 9, 1944, which was part of a 15 round salvo.
Abbaye aux Hommes - the abbey of William the Conqueror.
A picture of Caen during the Normandy Invasion.
A statue blown to bits.
The French Resistance Flag. I was trying to not bring home a bunch of stuff. My one regret is not buying a French Resistance Flag from the war at the Dead Man's Corner Museum.
Abbaye Saint-Étienne de Caen (
Saint Stephen’s Abbey of Caen. This is part of Abbaye aux Homes. It was very peaceful in this church, unlike the busier tourist traps in Paris.
William the Conqueror was buried here. Allegedly all that is left is his femur bone.
The kids look so excited.
This door was interesting.
Back side of Saint Stephen's.
The trains just run right over the grass here.
Asnelles Beach - Our last night in Normandy we drove a couple miles to this beach. It has the remains of Mulberry Harbor. In the distance there you can see the concrete artificial harbor. We didn't have enough time to get closer
to that and check it out. That is an engineering feat that caught the Germans off guard. They never would have thought we would tow an artificial harbor across the English Channel.
Remnants of Mulberry Harbor.
The boys playing Invasion of Normandy.
This was about an hour after we got there. The water had gone down a lot in that time.
That night we did our laundry and got ready to go back to the UK. My one complaint about this Airbnb was that there was not a single fan. We left our clothes in the sunroom on a rack to dry overnight but they were still wet
in the morning. I was out there with an iron and a blower dryer in the morning trying to get them dry before we left. I had that sun room cooking. Big waste of 2 hours of my time.
Heading back to the UK. We had to stop in Gare du Nord again. This time instead of an Uber we took the RER without an issues.
I heard that taking the train is cheap in Europe. Taking the Metro and Tube were fairly cheap, but the Euro going under the English Channel is not cheap. Our mistake was going back to UK for a day instead of flying home from
Paris. By the time we got to London it was late. We stayed close to King's Cross and the area was not all that great. We were spoiled staying in Chelsea our first time in London and now we were in an area with homeless all
over the place. We could have saved a day and probably well over $1,000 if we just flew out of Paris. Lesson learned.
We got some Thai food and did nothing that night. The next morning we left early and took the train to Gatwick and then flew home.
King's Cross
