Day 8 (Bayeux and D-Day beaches)

This was a looong day. Full of stuff to see :)

 We started off by going to Bayeux to see a tapestry around 1000 years old (which is Unesco world historic patrimony) which has a colorful embroidery telling the story of why and how William "the bastard" conquered England in 1066 (hence followed the name of William "the conquerer"). It is a more than 68 meters long tapestry, and is impressive the detail put into it and how it really tells the story so well (no pictures were allowed inside unfortunately).

 

At the Tapisserie Museum at Bayeux

 This village also has other things of interest like its Cathedral of Notre Dame and the several scattered houses of the XV to XVIII century that have been restored or well preserved. So again like in Brugge, it fells like we are living history.

Church of Nothre Dame at Bayeux

One of the XV-XVIII house in its original shape

Another interesting house

 Then it was time to see and know more about the D-Day, the famous landing at the Normandy beaches in 6 June 1944 to drive back the invading German forces.
This visit is quite something. The most astonishing things are at Pointe du Hoc, here one can really see how ferocious the battles and bombardments were.

View of Pointe du Hoc

Amidst all the war atmosphere... the place is of great natural beauty

The craters produced by the bombardments are also something amazing... some of them must be more than 5 meters deep and 5 meters wide, the explosions must have been massive; also impressive must have been the climb of the cliff by the American Ranger troops, to reach the bunkers and German artillery... by looking at the cliffs you wonder how the hell they managed and what must have been going through their minds.

The field was battered by Allied bombs (one can see several craters), to destroy the German artillery

 Some bunkers are still quite intact and one can see how the German forces were entrenched there and try to figure it out how it should have been both for the Allied troops and for the German... amazing stuff.

The observation bunker (still in good shape this one)

This wall is amazing because its full of bullet holes demonstrating that this was real battle place

The observation bunker. Shows the view from inside.

The observation bunker. View from outside.

Medical bunker

Inside the medical bunker

The entrance of medical bunker. The top metal support is full of bullet holes!!!

Then we went to the famous Omaha beach, site of the American landing... but there the fighting was so brutal that nothing remains to bee seen really (exception to one or two German bunkers, one with an artillery piece). What one can see is the massive 7Km extension of beach where the landings took place.

"Omaha beach"

Bunker and artillery at Omaha beach

The American cemetery. Just like we see it in "Saving private Ryan" movie

 Finally we went to Arromanches where one can see the remains of pre-fabricated marinas that the Allied forces built and used to unload massive amounts of cargo to support the battle efforts inland.

Remains of "Port Winston" (pre-fabricated marina for unloading cargo)

Tomorrow we are off to Saint-Malo and the Brittany region :)