D-DAY Normandy visit with 13 year old

Hi Carole. I can’t advise you on the fastest way to travel from the uk to Normandy, but I would imagine there are many people on this forum who can. I can tell you, however, as we have travelled to Normandy on two occasions and taken tours of some of the key sites including the beaches, that the best place to stay is Bayeux as it is perfectly located as a base from which to visit the area. We were there for a longer period of time, however, so if you could arrange more time there, at least 2 or 3 days, it would be much better. On both occasions that we visited, we toured with Dale Booth Normandy Tours, one of the very best in the area in our view. Unfortunately, Dale seems to be fully booked for June, with only two days availability in July. You can check his site online for availability in other months. You might want to contact him with your dates just on the off chance he can accommodate. He is very much in demand. Failing that, there are many other groups offering battlefield tours in Normandy, which you can google. The reviews will give you a good idea of their service. There is so much to see that a one day tour will only scratch the surface. Our tours started at 8am, ending around 5pm, so I think you would need at least a 2 night stay to allow for a full day tour. We visited in July 2020, with our grandsons, both of whom, like your son, share a keen interest in WW2 history. It was the trip of a lifetime for all of us. Hope you can manage it. Best of luck!

We visited the Normandy beaches with our fourteen your old son . I can't address the travel from UK to Normandy but I am sure there are lots of ways to get there.

We made our base in Bayeux. We had a rental car. We did not do a guided tour but with limited time that might be the way to go.

Great experience for all of us, hope you get to do it.

Since short on time you can fly to Caen from London Southend airport. Stay in Caen buy a tour of the beaches from there. You need two days for it to work.

We also stayed in Caen and it worked well.

https://normandy.memorial-caen.com

We also visited Bayeux which was spared most D-day destruction and is a wonderful town. The Bayeux Tapestry is the original political spin document explaining how William was really the rightful English Heir not Harold....

You can use the search box to find many more discussions of your question than this example:

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/france/traveling-paris-to-normandy

You need to understand that London is not "near" Normandy. Ferries for the route are old fashioned travel means, slow, and seasick making! But the train is also slow and indirect. Do you have ANY other stop on the Continent in mind?

I have not been to the D-Day beaches yet but it is a goal. I have seen many people on this board note that you really need to do it with a guide or else a lot of it you don’t know what exactly you are looking at and you don’t really get the feel for what was happening.

1) Travel from the UK: we took the Eurostar from London to Paris (maybe 8am?), taxied to another train station (ate lunch there), train to Bayeux. I think it took most of the day but I've heard the ferries are sometimes cancelled for weather-related reasons so we went with the train. I suspect Normandy doesn't really pair well with the UK because of the travel involved but we did it anyway.
2) Bayeux worked great for us.
3) We thought Dale Booth was terrific, +1 to everything Jane said above. We took his two-day tour of American beaches.

My family was dreadfully torn trying to fit in everything we wanted to see. Wound up spending five nights in Bayeux and pushing Paris off to another trip. We scheduled the whole trip around Dale Booth's availability, no regrets.

A one-night visit to north coast Normandy from London means two twelve-hour travel days surrounding the visit time. Is your son interested in any of the vast number of wartime sites in ... England? How about Bletchley Park and Downton Abbey and Call the Midwife and Churchill Rooms and so on? I'm not interested enough to have the full list, but the list is VERY LONG.

It can reasonably be expected to be a more annoying voyage after BREXIT, as well. You already have to arrive one hour before the departure time of your Eurostar train, in EACH direction, for UK immigration formalities. You will not get on your (non-changeable, no-refundable) train if you arrive later than that.

I once had a ferry cancelled due to one strike or another in France (surprise!). The ferry company put us on another ferry from Portsmouth rather than Poole. So we got there okay. But strikes or weather can spoil the best seaborne plans. Bayeux is certainly central, and a great town to base out of. I've gone to Normandy eight times, and never taken a tour. But I am a bit of an amateur historian. If you don't know the history, or don't want to take the time to learn it ahead of time (highly recommended regardless). a tour may give more context for your 13-year-old.

I can't speak to travel from the UK, as we have taken the train from Paris to Caen for both of our trips to Normandy, and we pick up a rental car in Caen. We stay in Bayeaux at Hotel Particulier Poppa https://www.hotel-poppa.com/en/home/ I would highly recommend a tour for your first trip, especially if you have limited time. We have used Sylvain Kast who tailored the tour to our interests. https://www.d-day-experience-tours.com/tours/ He is an excellent guide who would relate well to a teen.

Where are you staying in the UK? Overnight ferry from Portsmouth to Caen is an option or the 3 hour catamaran service to Cherbourg. I've done both with no problems other than a choppy winter crossing that did cause sea sickness but in June this shouldn't be an issue. There is a very good D-Day museum in Portsmouth (along with the excellent Historic Dockyard) that may satisfy your son's interest. Additionally there is the nearby Southwick House where Churchill and Eisenhower based themselves to co-ordinate the invasion, there are tours available by appointment as it now forms part of the military and policing training school. You can also have lunch and a pint in the pub where they retired in the evenings. Close to Southwick is the Royal Armouries Museum at Fort Nelson, a free to enter museum in a fort built to repel invading French forces and chock full of military hardware that will enthrall a 13 year old boy. Personally I think Portsmouth is more suitable for your son than the French beaches and it's a lot less of a logistical nightmare than heading to Normandy for the day.

https://theddaystory.com/
https://www.historicdockyard.co.uk/
https://liberationroute.com/great-britain/pois/s/southwick-house
https://royalarmouries.org/venue/fort-nelson/

You may also be interested in the Southwick D-Day revival event, held every year on the weekend closest to the 6th June where the village of Southwick is transported back to the 40's with military vehicle parades, lots of costumes, swing bands and a whole lot more, it really is a fantastic atmosphere. The dates for this year have yet to be released (last years advertisement displays are still up!) so if your stay in the UK conincides then it may be of interest to you, sign up to their newsletter to be informed of this years event https://www.southwickrevival.co.uk/

Here's a video of last years revival, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQj5PGW3vX4

If you are going in June reserve a tour now! They will most likely be booked at this point so fingers crossed!

As others have said, Bayeux is a great central point for a D-Day visit. I've stayed in the Hotel Churchill which worked out well for us.

The biggest challenge will be the train schedules unless you rent a car. If you can afford the time, a two day tour is well worth it. Enjoy!

Ferries for the route are old fashioned travel means, slow, and seasick making!

The Normandie express can hardly be desribed as slow and old fashioned. Portsmouth to Cherbourg in three hours!
https://www.brittany-ferries.co.uk/ships/high-speed-ferry/normandie-express

Yeah, but we're talking about LONDON to Bayeux. Even the Eurostar train to the wrong station (!) in Paris is faster than the barf-o-ferry!

Yeah, but we're talking about LONDON to Bayeux. Even the Eurostar train to the wrong station (!) in Paris is faster than the barf-o-ferry!

I know we're talking about LONDON.

Train from London to Bayeaux on average 6 hours 45 minutes.

Train from London to Portsmouth, 1 hour then 3 hours on the ferry and a 1 hour 10 min train to Bayeaux. I make that faster than the Eurostar route.

I've never been sick on the Normandie Express or any of the many other cross channel ferries I've sailed on with the exception of one journey during a winter storm. That's not going to happen in June.

We went to Normandy with our 16 year old, who is a huge WWII buff. We spent 3 nights in Bayeux and toured the are over two days by rental car. To try to see the beaches in a half day is doable with a tour, but will be very rushed. Overlord Tours has half day tours from Bayeux, starting around 1 pm. Take a look at the itinerary online. Most stops are less than an hour per site, including museums.

If this is all the time you have, I would make sure your son realizes the visit will be short and rushed. If you could manage to be there two nights (giving you 1.5 days to tour) you could see much more. I would do a full day guided tour.