Time for the beach

Up and off to visit some of the D-Day sites today.  

Nate in his boudoir

On the way out we stopped at a Carrefour servo and was able to get our drinks and snacks for the day at the supermarket.  Outside the supermarket was a service station and an area where you can use their washing machines!!  Bit odd really.  We filled the car up today - 50 litre tank got us 650 km.  Pretty efficient!

more of the countryside

this is where the main road goes

not much room to pull over

First on the agenda was to be Omaha Beach, but we detoured to the American Military Cemetery first.  Was a huge solemn place that we found to be quite humbling.

way too many of these

The Cemetary overlooks Omaha Beach so instead of going to look at the monument there we went to Pointe Du Hoc.  This was the bluff that the US Rangers took on DDay.  Holy cow what amazing coastline, and was shocking to get an idea of what they were able to do.  The monument overlooks the cliff, but its part of a whole walk you do past the shelling holes and bunkers that were in that area.

Pointe Du Hoc

checking out a bunker

one of the huge holes in the earth from shelling of the area

Dagger themed monument

beautiful coastline - shame about the barbed wire border

All throughout this region there are little pockets of war remnants.  On the side of the road at one point was a little museum with canons and an old jeep, another part there was a museum with a few tanks out front.

Again it was many country backroads, well we would call them backroads, but they're actually their main roads.  I got brave enough to drive today and OMG it takes some getting used to sticking to the right with one tyre off the road to allow the other cars through.  There is a bit of a system to sharing the roads and this afternoon were able to work out that there is a sign before the narrow parts to show which side has to give way to the other.  Will be easier now we know that I think.  I don't think we will tire of the scenery on these road though, so beautiful.

brave Leanne

After lunch we went down to the beachfront in search of hire bikes and discovered it was actually Juno beach that we stumbled upon.  The beachfront at St Aubin is actually quite lovely.  We spent the afternoon getting the toilet fixed and having a long chat to one of the euro-camp courier people.

Juno beach landing

another bunker with an 88ml gun

We prepurchased our dinner at Carrefour earlier today but supplemented it with a fresh baguette and some apple tarte tatins.  Bordeaux again tonight :-)

boys and the baguette

bordeaux no2