#eutotrip

WARNING: Monster blog post ahead - you have now been warned.

I spent 36 hours in Paris between my time in England and my adventure off to Normandy mainly because I am a huge WWII history nerd.

In my little time that I had here in Paris I made it to the Opera house - inspired by my time in London seeing the Phantom I obviously had to go find Box 5 - the Phantom's domain. Luckily it was even conveniently labeled, though it wasn't getting much attention from the crowd.

The real star of the show at the Paris Opera is the Marc Chagall ceiling that is breathtakingly beautiful. As soon as you see it you know immediately that it could only be him that painted it - it is perfectly in line with his style. That's one nice thing about Chagall, all the work I've seen by him sticks to his style very closely.

After the opera, I spent some time in the old Jewish area of Paris. I got some much needed decent falafel for lunch and visited the Holocaust memorial and museum there. It was all in french so I only got the gist of the words and of course the pictures helped a lot. I decided to skip the Jewish museum… feeling a bit museum-ed out lately.

On Saturday I took an early morning train to Bayeaux in Normandy. 

I must say that I have been looking forward to going to Bayeaux just as much if not more than any other place that I've been to this summer. Anyone who has pretty much ever gotten to know me, knows that I am amateur WWII history nerd. So much so that not only I have seen Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers and the Longest day many times, but I wrote a paper comparing the three in my second year of undergrad (note, this won't be the last undergrad history paper that I mention regarding my time in Bayeaux).

Alright, on to the highlights of Bayeaux… there were a lot of them as I took almost 650 pictures in 1 day - a new record!

I splurged a bit because I decided that if I'm only going to spend one night here, I might as well see as much as possible so I booked myself an afternoon tour of Omaha Beach, Point Du Hoc, and the American Cemetery. I had a bit of time before I went on the tour so I went off first to go see the world famous UNESCO heritage site - the Bayeaux Tapestry. I wasn't sure if I'd make it or feel up to going while I was planning this trip but I sure am glad that I went in the end. The tapestry is nearly 1,000 years old and is absolutely magnificent. When you go you are given an audio-guide that walks you through the story that the tapestry tells - as most of the population was illiterate back then, the tapestry was used to relate the story of William the Conquerer's conquest of England in 1066 to the masses. I am not normally a big audio-guide fan but this one was super helpful, informative, and fast paced enough for my liking.

After the tapestry, I rushed over to meet the tour at the train station - as expected it was mostly Americans though shockingly there were two people younger than me on the tour! 

The other perk of the tour is that they provide transport - a key element that would have made things much tougher for me if I had gone at Normandy alone, I likely would have had to rent a car.

First stop on the tour was the Point du Hoc. This was a battery of guns that was supposed to be overlooking both the Omaha and Utah beaches on D-Day. Although the guns had been temporarily removed by the Germans in order to build re-enforced bunkers, the battle for the cliffs above the peninsula was undertaken by US Army Rangers. The area is unique because the heavy shelling that took place before the invasion is still apparent in the topography of the land - there isn't an inch of land that isn't part of an impact crater.

The point is also just a beautiful outlook of the cliffs /  ridge that was scaled by the allies as they invaded Normandy.

We then landed on Omaha Beach - one of the two American beachheads and the bloodiest area of the initial landing. I won't go too much into the details of the battle as I am no expert on the matter and it will probably bore 95% of the people who read this blog and just want to see that I'm safe and having fun.

After an obligatory dip in the English Channel I noticed that there are still guards on the beach - though this time, they are there to save lives. Today, the beach is guarded by fellow lifeguards!

Here are some pictures from the Dog Green Sector of Omaha Beach:

Some people on my tour were surprised that people use the beach for swimming and recreation - but it's over 65 years since the invasion… it would be tough to pass up such a nice beach and it would be a shame to those who lost their lives liberating it if the beach was never to be used again. Yes, it is a war grave in many ways… but at this point in the world's history one would be hard pressed to find anywhere that wasn't fought over at one time or another.

One thing that very much impressed me with Normandy in general is the reverence given to the allied nations who fought there more than 65 years ago. To this day American, British, and Canadian flags hang all over the area and the few veterans that we saw walking around were always greeted with the utmost respect by locals and tourists alike.

We then went to my most anticipated site - the American Cemetery.

According to my guide, after Arlington this is the second most visited cemetery in the world - and I believe it. Over 400,000 Americans visit yearly and over 1.2 million people. There are over 10,000 graves, 3 medal of honour winners, 4 women, two Roosevelt's, and 149 Jews (whose graves are marked by Magen Davids instead of Crosses.

I must say, the American Government sure does a fantastic job with cemeteries - this one was probably the single most beautiful cemetery I have ever been to. It takes a different direction from the Israeli national military cemetery - Mount Herzl, though it is much like British and Commonwealth war cemeteries.

I won't write anymore about it because any words I put down would be inadequate once again.

Finally, we ended up at the Longue Sur Mer Battery - which was a Germany battery of 4 massive guns which were to be used to fire on allied ships in the channel. The guns could fire up to 30 miles!!! 

Fortunately for the allied ships, their command post was neutralized by a bomber early on and therefore the guns became ineffective before the ships arrived.

Finally I got a bit of a surprise myself. As I mentioned before, in undergrad as a history specialist I wrote a couple papers about WWII. For my automobile history seminar in 4th year I wrote about the Willy's MB which is better known as the Ford GP - Willy's won the contract from the American government but when higher production numbers were needed the design was also leased out to Ford to make copies.

Here at Longue Sur Mer I found a working, original (so the owner claims), Ford GP which just made the trip all the more special and real. The army green color - exactly as it was when the jeep was deployed - enhances the battlefield picture and really lends a sense of realism to everything that I saw in Normandy.

After finishing up the tour, taking some time to see yet another outstandingly beautiful cathedral (yes, they are starting to blend… I do have pictures but I'm not sure that will help), I went to visit the British cemetery with some Canadian graves and the memorial to all Journalists who have died in warzones. I was quite impressed to see a modern memorial such as the Journalist memorial that has been kept up to date. There are names from every year from 1944 to present engraved there and it is an ongoing project.

That's about all for Bayeaux. If this is posted, it means that I have arrived safely in Nice and am far too tired after a 10 hour travel day to post anything about here. Nice is my second last real stop of the summer. I'll spend 3-4 nights here, visit Monaco, hit the beach and possibly Cannes, and then head off to Barcelona followed by Tel Aviv for one last day in Israel before flying home. I have lots of transit time in the next 10 days which will mean I'll need lots of decompressing time on the beach as well. Hopefully I can swing both as this traveller is starting to become a bit weary.

Trip Counter:

Days: 55

Cities: 35

Countries: 12

Planes: 4

Trains: 24

Automobiles (cabs & busses): Drove my first Standard car on the wrong side!

Bikes: 1

Castles: 8

Pantheons: 2

Churches: Scores

Plays: 4

Beaches: 2