2014 France

Day 5

September 10, 2014 rick wojack

Today would fulfill one of the primary reasons many of us came on this Normandy bicycle trip, that being a visit to the WWII Normandy Beach and Memorial.

The day started bright and shiny and after an ample breakfast a quick pack up and our morning ride meeting we were on the way.

We rode out through the French country side stopping at an old French aristocrat home and several others we viewed along the road.

At one point several of us were ahead of the group and I decided to stop and wait for emJay. After about 10 minutes I began biking back towards the group when I met Fernando and Carla, They said, “Did you “hear about emJay crashing”? Yikes, I had visions of her breaking her collarbone again like she had last year in Poland. Our transportation woes continued as I approached the group who was huddled around her bike, while Luc was repairing. She had been riding along when her handlebars suddenly turned down and she lost control of the bike. Luckily she ‘coasted’ into a grassy ditch and had a soft landing. In fact she ‘recreated’ the event for the sake of our photographers who wanted to record the event. The same thing happened twice yesterday to our guide Adele and twice to Lauri, who in one of the instances was going downhill!! VBT had installed adjustable stems on the bikes to accommodate many different riders needs, something you wouldn’t normally do on a road bike. Seems like it was a bad move. The half of us with road bikes are now riding VERY cautiously.

Do Not Try this at Home!

Our resident EMT, Luc.

By noon we had reached our destination and had a nice al fresco dining experience overlooking Omaha Beach.

Lunching in front of Omaha Beach.

Charlie and Diana enjoy a ‘baron’ size bier . . .

. . . and he and Becky enjoy a nice pizza.

emJay sharing with Adele her father’s writings of landing at Omaha.

We met out VERY knowledgeable guide, Bernard, who would be with us the remainder of the afternoon. We would tour Omaha Beach, a German ‘pillbox bunker’ the first and second American graveyards, and a German graveyard. It was 4 hours of a nonstop description of events and tragedies that happened 70 years ago. Many of us questioned whether we ourselves could have handle the situation both physically and mentally.

Omaha Beach in the background. . .

The first American cemetery on the beach with over 1,400 US soldiers buried here. They were soon either shipped home or moved to the permanent cemetery on the hill.

Adele leading the gang down Omaha Beach.

German pill box in 2014 . . .

same site on June 6, 1944 . .

. . . after the landing.

Here is the inside. An American shell came in through the opening between the metal plates, hit the wall, bounced back and took out the chuck of metal plating protecting the gun and took off the head of one of the three German soldiers in the pillbox. The other two surrendered!

The American cemetery . . .

The French gave 17 acres to the US in 1956 and the cemetery is now considered US soil. Here is the administrators home . . .

. . . with an open field in front of the house for the Presidents helicopter to land when he visits!

The cemetery and the sea . . .

. . . nuns at Normandy!

emJay recalling her father’s adventures on this beach in France . . . 70 years ago.

Looking down the beach.

The backside of the memorial . . .

with a garden honoring those who’s bodies were never found.

We have upgraded from our mini bus to a motor coach . . .private jet tomorrow????

Here is the German cemetery in France. A much different feel than the American cemetery. German soldiers who have died in recent conflicts can still be buried here.

Eventually we cycled on to the last stop and joined our motor coach for a 1 hour ride to our home for the next two nights, La Ferme des Mares, a rural inn with a fine dining restaurant, owned by Sonya and Mike. A wonderful happy hour on the veranda followed by an elegant 3 curse meal with a surprise at the end topped off the evening.