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| Utah Beach, D-Day Memorial, Normandy, France |
Unlike our trip to Normandy in 2010, the weather was very,
very overcast. We had really been
looking forward to revisiting two of our favorite destinations from the 2010
World War II Venues Tour today: Sainte-Mère-Église and Utah Beach. The best laid plans were waylaid by the
French pilots, those expert seamen who guide the ships into and out of
port. We were supposed to have the pilot
board at 7:00, but they hadn’t started work yet, so we ended up docking quite
late. We were out and on our way as
quickly as possible, but the shore excursion, Sainte-Mère-Église and Utah Beach, set off a half hour late due to
our late arrival.
As we drove through the countryside toward
Sainte-Mère-Église, the skies were extremely overcast, but our guide had hopes
that it would clear by the time we arrived there.
Normandy is another of the French regions (like Brittany and
Pays de la Loire), and it is comprised of six departments. Cherbourg is the “capital of the department
of La Manche. Because of its strategic
location, the port of Cherbourg is very important. During World War II the Germans were
concerned that the allied troops would take over Cherbourg so they destroyed
it. Our guide told us that until now, the people in this area liked
Americans. Uh-oh! Were we in trouble? (Of course since her English is far better
than our French, we didn’t have a leg to stand on!) She really meant that to this day the French in
Normandy revere Americans. Her mother
well remembers that time when the Americans arrived, and she instilled that
feeling of admiration in her daughter.
We had also found this to be true when we visited in 2010.
I wasn’t sure if I could handle the walking at
Sainte-Mère-Église based upon what we did in 2010, but I was pleased that the
bus dropped us off right in front of the Hotel de Ville. I knew that the walk to the church would be
quite short. Our guide pointed out the
kilometer marker that signaled the beginning of Patton’s Voie de la Liberté
(Liberty Way) as he and his troops marched toward Bastogne, Belgium. What we didn’t know was that there were 48
stars on the marker, representing each of the 48 states of the US at that
time. The flame represented liberty, and
the blue stood for the water (beaches of Normandy). Each marker tells where the previous marker
and where the next marker can be found.
We made the short walk to the church and had a few minutes
inside to take pictures of the stained glass windows. Outside hangs the effigy of John Steele, who
parachuted in the early hours of June 6h and got caught on the steeple. We had both always thought that he had hung
there without moving pretending he had died to avoid being captured. However, we learned that he was actually
captured by the Germans but managed to escape a few hours after his
capture.
There was extremely little free time to do anything in
Sainte-Mère-Église. I did manage to race into a shop and look for a sweatshirt
(with no luck), coming away with a t-shirt.
We were very interested in what looked like big preparations for the 70th
Anniversary of D-Day celebration, which will take place two weeks from
tomorrow.
As we headed toward Utah Beach, the skies once again opened
up, and this time we got hail. The bus
driver suggested to the guide that perhaps we might want to get out for a group
photo of the tour! He did have quite a
sense of humor. The guide told us a
story about one of her early tours when she was telling the group about going to
Utah Beach, and each time she said it, they laughed. She couldn’t figure out why until they
explained later in the tour that she had been mispronouncing beach. Just as one does when not a native speaker,
she had thought she was saying beach, but she was actually pronouncing it like…
well, a female dog. She is now very
careful to say the word correctly in English!
Happily, by the time we reached Utah Beach, the rain and
hail had stopped, and the sun was trying to peek through. We had about a half hour to wander the
area. I opted not to go up to the top of
the dunes to look down at the beach. I
had done that four years ago, and my back was starting to bother me. So I stayed on the main road and enjoyed
(finally) having an opportunity to browse some gift shops!
We were glad that the weather had cooperated enough to allow
us to be off the bus without rain. As we
headed away from Utah Beach, we drove along the beaches, passing many abandoned
German bunkers along the way, part of the “Atlantic Wall” which was built
between 1942 and 1944. The guide
commented that the people use these bunkers for several purposes, and at one
point we saw a bunker next to a playground where a group of children were
playing. She said that the children had
probably parked their bikes in the bunker. We made a final brief photo stop at
Crisbecq Battery, where we could see up close one of the series of buildings
that were built to protect the coast from the Allied Forces. We had seen some similar batteries back in
2010 when we visited Longues-sur-Mer and Pointe du Hoc.
As we arrived back in Cherbourg, we could see the true scope
of the enormous harbor that had been built there. Our guide explained that this was the largest
manmade harbor in the world, covering an area equivalent to 3700 acres of land.
We were disappointed that we didn’t enjoy the excellent
weather we had previously experienced, but we were glad that we had had the
opportunity to once again visit these very historic sites. We were especially sorry for those who had
never been to Normandy, both those on our tour as well as those who had opted
to take the much longer excursion to Arromanches (which is Gold Beach) and the
American Cemetery.
Because we have been so busy packing, we haven't had time to select pictures from the last two ports. We are hoping that we'll have time to upload them later. We visit our last port, Zeebrugge, Belgium, tomorrow. Because our excursion isn’t until the
afternoon and the evening will be spent packing, we will not be posting a blog
for this port… at least not right away.
Hopefully when we get home one of us will remember that we need to wrap
up this wonderful cruise by writing about our final port, but we know what it’s
like when we return after having been away for 10 weeks and our best intentions
may not come to be.
BT
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