Category: Europe Spring 2025

Today we moved a bit east on the Normandy coast. Last night we were in Viereville-sur-Mer overlooking Omaha Beach. Tonight we are just inland from Gold Beach, one of the Allies landing sites, and Arromanches, where the British built a massive artificial harbor.

This morning we went back to Trévières where we had breakfast yesterday and went to the same boulangerie for our pastries, then got our coffee at the same bar. In my opinion breakfast in France is one of the highlights of traveling here.

We checked out of our hotel at 11:00 then walked a bit.

Next we drove a mile up the road to the primary Omaha beach monuments.

Then we went to see the Bayeux Tapestry. It’s been on my bucket list for a long time. It’s kind of an embroidered comic strip 70 yards long, created to tell the story of the Norman invasion of England, and the battle of Hastings in 1066. It’s almost 1000 years old! I thought it was fascinating. You aren’t allowed to take pictures of the tapestry.

We had a picnic lunch outside of Arromanches. Our picnic table was next to the road. We watched a steady stream of bicyclists pedaling up the hill. At least 3 different cyclist said “bon appetite!!” as they passed our picnic. It was great!

Our final stop of the day was the D-Day Landing museum in Arromanches. It tells the story of the massive artificial port that the Allie’s built off the coast at Arromanches. I knew they built an artificial port but I had no idea of the scale and what an inprssive engineering feat it was to build.

We are staying at La Ferme de la Rançonnière near Arromanches. It is a wonderful place. We had an excellent dinner in their restaurant tonight.

Today was the nicest weather day we have had in several days. It was a perfect day to explore along the D-day Normandy coast. We started by going 9 kilometers into Trévières to find a boulangerie for pastries for breakfast. We bough our pain au chocolat and pain au raisin and then went to another shop to get coffee and to eat them. We also bought a baguette for lunch.

Then we went to the American cemetery. The visitor center was very interesting and the cemetery, with 9,386 marble tombstones is moving.

The Overlord museum is very near the American Cemetery. We didn’t go in but we did stop to look at the outside displays.

Next we headed to Utah beach, the other big American D-day landing beach. On the way we stopped far a picnic lunch in Angoville-au-Plain. This area was where the 101st Airborne division paratroopers landed in a heavily defended area. Two of the paratroopers who were medics set up in this chuch and took care of wounded soldiers here for 72 hours straight.

For dinner we had mussels and pizza in the hotel bar.

After dinner we walked out on the pier in front of our hotel.

It was a beautiful sunny day today. Before leaving Château de la Ballue this morning we took another walk through the gardens but this time we used their printed guide to the gardens and saw things we had completely missed on our first walk. We also got to enjoy everything in the sun light.

About 11 we left the chateau and drove north to the coast of Normandy. Tonight we staying at Hotel du Casino, overlooking Omaha beach, one of the beaches the Americans landed on on D-day.

Mid afternoon we had a very nice lunch in the hotel bar.

Later we went to Pointe du Hoc. U.S. Rangers scaled the cliffs here to disable the heavily fortified gun battery.

Chateau de La Ballue where we are staying is a beautiful, wonderful chateau originally built in the 17th century. We are not far from Mont Saint Michel so our goal this morning was to get a relatively early start so that we would get to Mont Saint Michel before the crowds.

We did pretty well. We were there just after nine and took the shuttle bus from the parking lot to the base of the island. Our timing was perfect because a free English tour started just after we got to the abbey.

On our way back to Chateau de la Bellue we stopped for coffee. Then we went back to the chateau, rested a bit and explored the gardens.

For dinner we went into Combourg which is about 16 kilometers away. We ate at L’Hypothèse. The wood paneled interior was cozy. They had a great grill menu and a long pizza menu. The whole meal was fantastic.

Today we continued west to another wonderful château, Château de La Ballue in Bazouges-la-Pérouse, not far from Mont Saint Michel. Before we left Chateau de Vauloge this morning we had a great breakfast and then went for a walk.

There are two chapels at Château Vauloge. One was for the family. The other, out by the road, was for pilgrims going to Mont Saint Michel.