BEACHES
Vast, Sandy beaches are popular for swimming, wild WALKS or enjoying the view. In the eveninG, join the locals by their beach huts or sip a cocktail at THE SEA FRONT cafe.
“La plage de la vielle Eglise” Carteret, was named one of the top ten beaches in Europe.
(The Guardian, 2022) 35 min drive
D DAY BEACHES
Historic Omaha Beach (50 minute drive) and Utah Beach (30 minute drive) on the East coast.
Omaha Beach is one of the four American D Day Landing Beaches, the most heavily defended and the hardest beach to capture from the Germans on June 6th 1944
Visit the famous American Cemetery, poignantly honouring the many young soldiers who sacrificed their lives that day.
At Utah Beach, the most western of the five Normandy landing beaches, you can roam the wide open, undeveloped space, see a landing boat that held up to 36 men and make a tour of the interconnecting war bunkers at Saint-Marcouf.
For a fuller educational experience, the Utah Beach Landing Museum is built on an old German bunker with extensive artefacts and military vehicles on display.
Heading away from the beach, you will find war memorials, churches and monuments each telling a different story of the bravery and heroism on that day. These include the memorial to Easy Company (featured in “Band of Brothers”) and Eglise Saint-Come-et-Saint-Damain, a small church that served as an emergency hospital to the wounded soldiers on D Day.
Hundreds of thousands of young men sacrificed their lives that day and there are monuments honouring them all over this part of Normandy, including the German cemetery at” La Cambe.”
