Part VII : Omaha Beach, Colleville-sur-mer
Part VIII : Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial, France
I’ll be honest. At this point in the trip I was really tempted to skip this place because I was worried about running out of time. As I had already discussed with the cooordinator of my trip at Atout France, it was imperative that I get to Le Mont Saint Michel (the last stop) on time (before sunset) and if it meant skipping a destination or two along the way, I was allowed to. I ummed and erred for a while and eventually decided to just do a quick dash in and out.
Well it wasn’t really that quick. The carpark is huge and we had to first find a place to park and then walk from the carpark to the entrance. There were – as to be expected – security checks and once I passed through those I practically ran through the museum to get to the outdoor cemetery.
Once I was there I wished I had more time to spend there. It was really a fascinating and interesting place, and a beautiful and peaceful cemetery and memorial, located right by the sea. I was moved beyond words.
The cemetery covers 172 acres (70 hectares) and includes 9387 burials. The crosses are laid out in a beautiful diagonal grid pattern and seem to go on forever. The US flag flies over the grounds. Most of the American soldiers buried there were killed during the Normandy invasion on 6 June, 1944.
The grounds are expansive and you could easily spend half a day there just reading all the info in the museum and wandering about the peaceful surroundings. I did the best to see as much as I could with what little time I had.
Trivia: Parts of the film ‘Saving Private Ryan’ were filmed here.
I think we covered World War II briefly in high school but I never really paid attention or had any interest back then and don’t recall anything from those history lessons.. indeed, I fully believe that history must be ‘experienced’ rather than just read about. It is so much better to learn from real life than from textbooks, and that’s one of the reasons why I moved to Europe, so I believe that whole area is a definite must-see for a World War II history buff.
