Last June, Brian and I visited Normandy for the 75th anniversary of WWII D-Day in France. We arrived in Charles de Gaulle (CDG – Paris) airport in the morning after 10+ hours on a plane and we were completely exhausted from the trip. Sleep deprived; we grabbed our luggage, caught a cab to the bus stop and got on the OUIBUS for a 2.5 hour ride to Caen. Once we got there, we ran to the car rental to pick up our car and finally met our AirBnB host to pick up our keys to our rental. Whew! By the time we got settled in the apartment, it was time for bed! Thank goodness Brian knew more French than I did! #TheStruggleIsReal
I don’t regret it one bit though. Seeing Normandy and the WWII sites was the most touching experience I’ve ever had.
On one of the days in Normandy, we visited the American Cemetery that overlooked Omaha beach. Omaha beach was one of the two American landing areas in Normandy. As we walked up to the entrance of the cemetery, I remember glancing over at a tour bus on my left side and saw a group of people applauding as a WWII veteran and his wife were pushed in a wheelchair up to their tour bus. This brought tears in my eyes as I saw the veteran’s wife sobbing as the crowd applauded. I knew this was going to be emotional and braced myself for the experience.
There were so many people visiting on that day, but the cemetery was so quiet. We walked through each row and around the monuments in silence. Each headstone had the soldier’s name, the date of death and the US state they were from. There were also headstones with it engraved ‘Here Rests in Honored Glory A Comrade In Arms Known But To God.’ I had so many thoughts running through my head – like what were they like and what were their stories? I’m sure these soldiers were probably in their twenties, chose to fight and sacrificed their lives for our freedom. Each soldier had a family and friends that they never got to see again. We did not get to visit the British and Canadian cemetery during this trip, but I hope to pay my respects to those soldiers when I visit Normandy again.
During our stay in Normandy, we also visited and walked through the tourist town Arromamche Les Bains. On this beach, this was where the British and Americans installed an artifical Mulberry Harbour to bring in supplies during WWII. It was pretty cool to see that pieces of the original Mulberry was still left on the beach and in the water. On the site, we also visited the Musée Du Débarquement that provided the background of the operation and the WWII artifacts from the time. Finally, we ended the day with a wonderful meal of Moules Marinières in a small restaurant in the town while watching the tourists from all over the world walk by and people dressed up in British and American uniforms for the celebration drive by in the WWII vehicles.
Obviously there is so much more of this trip that I would love to share with you, but I’ll stop here for today. I’ll need to figure out how to create a separate page to upload more photos to share with you all! I hope everyone had a great and safe Memorial Day weekend!
************** Update**********
Finally set up a photo gallery page.. I’ll be uploading more photos ASAP!
Jennie
A Never Ending Bucket List 