Normandy - Finally Made it Out of Paris

Since I finally finished up with Paris and I'm on a roll before I head out the door for my Sunday evening activities, I thought I'd finish up France with a post on Normandy then I'll only have one post left for Belgium - Yes, I am limiting myself to just one post for each of these fantastic sites. Then I can get on with blogging about other things I've been out and about doing the last few months.

The first pictures deserve their own area - the D-Day Beaches. I could use many different adjectives to describe it - but most of all it was powerful. And... it was a miracle. These just weren't nice, flat, sandy beaches that they had to land on, they were small, rocky, and lined with cliffs. It was a miracle... and a blessing. The first 6 are all at Omaha Beach where the visitor center and military cemetery are located. All the land has been given to the USA in perpetuity. The last few in the section are at Pointe du Hoc where men scaled cliffs while being bombed and shot at so they could rout out the Germans entrenched in the point that overlooked both Omaha Beach and Utah Beach, the two USA landing points on D-Day. You can still see the massive bomb craters dotting the land, the bunkers and gun emplacements. The last picture shows a view of Utah beach from Pointe du Hoc... obviously not much of a stroll up the beach. Normandy is definitely worth the trip if you are in Paris.

Now for the rest of Normandy... we drove up the Opal Coast which is along the English Channel. The rolling hills and small French towns were picturesque. We stopped for the night in Rouen - a small Medieval town where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake. The medieval architecture was unique and fantastic to see - the exposed wooden beams with plaster in between - just what you'd see at some type of Renaissance fair. The cathedral was painted quite often by Monet and his paintings were often mistook for Notre Dame in Paris. Another cool thing in the next to last picture, this was a graveyard for plague victims and the decorations around the plaza are skulls, crossbones, and grave diggers tools. We finished up our time in Normandy on the beach in Calais eating ice cream cones.