The Normandy Beaches

Wednesday dawned another glorious day so we decided to drive along the coast road west of Caen and take in some of the invasion beaches. The first one we reached was Juno beach where the Canadian troops landed with some of the Highland regiments at Bernieres sur Mer. We avoided the Juno Beach Centre further along the coast.
Below is a memorial to the Canadian troops

It is also the site of the first official monument to the invasion erected in 1949, which is next to the house which is claimed to be the first liberated by land forces in france

That house is now a museum in memory to the 2nd Canadian Army.
The drive along the coast really a very pleasant and sedate trundle with invasion memories everywhere.
We next stopped on the cliffs above Arromanches, where we picnicked in the car park overlooking the remains of the Mulberry Harbour

This was a truely incredible structure. It is difficult to believe it was manufactured in England in pieces in secret then floated over to Normandy and assembled filling Arromanches bay creating Port Winston.
Some of the concrete pontoons remains along with a preserved pieces of the modular bridging that linked then.

There is the obligatory museum in Arromanches town and a 360o cinema experience on the hill top.

We finished the day along the coast at the German gun battery at Longues sur Mer. These were 4 152mm guns built into the reinforced concrete bunkers on the cliff top, aimed by radio telemetry from a spotting station on the cliff edge. They were built early in 1944 as part of the defences planned by Rommel and were not fully finished at the time of the invasion, however they survived a 1000 tonnes of bombs on dropped on them the night before D Day and with a range of 12 miles they took on 3 warships and slugged it out on D Day until being put out action eventually before being captured by the Devonshire Regiment the day after.

This ended our day with lots unexplored but we needed to get back to base as we going out for a meal and it was an hour and a half drive.

Thursday was a bit of a washout as it p*ss*d it down for most of the day and I didn't want another days driving as we were back to the port that night. So it essentially involved a bit of shopping and waiting for the weather to break so we could pack up before heading for the overnight ferry home and on the way to the port we passed a dark blue and white bay whose registration ended BAY and were accompanied on the boat by a very nice splittie and a spotless late Westy in that lovely snot green!