This Must Be A Dream, Part 1: Caen

I had an amazing, first trip to France. This was my dream trip. When I came to London, I said there were two places I had to go to, everything else would be gravy. I had to go to Normandy and the D-Day beaches and I had to go to Disneyland Paris.

As November began, we all felt the crunch of time. Our time in London was over half done and there were only so many weekends left to travel. I did not notice much interest from anyone in a combined trip or there was a conflict on dates so I decided to go alone. It was a nice break from the group traveling.

My trip started off with an early morning ride on the Eurostar from St. Pancras International in London, through the Channel Tunnel (otherwise known as the Chunnel), to Gare Nord Paris. It was my first trip on the Eurostar and I was very excited. After 45 minutes you enter the English side of the tunnel and outside its black for 20-30 minutes then suddenly, you come back outside and you have arrived in France. Another hour or so later, I was in Paris. I had to cross town to get to another station, Gare St. Lazare. I traveled there on the RER, similar to the Metro. It looks like a Metrolink train underground. It was bizarre to see split level cars underground. I have gotten used to the Tube in London. Once I arrived at St. Lazare, I tried to print out my tickets to Caen from a self-service kiosk, but I do not have a chip card (a chip on the credit card, very popular in Europe) so I had to wait in line at the station to get the printed. The line was long and even though I had over an hour from one train to the next, by the time I got m tickets my train left. Luckily, trains go to Caen every hour or so and I waited in the station for a bit ad took the next train out. No problem.

After a two hour train ride, I arrived in Caen. I took a tram and bus to my hotel, Fasthotel Caen Memorial. After I checked-in I walked to the Memorial, about 10 minutes away, super close. I had booked my tour ahead of time, which included admission. Due to all my traveling and delays, I did not get to the Memorial until after 4. That only gave me two hours to look around before they closed. I saw the Pre-1945 side which begins with the end of World War 1 in 1918 and goes through the end of World War 2. They had some really cool models of ships and lots of photos. They also looked at the French people and their role in the invasion. After I headed back and grabbed dinner from the grocery store. I enjoyed some French television, including Star Academy, similar to that of American Idol in The States and The X Factor in the UK.

The next day was very exciting. I had been looking forward to the tour of the beaches for years. The morning I spent more time at the Memorial, saw a few short films, and walked around the Post-1945 area which focused on the Cold War. After a quick bite to eat I was off on my tour. There were four other. A family of three and a girl from Australia. We got into a van with the tour guide and set off. We had five destinations ahead of us. First we stopped in Arromanches, code name Gold Beach. This is where the British built their artificial harbor. There are still remains of this harbor out in the surf. Next we went to Batterie-de-Longues where there are three intact German bunkers with a fourth partially damaged. They were huge. The guns were so long and the concrete housing around it was impressive. Rommel added these to help camouflage and protect the guns. These were not aimed at the beaches but out to sea at the ships bringing in men and supplies. Our third stop was the American Cemetery. There are nearly 10,000 crosses lined up representing the Americans who died during the entire European campaign, not just Normandy. It is a sight I will never forget. The rows seem to go on forever. It is cross after cross and row after row, quite an impressive and moving sight. Each cross is engraved with the name, rank, state of birth, and date of death. The crosses all face west looking towards The States. Scattered among the crosses are ones that read, "Here rests in honored glory a comrade in arms known but to God". Those are the ones that really left an impression on me. The cemetery left me speechless. We then continued on to Omaha Beach. This where the Americans built their artificial harbor but after two weeks of using it a huge storm came through and it was destroyed. The only piece of it that remains is a ramp that was beached and is used for part of the pier. We then took off for our final destination, Point-du-Hoc. This separates Gold beach from Utah beach. The Army Rangers climbed this cliff to make their way inland. During the hours before landing, the US Navy bombarded this spot with artillery. Today it remains as it did after the fact. Up on that cliff there are craters some 6+ feet deep. There are also pieces of concrete 3 feet x 4 feet x 5 feet as one German bunker exploded from the inside. It is truly amazing the capabilities of ammunition. They took us back to the Memorial and I went back to my hotel to go to bed because tomorrow is Disneyland.

My tour of Normandy was all over so quickly. I am glad I chose the tour I did, it was an overview of the Battle of Normandy. I can't wait to go back and take more tours going more in depth about how the battle was fought and the war was won.

Until we meet again,

-Maggie the traveler