A major highlight of last weekend’s trip to the Normandy region of France was staying in a real medieval Castle, La Ducrie – complete with moat. Built in the 15th century, it was constructed for the heir apparent to the throne who later became Louis XI of France. The British owners had done well to make the castle comfortable to live in without sacrificing too much of its authenticity and history.
Taking advantage of a long weekend in Britain, Ben and I teamed up with our South African mates, Brad and Jackie, to get the car ferry across to France. Normandy is dotted with lovely, historic towns and beautiful green rolling hills.
You can’t visit Normandy without at least taking a moment to consider the area’s military history. For anyone who’s not up on the details and hasn’t seen Saving Private Ryan, D-Day was June 6, 1944 when the allied forces of Britain, Canada and the US launched an unprecedented attack on the coast of France to liberate mainland Europe from Nazi occupation during WWII.
It still remains the largest seaborne invasion in history, involving almost three million troops, 7000 ships, 4000 landing craft and 12000 aircraft crossing the English Channel from England to Normandy.
You could spend weeks visiting the landing beaches and various museums, cemeteries and monuments. It’s all fascinating. But with our limited time we just took in a few highlights.
The first was Sainte-Mère-Église, which was considered the French first town liberated in the WWII Battle of Normandy. A famous incident in the town involved paratrooper John Steele (a famous rellie perhaps?!), whose parachute caught on the spire of the town church, and could only observe the fighting going on below. Bizarely, a dummy paratrooper now hangs from the church spire, commemorating the story.
We also spent some time at Omaha Beach, the most heavily fought after and bloody site, which claimed thousands of American lives. The battleground here was, not surprisingly, rather haunting, as was the American Cemetery, where more than 9000 soldiers were laid to rest, marked by rows of perfectly aligned white crosses as far as the eye can see. Another 14,000 deceased soliders were repatriated to the US.
Mont St Michel is reportedly to be Europe’s most visited tourist attraction and it’s little wonder. I guess the pics speak for themselves but just to explain, it’s a tiny tidal island off the coast, which is home to a Benedictine abbey. I can’t recall a more magnificent scene than when it appears on the horizon as you drive closer. Well worth a visit.
On the drive back to the ferry, we stopped by a few gorgeous seaside towns (Deauville, Honfleur) before arriving at Etretat which is famous for it’s seaside cliffs.
We had a fantastic weekend in an interesting and beautiful area. All topped off with great company and some truly divine local seafood!
Check out some more photies here
Great idea Benj. I’m not one to regularly write my thoughts down, but I know we’ll be glad we committed it to paper before our memories start fading.
