Brief Bayeux visit - itinerary/tour guide help

So, it sounds like you will need to take the train back to Paris in the mid afternoon on your second day. There is enough to do in Bayeux for 3/4 of a day. The WWII museum is nice. The cathedral is beautiful. There are plenty of restaurants, cafes and shops. Unfortunately, I believe the Tapestry is being refurbished and only a small sample is viewable.

If you would like to see more WWII sites I would recommend renting a car the evening before if possible or as early as possible on the day so you have plenty of time to get back, turn in the car and catch your train. I would suggest leaving the itinerary open so that you could return to some sites that you saw on the tour, or , based on your interests, your guide would be able to give you some fantastic suggestions.

My son and I took a private tour with Overlord, the one with the afternoon riding in a Willy's jeep. The morning was the typical sites tour and in the afternoon we visited the Band of Brother's sites. It was pricey, but woth every penny. Our guide's name was Thierry. We had a car (sat unused the day of the tour) so we were able to spend another half day visiting more sites, most of which were recommended by Thierry.

Have a great trip!

When is your trip? Overlord and other "good" guides do book full.

The Normandy Museum in Bayeux is good. Watch the opening times - it closes for a mid-day break. Quite walkable from many locations/hotels in Bayeux. https://www.bayeuxmuseum.com/en/memorial-museum-battle-of-normandy/

Bayeux Tapestry Museum is closing as of September this year for renovation.

Bayeux itself is a fun town to wander. If you stop at Tourist info, you can pick up a map of some local walking paths as well. Cathedral makes a nice stop also.

Unless you go out of Bayeux for your partial day, I can't think that there is any need for a guide.

Edit - Cross-post. We agree on some interesting sites!

It's part of the D-Day sites: the museum in Arromanches about the landings, the engineering of the invasion and a bit on the invasion itself: https://musee-arromanches.fr/en/. If it interests you, you could probably get a taxi/Uber from Bayeux on the second day. When I stayed in Bayeux in 2012, I rented a car from an agency across from my hotel to see the D-Day sites, but wish I had taken a guided tour.

The best individual site on the D-Day beaches is Pointe du Hoc, where Americans shot spikes into sheer cliffs and scaled them under brutal German fire: https://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries-memorials/about-pointe-du-hoc-ranger-monument/. I saw bomb craters, a German bunker and other sites. I hope your tour goes there.

In Bayeux, the cathedral is pretty amazing -- big enough that it would fit in Paris.

As someone else mentioned, the Bayeux Tapestry museum will close soon. It's going to be shown in England. Here's a BBC story about it: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c14ev1z6d5go

Thanks, this is all very helpful. Our full day private tour likely includes all of the below sites. Understanding that one can spend many days touring the area, is there any site not on the list that is sufficiently a "must-see" that we should rent a car to see it on our second (half+) day? If not, we will walk the back streets of the town (something we always enjoy) stopping at the Museum and the Cathedral.
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Full Day sites -- Longues-sur-Mer Battery – Omaha Beach – American Cemetery of Colleville – Pointe du Hoc. - Sainte-Mère-Eglise – La Fière – DeGlopper Action – Utah Beach – Sainte Marie du Mont – Holdy Battery and First Aid Station – La Colombière Hospital – Hiesville General Taylor Headquarter – General Pratt Memorial – Angoville au Plain.

These are all wonderful places if your concentration is the U.S. forces participation on D-day. But cramming all of these places into one day, with all the driving between sites, will do each one a short shrift. I would get a car for no other reason than to be able to get back to one of these places in which you were interested, but at which you felt rushed. Other places of interest which I do not see you your list include:

• Arromanches and the ruins of the Mulberry Harbors you can see on the beach and off-shore. This is an amazing site.
• A cemetery other than the American Normandy Cemetery. A couple of my favorites are the Bény-sur-Mer Canadian War Cemetery (very small and beautiful), and the German Cemetery in Orglandes (very few visitors, and much more contemplative than the more visited one at La Cambe. It is the second smallest German cemetery in Normandy and still has more dead than the American Normandy Cemetery).
• Any museums? While they do take up a lot of time, many are very informative. I particularly like the U.S. Airborne Museum in Sainte-Mère-Église, and the Utah Beach Museum (I can't tell from your list if you will stop on any museums at these or other places). The museum in Bayeux is a good, comprehensive museum of the battle of Normandy.
• A hike or drive North of Utah Beach will bring you by a lot of German fortifications along the coast that are good to wander around. Again, your list simply shows "Utah Beach," but not what you will see there. Likely with this large a list in one day you will be rushed through.
• While your list shows the La Fiére Causeway, the little Cauquigny Chapel at the far end of the causeway is particularly beautiful and moving.
• Moving further East, the Pegasus Bridge Site and Museum showcases this amazing feat by British Glider-borne troopers in the very first few minutes of D-day eve. to capture this key bridge.

daf999999,
Just to clarify, do you already have a tour reserved that includes all of the sights you list? It seems like an awful lot for just a one day tour. I am wondering if your tour is just a drive-by of some of them. Or perhaps this is a list of what you hope to see on your tour. If so, I am curious as to which tour company or individual offers to cover so much in one day. Sights are not right next to each other and I can't conceive of visiting every oneof them in one day.

The tour stops that the OP has posted is Overlord's TOUR #2 Omaha Beach / Utah Beach – Full Day Tour.

I took this tour last fall, small group of 6. It was excellent. I did not find it rushed. Given all the positive reviews and recommendations for Overlord, I think many people would agree.

Obviously, if one rents a car, tours of the entire area can be personalized, but that isn't what all travelers want or are able to do.

ORDtraveler, Thanks for the clarification!

ORDtraveler is correct - that is Overlord #2, a group tour, that they are proposing to us as our private tour. As its private we likely can alter it however we want (deleting certain sites, increasing time at others). We are considering moving one or more of those sites to our second day and doing those on our own, without a guide. As we're early in our studies, its a bit of a challenge.

Since you have the ability to change/edit this schedule, I respectfully suggest eliminating a few of them and spending more time at others. While the stories behind these markers are all very significant, some of the sites themselves are mostly just a marker on the side of the road or a home you cannot enter. The ones I suggest studying at home and possibly eliminating are:

DeGlopper Action – Holdy Battery and First Aid Station – La Colombière
Hospital – Hiesville General Taylor Headquarter – General Pratt
Memorial

Instead, I would spend some more time at places like Angoville-au-Plain (do go inside the church and see the stained glass in tribute to these heroic medics and the still blood-stained pews), Utah Beach (do walk the dunes to the North), La Fière Causeway (do go down the causeway and imagine it without trees on either side for protection with flooded river plains on either side, and do visit the Cauquigny Chapel and little graveyard on the other side) and the American Normandy Cemetery (do spend time on the grounds, but also walk down the little bluff to the East where there are more monuments, and remains of some "zig-zag" trenches the Germans used overlooking the beach. Of course, since you can change this schedule, mention these things to your guide ahead of time and see what they suggest.

Thanks to all, including PharmerPhil, for these excellent suggestions. Still trying to figure out day 2 and will report back as we figure it out.

We used HQCompany tours twice 9/23 and again with family 4/25 and we all.felt it was.fantastic. whole day tours from.9 to.drop.off.at.6. We splurged for.private tours.and it was.well.worth it.and was everything we wanted and they had customized it for us. Enjoy.

Fellow Chicagoan (Northbrook)!

You will love that part of the word. It's been a while, but we used Danielle for a ten hour tour of the WWII sites. She has a cool personal history tied to the area and she told us she drove Spielberg when he was scouting for Saving Private Ryan sites.

We are history buffs and it was a WOW day. If she is still doing these tours, highly recommend. We saw so much, including some off the road sites like a small village church used as a field hospital that still had blood stains in the benches.
Danielle DUBOSCQ
https://american-dday-tours.com/baby/

Our home base in Bayeaux (we just walked from the train):
https://www.hoteltardif.com/

Happy travels!