Mont St Michel & D-day Beaches

The next 2 days were our first extended foray afield, destination Mont St Michel in Brittany and the D-day beaches in Normandy. Mont St Michel is an enormous monastery built on a rocky island in the middle of the ocean. The road built to reach the island has blocked the natural water flows, so the area is filling up with sand, but at one time it was a remote and nearly unreachable locale. The English tour was excellent, although our guide was constantly perturbed by the warblings of tourist kids and interjected several times to shush the rabble. The building had been used as prison in the last century, but most of the damage done by inmates has been repaired. We were able to walk down to the sand at the base of the island and hike completely around the rocky outcropping.

The next day we left early from our hotel in Caen to visit the American Cemetery near Omaha beach, Pont du Hoc, Arromanches, and the WWII museum in Caen. The American Cemetery has a small room downstairs that houses a great museum. Once again I cried during the films describing the personal details of a few of the soldiers. There was some sort of WWII group meeting on Omaha beach near where we walked into the ocean. Jeeps and trucks from that era were zipping across the sand and in the water. At Pont du Hoc the craters pockmark the ground where the Allies dropped their largest bombs to knock out the German guns. Looks like a moonscape, with grass. It is remarkable to see the steep cliffs where the rangers climbed to destroy the remaining guns on D-day. Arromanches is where an artificial harbor was built to unload the troops and supplies that would allow the Allies to continue the push inland. The intention had been to use the harbor a Cherborg, but it was too damaged. So an ingenious floating harbor was built that allowed the Allies to unload equipment continuously in high or low tides. We saw a well done film shown on a 360 degree screen that interspersed actual footage from the battles with scenes of how the towns and streets look today. To finish the day, my dad and I visited the WWII museum in Caen, while Shereen and mom went to Bayeux to see lace being made.