D-Day beaches

Posted by Anura Samara, 19 September 2014

We stayed in Caen as our base to see Normandy and the D-Day Beaches.

Arromanches

We started at the top of Arromanches to see Arromanches 360, a circular cinema that tells the story of the D-Day landings. The film is a good way to start our exploration of D-Day but the location, at the top of the cliffs overlooking beaches, gives you a good perspective on the how exposed the landings were.

Arromanches was located in the heart of Gold Beach for the D-Day landings. However, it’s main claim to fame is that it was the site of one of the massive Mulberry Harbours, a man-made temporary harbour that was towed across the English Channel and installed to allow for the fast transport of men and supplies to the invasion forces.

You can still see the remains of the caissons that were used. Some are still standing off shore, which helps you to get a sense of the total size of the harbour, and one is stranded on the beach where you can walk right up to it. There are also some of the floating pontoons on the beach that formed part of the road leading from the harbour to dry land.

Longues-sur-Mer

At Longues-sur_Mer is an original German artillery battery with the guns still in place.

It’s a complete sit, with four guns mounted inside the concrete bunkers and then paths leading to the clifftop fire-control post. You can walk around inside the bunkers as well as the fire-control post, giving you an idea of what the Germans were seeing as D-Day dawned.

It’s great that the site has been preserved like this, as walking around and over history is much better than reading about it in a museum.

Pegasus Bridge

I really have spent too long reading about military history, because Pegasus Bridge was one of the places I absolutely had to see.

The first thing to see is the bridge and crossings over the River Orne and the Caen canal. Of course, this is no longer the original Pegasus Bridge but having read so much about this place and the airborne landings here it’s good to have a sense of the layout.

There is a really good museum here with lots of displays about the landings, including some stories about what soldiers and civilians did after the war. There’s so much to see that you (or I!) could spend hours and hours here.

When you go outside, there’s a range of military equipment dotted around the park. But pride of place is given to the original Pegasus Bridge standing in the middle. You can even climb up on to it and walk across – a weird feeling, knowing that men from both sides fought and died for this structure.

Caen memorial and museum

In Caen itself there is a large memorial and museum. As you would expect, there are large exhibitions devoted to D-Day but less expected was that this is really a museum about war and efforts to find peace in the 21st century. So it doesn’t just cover the fighting forces, but also the impact of war on civilians. There are exhibtions on the origins of World War Two, massacres and genocide and the Cold War.

Below the museum you can walk through the bunker system used by the German commanders at the time of the D-Day landings.

Bayeux Tapestry

During our driving, we decided to stop in Bayeux to see the famous Bayeux Tapestry.

The Tapestry itself is well displayed. It’s inside a continuous curving display case which is clearly intended to keep large crowds moving (although it was quiet on the day we visited). The audio guide is linked to the numbers above each panel, which means you can stop and hear about each panel in turn.

It’s an incredible feeling to stand mere centimetres away (separated by glass) from something that is more than 1,000 years old.

Categories: France

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