We woke up the next morning from our short stay in Paris to a long 4 hour bus ride to Northern France, Normandy. The bus ride was a little long but very beautiful. Starting in city and moving to fields of green, crops, cows, horses and rolling hills. Weary and not all quite there we arrived at the Normandy Museum. Inside we enjoyed a little snack and then proceeded to the informational part of the museum. Starting from before WWII the exhibit gave a very detailed look at the events after WWI that led up to the Second World War. It explained the ideologies behind totalitarianism, fascism, Nazism, and communism and the leaders who pushed these ideas forward. The exhibit had an enormous amount of information on the War. Everything about the war was covered, what every country did, how they did it, and everything else in between. It took almost 2 hours to get through the whole maze of information and it felt like your brain was going to explode out of pure knowledge! And that wasn’t even the end! After the very detailed overview of the war from the first exhibit, we watched a cinema specifically on the Allied Forces invasion of France in Normandy. The Cinema was very good and really gave a perspective on the massive invasion that happened on June 6, 1944. After the cinema we went outside and were greeted by our local guide Jacque, an older rascally fellow, who actually experienced the war and invasion first hand even though he was 4 years old at the time. We were supposed to go to the American cemetery memorial but since our government is bollocks we couldn’t. Jacque made up for it and told us interesting stories about his experiences during that time and showed us the beaches of Normandy, specifically Omaha beach. Unfortunately it was rather rainy and we couldn’t get out to explore the 5 mile long beach but we were able to picture the tragedy and triumph that happened there. Jacque explained to us where the American soldiers hid for cover and where the Germans were hidden. Next we drove 4 miles to Point Du Huc where there were a few German bunkers. Climbing down into the bunkers we got a glimpse into the life of German soldiers in the bunker, which smelt like urine. Outside the bunkers big craters were all around which we were told are from the bombing during the war. From Point Du Huc we stopped briefly at a German Cemetery and then to everyone’s excitement arrived at the Hotel in Bayeux where we had a wonderful dinner and relaxing sleep.
|
Categories |