Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial

On to the final day of the vacation and boy oh boy was it a doozy. I knew that the American Cemetery in Normandy that is dedicated to the fallen US soldiers during WWII was close to where I was living this year and felt that it would be such a shame to not go and honor their sacrifice. I set off Sunday morning to find the Cemetery, knowing that it was going to be around a 25 km hike to make it to the beach from where I was, I was in for a long day. The minute that I made it out of town, a nice Frenchman stopped just ahead of me on the road and asked me where I was going. When I explained to him where I wanted to go he immediately said hop on in. He was only going half the way, but still drove me the whole way there because he said that it was the smallest thing he could do, he was a little child during WWII and America gave him freedom again he said. While dealing with some bad French apples a few weeks back, it was nice to meet the good apples too.

On to the Cemetery and Memorial, I was not prepared in the least bit for the amount of emotion that this place can bring out in you. You start your day by taking a tour of the Memorial learning even more of its history and significance before having the opportunity to walk through the graves. Before you watch this little video, I suggest that you turn off any music or TV around you and just listen to how truly peaceful the area is. It is amazing to imagine that this is the exact land that 66 years ago, one of the worlds largest battles took place.



Walking row upon row reading the names on each grave truly means so much. There are roughly 10,000 Americans buried here and I still cannot wrap my head around it. The number of lives that the War touched is amazing and to have the opportunity to read the stories of so many of the men gets one to really think. Many of the lives lost were even younger than I am currently and it certainly brings to mind that while they made the ultimate sacrifice for freedom, what in my life have I done? If I were to die today, what would my lasting impact on the world be and was it positive? These are just a few of the questions that this place implants in you and having quite a bit of time to walk and think are an important part of this memorial.

















The Cemetery overlooks Omaha beach which was one of the landing points for American forces on D Day and today is quite a peaceful place. It was pretty neat to be able to hike on down and check out the beach today. Not to mention have some sand running through my toes and get to dip my legs in the Atlantic.















Knowing that this was the last day of my trip and I would not get to have many truly calm days left, I decided to just hang out on the beach for a couple of hours. A nice little picnic while watching kids play around in the water and families relaxing on Sunday afternoon was just what I needed. It is certainly great to be able to see the happiness on this land today considering what this land has seen in its days. An interesting twist is that at one of the memorials, it is written in Latin that this land was taken back for the people who took their land. This is in reference to the Norman conquest that I visited on day 1 with French taken over England and 878 years later, the English helping take back land for the French. In no ways was this planned that my trip timeline would work like that, but an added bonus.















To this day, old German bunkers are still left to decay on the hillside while giving a unique insight to what the US soldiers had to deal with. With the day nearly over, I headed off to make my way back to Bayeux and the train station and once again, a friendly stranger gave me a ride from the beach back into town. The people that you get to meet along the way certainly make for an interesting trip and the conversations are able to give one an insight into local culture even more so than just a standard visit. A successful trip all around in that I got in some ok R and R, even though all the walking was draining. I also got to see some sites that I have always wanted to see and now, am extremely motivated for the second half of the season. Stay tuned for an update on some of the more "unique" characters I got to meet on my trip.