July 21- Omaha Beach and Mont-Saint-Michel

We ate a quick breakfast of croissants and crêpes and drove the very short distance to Omaha Beach

Omaha Beach is one of the five beaches that were the focus of the landings on D-Day, and the worst of the two that the Americans attacked. The US landing at Utah Beach went relatively easily, but the fighting at Omaha Beach was hard and casualties were high. At one point, General Omar Bradley considered pulling the troops out of this area because they didn’t seem to be able to advance further, but he left them in to continue to fight.

Today, Omaha Beach is… well, a beach. It was very peaceful when we got there. We had the beach almost to ourselves when we arrived, except for a few scattered local people walking their dog or jogging. The girls had worn their bathing suits and went into the English Channel’s water. They enjoyed the thick sand and the chance to swim. Meanwhile, Scott walked down the beach, listening to an audio book about D-Day on his mp3 player and trying to picture what had happened there 65 years ago. It was not easy. The peace and tranquility of the beach seemed so jarringly different than the carnage and hell that the soldiers experienced. Only the few monuments on the cliffs and the American flag that could be seen in the cemetery up above the beach seemed to hint that the beach was ever any thing different. In many ways, seeing the first half hour of “Saving Private Ryan” does more to help you picture this battle than this serene beach does. Still, Scott appreciated the walk and the moments alone with his thoughts and the girls appreciated the chance to play.

We knew that we wanted to go to one of the several D-Day museums in the area after we went to the beach, but we didn’t know which one. We went for a stop at the American cemetery first, and discovered that the visitor’s center there, run by the U.S. government, actually does a fine job of illuminating the events of that day. A short film called, “Letters,” puts faces and stories to a few of the thousands of names in the cemetery. A good museum display follows which uses many film clips from the time and some artifacts to tell more of the story. It tells about the planning and preparation for D-Day, the execution of Operation Overlord itself, and the following fight into Europe. All through the exhibit, the emphasis remains on remembering the individuals who gave their lives in these fights. You leave the museum section through a stark, grey tunnel where the names of all of the soldiers in the cemetery are read off slowly and continuously. You then enter a large, white, oval-shaped room that is very quiet. In the center, behind a box shaped divider and lit by a skylight which creates a world of its own, is a soldier’s rifle fixed with a bayonet. The bayonet is stuck into a pile of stones that appear to be from the nearby beaches, and hanging from the standing rifle is a soldier’s helmet. If you might not know, it doesn’t take much to guess that this is the symbolic way to mark a soldier’s battlefield grave. After this museum, there did not seem to be anything more that other museums could say.

When you exit into the cemetery itself, you get a feeling of tranquility. The meticulous landscaping captures your attention first. As you wind through the path, you have a view from the cliffs of the same Omaha Beach that we visited earlier this morning. Continuing on, the large memorial with its soaring figure is on your left, and a tranquil reflecting pool is on your right. Beyond that are the rows and rows of crosses marking the graves themselves. There are many people taking pictures but none are talking loudly. Julie said that the trip to Dachau is sad in a very depressing, disturbing kind of way, but the trip here is sad in a teary kind of way. Scott agreed.

We got into the car and drove to our next stop. After a lunch at McDonalds and a bit of a drive we came to Mount-Saint-Michel. The abbey can be seen from a long way off and its profile is unmistakable. The church’s gothic spires reach to the sky from the top of an enormous rock that juts out from the bay. People in the Middle Ages saw Mont-Saint-Michel as the way the New Jerusalem will look, as heaven on earth. The abbey is old enough to have been pictured on the nearly 1000 year old Bayeux Tapestry that we saw yesterday. Because of the rocks that it is built upon, it was also an impregnable fortress.

While we arrived at Omaha Beach early enough to have it almost to ourselves, we must have hit Mount-Saint-Michel at the time when every tour bus in Normandy was there. The streets around the mount were packed with people. As you approach the mount, you walk down a long cause way. It was low-tide, so the causeway and rock are surrounded not by water but by a slick, slippery mud. In spite of the signs warning of the dangers of venturing out on the mud, many tourists were exploring out there. Julie and Anna joined them. Both of them slipped, though only Anna went down, and the thick mud stuck to her hands and ankles. She was lucky that she didn’t get dirtier, but even so we had to find a place for her to clean up.

We immediately began climbing stairs, because there is no other way to move on the island. No flight of stairs is very long on its own, but they wind up and around the rock in maze-like patterns to take you to the level of the abbey. Just below the abbey, we stood in line and paid admission. We were tired, but after climbing that high, we weren’t going to leave without seeing inside. The church is not decorated as ornately as some we have been in. The gothic windows at the front are not stained glass, but because of that they add a lightness to the stone building. A small garden is surrounded by a meditative walkway, where the monks who lived here could travel from building to building. We explored the complex, and then descended different sets of stairs then we had used at the beginning. The final obstacle is the gauntlet of tourist shops that pack the medieval buildings that crowd the lower part of the island and the throngs of tourists that pack the street in front of them. We expect that Mont-Saint-Michel is better appreciated when you stay at one of the hotels on the rock. Like in Rothenberg ob der Tauber, that would allow you to explore the island in a more solitary way in the early morning or late evening instead of among the crowds tourists. This time, however, we were four of those tourists elbowing our way over the rock.

We were tempted to stay and watch the famous tides roll in, as they are supposed to be some of the fastest and most dramatic in the world. There were already people being forced to leave one of the parking lots because of the impending water. However, we had already booked a hotel quite a ways away for tonight, all of us were tired and one or two of us were grumpy. So we decided to press onward. We grabbed a disappointing dinner at a rest stop. We arrived in Paris late enough to catch an interesting glimpse of the illuminated Eiffel Tower. We zipped around the city, passing many neon lights and tall buildings. “They’re freaking me out!” Emma said, trying to describe how excited they made her.

Perhaps we were a little giddy with the ability to have Wi-fi Internet in our room this morning, but we booked a hotel for tonight through it. We arrived at our circus themed hotel quite late. The girls have a bunk bed that has curtains around it that resemble a circus tent. When they close it, they have their own TV in there too. They are finishing their journals together now, then we’re all going to sleep.
We ate a quick breakfast of croissants and crêpes and drove the very short distance to Omaha Beach

Omaha Beach is one of the five beaches that were the focus of the landings on D-Day, and the worst of the two that the Americans attacked. The US landing at Utah Beach went relatively easily, but the fighting at Omaha Beach was hard and casualties were high. At one point, General Omar Bradley considered pulling the troops out of this area because they didn’t seem to be able to advance further, but he left them in to continue to fight.

Today, Omaha Beach is… well, a beach. It was very peaceful when we got there. We had the beach almost to ourselves when we arrived, except for a few scattered local people walking their dog or jogging. The girls had worn their bathing suits and went into the English Channel’s water. They enjoyed the thick sand and the chance to swim. Meanwhile, Scott walked down the beach, listening to an audio book about D-Day on his mp3 player and trying to picture what had happened there 65 years ago. It was not easy. The peace and tranquility of the beach seemed so jarringly different than the carnage and hell that the soldiers experienced. Only the few monuments on the cliffs and the American flag that could be seen in the cemetery up above the beach seemed to hint that the beach was ever any thing different. In many ways, seeing the first half hour of “Saving Private Ryan” does more to help you picture this battle than this serene beach does. Still, Scott appreciated the walk and the moments alone with his thoughts and the girls appreciated the chance to play.

We knew that we wanted to go to one of the several D-Day museums in the area after we went to the beach, but we didn’t know which one. We went for a stop at the American cemetery first, and discovered that the visitor’s center there, run by the U.S. government, actually does a fine job of illuminating the events of that day. A short film called, “Letters,” puts faces and stories to a few of the thousands of names in the cemetery. A good museum display follows which uses many film clips from the time and some artifacts to tell more of the story. It tells about the planning and preparation for D-Day, the execution of Operation Overlord itself, and the following fight into Europe. All through the exhibit, the emphasis remains on remembering the individuals who gave their lives in these fights. You leave the museum section through a stark, grey tunnel where the names of all of the soldiers in the cemetery are read off slowly and continuously. You then enter a large, white, oval-shaped room that is very quiet. In the center, behind a box shaped divider and lit by a skylight which creates a world of its own, is a soldier’s rifle fixed with a bayonet. The bayonet is stuck into a pile of stones that appear to be from the nearby beaches, and hanging from the standing rifle is a soldier’s helmet. If you might not know, it doesn’t take much to guess that this is the symbolic way to mark a soldier’s battlefield grave. After this museum, there did not seem to be anything more that other museums could say.

When you exit into the cemetery itself, you get a feeling of tranquility. The meticulous landscaping captures your attention first. As you wind through the path, you have a view from the cliffs of the same Omaha Beach that we visited earlier this morning. Continuing on, the large memorial with its soaring figure is on your left, and a tranquil reflecting pool is on your right. Beyond that are the rows and rows of crosses marking the graves themselves. There are many people taking pictures but none are talking loudly. Julie said that the trip to Dachau is sad in a very depressing, disturbing kind of way, but the trip here is sad in a teary kind of way. Scott agreed.

We got into the car and drove to our next stop. After a lunch at McDonalds and a bit of a drive we came to Mount-Saint-Michel. The abbey can be seen from a long way off and its profile is unmistakable. The church’s gothic spires reach to the sky from the top of an enormous rock that juts out from the bay. People in the Middle Ages saw Mont-Saint-Michel as the way the New Jerusalem will look, as heaven on earth. The abbey is old enough to have been pictured on the nearly 1000 year old Bayeux Tapestry that we saw yesterday. Because of the rocks that it is built upon, it was also an impregnable fortress.

While we arrived at Omaha Beach early enough to have it almost to ourselves, we must have hit Mount-Saint-Michel at the time when every tour bus in Normandy was there. The streets around the mount were packed with people. As you approach the mount, you walk down a long cause way. It was low-tide, so the causeway and rock are surrounded not by water but by a slick, slippery mud. In spite of the signs warning of the dangers of venturing out on the mud, many tourists were exploring out there. Julie and Anna joined them. Both of them slipped, though only Anna went down, and the thick mud stuck to her hands and ankles. She was lucky that she didn’t get dirtier, but even so we had to find a place for her to clean up.

We immediately began climbing stairs, because there is no other way to move on the island. No flight of stairs is very long on its own, but they wind up and around the rock in maze-like patterns to take you to the level of the abbey. Just below the abbey, we stood in line and paid admission. We were tired, but after climbing that high, we weren’t going to leave without seeing inside. The church is not decorated as ornately as some we have been in. The gothic windows at the front are not stained glass, but because of that they add a lightness to the stone building. A small garden is surrounded by a meditative walkway, where the monks who lived here could travel from building to building. We explored the complex, and then descended different sets of stairs then we had used at the beginning. The final obstacle is the gauntlet of tourist shops that pack the medieval buildings that crowd the lower part of the island and the throngs of tourists that pack the street in front of them. We expect that Mont-Saint-Michel is better appreciated when you stay at one of the hotels on the rock. Like in Rothenberg ob der Tauber, that would allow you to explore the island in a more solitary way in the early morning or late evening instead of among the crowds tourists. This time, however, we were four of those tourists elbowing our way over the rock.

We were tempted to stay and watch the famous tides roll in, as they are supposed to be some of the fastest and most dramatic in the world. There were already people being forced to leave one of the parking lots because of the impending water. However, we had already booked a hotel quite a ways away for tonight, all of us were tired and one or two of us were grumpy. So we decided to press onward. We grabbed a disappointing dinner at a rest stop. We arrived in Paris late enough to catch an interesting glimpse of the illuminated Eiffel Tower. We zipped around the city, passing many neon lights and tall buildings. “They’re freaking me out!” Emma said, trying to describe how excited they made her.

Perhaps we were a little giddy with the ability to have Wi-fi Internet in our room this morning, but we booked a hotel for tonight through it. We arrived at our circus themed hotel quite late. The girls have a bunk bed that has curtains around it that resemble a circus tent. When they close it, they have their own TV in there too. They are finishing their journals together now, then we’re all going to sleep.