Western Europe Day 4

◊ At last, it was time to visit the reason we came to France at all: the D-Day towns and beaches. We would not have even stopped in Paris otherwise. Somehow, in a miracle that stretches beyond miracles, Nelson had not only made it to Paris, but had somehow been able to locate our hostel and actually gotten a bed. He was sitting in the lobby when we came down that morning. After a quick breakfast of (you guessed it, bread sticks) we made our way to one of the city's many many many train stations and proceeded to try and buy tickets from a kiosk. Since you are reading it here, you can guess that this failed miserably and we missed our train. Eventually we got a human to help us and started off (much later than we had intended) for Caen.

◊ Upon reaching our destination, we began by hunting for the tourist office as usual. There was a directional sign just outside of the train station pointing the way for us. Off we set on foot. By the time we finally lost the trail of signs, we had walked half way across the city. This was not a small place either. It had led us to the Normandy Museum, built inside a ruined fortification. Given the time, it would have been a great place to visit and we were well into the day already. If we were going to see the beaches and cemetery, we really needed to keep moving as we still were nowhere near the coast. It took some fuzzy logic and triangulation, but we finally found the tourism office not far away. We went in and inquired of the lady working there about tours of the beaches and she laughed in our faces. Something that no one had known was that the tours of the D-Day beaches all left early in the morning Essentially, she told us that we had a snowball's chance in hell of seeing jack. We decided to take that chance. She told us there was a single afternoon tour that left from the Caen Memorial, so off we went again on foot. We did not have a map to tell us how far away this place was either and all we had to go on were directional signs. There was nothing to tell us that this place was on the outer edge of the city. We made it there on foot... eventually.

◊ The Memorial looked really neat. It would have been great to visit the museum which is it's central exhibit, except we were loosing time and that walk across the city did not help that. We actually did make it there before the last tour of the beaches left, but they were totally full. It was beginning to look like the day was going to turn into a complete waste. We decided to try to make it there on our own, so we hopped a bus and rode (saving hours of walking) back to the Caen train station where we took a train to Bayeux (pronounced Bay-Oh). From this town it was supposed to be a hop, skip, and a jump to Omaha Beach, the American Cemetery, and Point Du Hoc. Just off the train we found what we were looking for: a sign advertising taxi tours of the sights. We called and requested a taxi and sat down next to some people who had done the same shortly before us. A few minutes later a taxi showed up for them. A very long while later ours finally arrived.
◊ The driver, in broken English, laid out our situation for us. It was getting late. The American Cemetery would be closing in a few minutes and everything else soon after. We decided to cut all of the other stops on the tour for a reduced fare if we could only get to see Omaha Beach and Point Du Hoc. Off we went. Finally. A whole day planed and centered around this only to be wasted in an endless series of mistakes and waiting for busses, trains, and taxis. And then there was Omaha Beach. It was interesting I suppose. I am glad we got to see it. But to tell you the truth, it looked just about like any other beach. The place had been cleaned up long ago and only a memorial remained. Having watched enough war movies I was able to picture what it once must have looked like. Then I began to see the remains of some of the bunkers at the top of the cliffs, and some of the earth ramps leading up to them. All decaying, all overgrown, but still there. Visiting the Omaha Beach Museum was out of the question due to time constraints and a running taxi meter. On the way to Point Du Hoc the driver took us to a few smaller things of note. We were able to stop and look at one of the beach bunkers that once upon a time protected a very large defensive gun.

What you can't see on that gun turret is the other side where it looks like a giant attacked it with a massive hole punch and made a messy job of it too.

◊ Until a few weeks previous, I had no idea what 'Point Du Hoc' was. I had read it in Nathan's guide book and Googled it. Wow. Wow is all I have to say about the events that took place there on D-Day. What the army ranger unit that assaulted it faced made the rest of the events that took place over those hectic first few days of the liberation of Europe seem like a walk in the park. If I tried to tell the story I would never get this thing done, so if you care to learn about the subject I have provided some links that I googled up. Suffice it to say that being there was like being in another world. The ground was like a moonscape and the ruined bunkers were foreboding. I entered some of the ones still standing and it was not hard to imagine that for well over two days this place saw some of the most hellacious fighting of the war. I wish I could have gotten more and better pictures of this place but we went through the whole thing practically at a jog. Give me a few hours and a film camera and I would have taken some very profound photographs. The kind of photo that would have won me state champion back in my days in the 4-H photography competition if only I'd had the opportunity to take them back then. Seeing this one place deeply affected me and almost made everything we had gone through getting there worth it. I would suggest seeing this to anyone spending time in France: Stay away from Paris and visit the Normandy beaches.

Description
http://www.worldwar2history.info/D-Day/Pointe-Du-Hoc.html
Some excellent historical pictures (especially of the bombers in action)
http://search.eb.com/dday/article-236191
Some some good photos of the bunkers
http://www.ross.navy.mil/point_du_hoc.htm

◊ At this point our tour was pretty much over so our driver took us back to Bayeux, passing the British Cemetery on the way. Other than the D-Day beaches, there is only one thing Bayeux is famous for. It has a massive one-of-a-kind tapestry that tells the story of William The Conqueror and what led up to the Battle of Hastings. It is about 70 meters long yet somehow has managed to survive war after war after war after war after war. However, like most other things that we had set out to see that day, it was too late by the time we arrived. Even though the place had not closed yet, they were no longer allowing people in. The gift shop was still open so we ahead and bought stuff. I got a 1/7 scale print of it with explanations of what is happening in each section. Still it is long enough that I am thinking about putting it up a wallpaper border in my new room at home.

◊ After that, we slowly worked our way back to Paris. Since Nelson had not been with us when we had gone to see the city, we took him up to the only view that had impressed us thus far, Sacre Coeur. We went by way of Monmarte so that he could get to see the Moulin Rouge in all of it's neon, over-discussed glory. I was still angry about how the day had gone and greatly looked forward to getting out of that stinking country for good the next morning.